The Blanket Committee

The notification popped up at 2:47 AM: Emergency Subcommittee Meeting - 3:15 AM - Link Below. Nadia Williams squinted at her phone, wondering why anyone would schedule a meeting for the exact moment when clocks jumped ahead. Then she remembered: if they met during the missing hour, technically they weren't meeting at all. Clever loophole for avoiding official oversight.

She fumbled for her reading glasses, noting seventeen missed calls from Mrs. Thompson about "urgent procedural violations in charitable distribution protocols." Margaret Thompson ran the Asylum Seeker Support Committee with the iron efficiency of someone who'd clearly never met a regulation she couldn't cite chapter and verse.

By 3:10 AM, five faces flickered on Nadia's laptop screen in various states of caffeinated alertness. Mrs. Thompson appeared first, her background an immaculate home office that looked like it had been professionally organized by someone with mild OCD. The woman had materialized at St. Bartholomew's three years ago with a briefcase full of parliamentary procedure guides and had transformed their casual charitable efforts into something resembling a government department.

"Right then," Mrs. Thompson began, her voice carrying the crisp authority of someone who'd spent decades chairing committees, "thank you all for joining at this unconventional hour. I should clarify that due to the temporal anomaly created by daylight saving adjustments, this meeting exists in a regulatory gray area."

Nadia marveled at Mrs. Thompson's verbal precision—every syllable pronounced with BBC perfection, every procedural detail memorized like scripture. The woman was like a walking manual for British bureaucracy.

Next came Harold Pemberton from his kitchen, followed by Gerald Hitchcock, whose camera showed him surrounded by what appeared to be filing systems that would impress the civil service. Finally, the screen erupted in chaos as Colin Badsworth attempted to join.

His camera showed a kaleidoscope of ceiling, kitchen counter, and bewildered cat. Audio feedback screeched through everyone's speakers.

"Colin, you're on mute," Mrs. Thompson said with the patient tone of someone who'd explained technology to the elderly many times before. "And also broadcasting from what appears to be inside a tumble dryer."

"Can you hear me now?" Colin's voice emerged from somewhere off-screen. "I can't seem to locate the—oh, bloody hell!"

The camera stabilized to show Colin's face, inverted and tinted blue. He was wearing what appeared to be a colander on his head.

"Colin," Nadia ventured, "what's that on your head?"

"Signal booster. Read about it in one of those tech articles. Apparently metallic objects enhance Wi-Fi reception." The colander caught the light like a disco ball. "Though I'm beginning to suspect the source might have been having me on."

Mrs. Thompson consulted her notes with the methodical precision of someone who'd never met an agenda item she couldn't organize into subsections. "Item one: irregularities in blanket procurement procedures. Harold, your report?"

Harold shuffled papers with unnecessary drama. "Yes, well, we have a situation. The blankets we ordered—fifty units, blue, wool blend—have arrived as specified. However, Mrs. Henderson from the main PCC has raised concerns about the appropriateness of our supplier choice."

Mrs. Thompson's eyebrow raised precisely one degree. "What specific concerns has Mrs. Henderson articulated?"

"She feels our current supplier may not meet the standards expected for parish charitable activities. Something about provenance and, er, supporting local British businesses."

Nadia felt her jaw tighten. Here it came—the inevitable suggestion that asylum seekers didn't deserve the same quality considerations as 'proper' recipients.

"Additionally," Harold continued, looking uncomfortable, "Mrs. Henderson has suggested that blue might be culturally inappropriate. She's read something about the symbolic significance of colors in, er, certain cultural contexts."

The silence that followed felt dangerous. Mrs. Thompson's face remained perfectly composed, but something flickered behind her eyes.

"I see," Mrs. Thompson said with terrifying calm. "And has Mrs. Henderson consulted with any actual asylum seekers about their color preferences? Or is this analysis based purely on her own research?"

"Well, she mentioned an article—"

"An article." Mrs. Thompson's repetition carried the weight of judicial condemnation. "Harold, might I suggest that Mrs. Henderson's concerns reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of our mandate? We are not in the business of making aesthetic decisions for people perfectly capable of expressing their own preferences."

Nadia blinked. She'd expected Mrs. Thompson to side with Mrs. Henderson—two pillars of parish establishment closing ranks against anything that might disturb the status quo.

Gerald cleared his throat. "If I may, I've actually researched this topic. Blue is considered protective in many Middle Eastern cultures. Far from inappropriate, it would likely be welcomed."

"Precisely," Mrs. Thompson said with approval that surprised everyone. "Gerald, thank you for conducting actual research rather than relying on secondhand speculation."

Colin's camera had begun sliding sideways, providing a Dutch angle view of his confusion. "Forgive me, but aren't we rather overthinking this? They're blankets. For people who need warmth. Surely Mrs. Henderson's aesthetic theories are secondary to basic human comfort?"

"Exactly," Mrs. Thompson said crisply. "Colin, you've identified the core issue. We are not running an interior design consultation. We are providing emergency supplies to people in crisis."

Nadia found herself staring at Mrs. Thompson with growing confusion. This was not the reaction she'd expected from the woman who'd spent three years enforcing every conceivable regulation with military precision.

"The motion before us," Mrs. Thompson continued, "is whether to maintain our current supplier arrangement or capitulate to Mrs. Henderson's uninformed preferences. All in favor of maintaining current arrangements?"

Four hands rose immediately. Harold's remained conspicuously lowered.

"Motion carried," Mrs. Thompson announced. "Harold, please inform Mrs. Henderson that this committee conducted a thorough review of cultural considerations and determined our current arrangements best serve our mandate."

Nadia watched Mrs. Thompson navigate through the remaining agenda items with ruthless efficiency, swatting down every suggestion that might compromise their service delivery. Where she'd expected bureaucratic timidity, she found fierce protection of their mission.

"Item seven: volunteer orientation protocols," Mrs. Thompson read. "Gerald, you've prepared recommendations?"

"Basic cultural awareness training. Nothing elaborate—appropriate greetings, dietary considerations, religious observances that might affect scheduling."

"Excellent. Nadia, you'll coordinate implementation with Gerald. Your background makes you ideally suited for this task."

Nadia felt a chill. "My background?"

"Your evident competence in cross-cultural communication," Mrs. Thompson said smoothly. "As demonstrated by your excellent management of intake procedures."

It was a careful non-answer that somehow felt loaded with meaning. Nadia caught something in Mrs. Thompson's tone—a recognition that felt uncomfortably specific.

"Right then," Mrs. Thompson concluded after working through the final agenda items. "Unless there are other urgent matters? No? Excellent. Harold, Gerald, Colin—thank you for your participation. Nadia, please remain. We have a personnel matter to discuss."

The others signed off with various expressions of technological relief. Colin's colander caught the light one final time before his screen went dark.

Then there were two.

Nadia felt her stomach drop. Personnel matter. She'd been too vocal, too challenging to Mrs. Henderson's authority. Three years of careful integration, and she'd blown it by defending asylum seekers too forcefully.

"Mrs. Thompson, I want to explain about my comments regarding Mrs. Henderson—"

"Sabır, kızım."

The words hit Nadia like a physical blow. Turkish. Perfect, unaccented Turkish, spoken with the casual authority of a native speaker.

"Huh?"

Mrs. Thompson chuckled, a sound completely unlike her usual committee-voice. "Allah allah, listen to me. Forty-three years in this country and I'm starting to sound like my mother." She shook her head with bemused affection. "They don't teach the old sayings to your generation, do they?"

Nadia stared at the screen, her world tilting on its axis. "You're—"

"Turkish, yes. Though I suppose what gave you away wasn't your perfect English or your excellent organizational skills." Mrs. Thompson's smile was warm now, completely transformed from her committee persona. "It was when Harold mentioned the asylum seekers. You did that thing with your jaw—tightened it just slightly, swallowed the words you couldn't say. British women purse their lips when they disapprove. We clench our teeth when we're biting back home truths."

Nadia's hand moved unconsciously to her jaw. "How did you know I was like you?"

"Anlıyorsun, tatlım." Mrs. Thompson's voice carried decades of gentle authority. "You understand perfectly."

"Evet," Nadia whispered, the word emerging without conscious thought. "Anlıyorum."

"There we are." Mrs. Thompson leaned back in her chair, and suddenly she looked less like a British committee chair and more like someone's grandmother sharing wisdom over tea. "Forty-three years I've been Margaret Thompson. Started life as Emine Özdemir—Emine from the iron hills. Now I'm Margaret bloody Thompson, running parish committees and enforcing regulations like I was born to it."

She laughed, and the sound held layers of history. "Do you know how many Margarets there are in the parish records? Perfect camouflage. Nobody questions a Margaret who knows parliamentary procedure and keeps immaculate filing systems."

Mrs. Thompson leaned forward with sudden curiosity. "What were you before you became Mrs. Williams?"

"Golshan," Nadia whispered. "Nadia Golshan."

"Ah. The flower garden." Mrs. Thompson's voice carried gentle recognition. "From the garden of roses to... what does Williams even mean? Son of William. You went from being a place of beauty to being defined by someone else's father."

The weight of that transformation settled between them—two women who'd traded names that described their essence for names that rendered them invisible.

"I got here in 1980," Mrs. Thompson continued, her voice taking on the rhythm of someone sharing a long-held story. "Married my Brian two years later, lovely man who never once made me feel like I needed to apologize for my accent. But I took his name, his wonderfully boring British name, and I learned to speak like I'd been educated at Oxford instead of studying English from BBC radio broadcasts."

She gestured around her immaculate office. "Built all this—the committees, the procedures, the reputation for being more British than the British themselves. Because that's the game, isn't it? They can't argue with someone who knows their own rules better than they do."

"You've been protecting us," Nadia said slowly.

"Us, them, anyone who needs it." Mrs. Thompson's expression grew serious. "But mostly I learned something important about women, dear. We spend so much time being convinced to compete with each other—young versus old, native versus foreign, established versus newcomer—while the real power structure sits back and watches us tear each other apart."

She leaned forward, and her voice carried the weight of hard-won wisdom. "The moment we recognize each other instead of fighting each other, that's when we become dangerous. Mrs. Henderson can't touch what she can't see coming. And after forty-three years of being Margaret Thompson, committee chair extraordinaire, I'm effectively invisible to people like her."

Nadia felt tears she didn't expect. "How did you know about me?"

"Kızım, it takes one to know one. The way you speak—too perfect, too careful. The way you organize everything like your life depends on it, because it does. The way you defend people like us without ever saying 'us.'" Mrs. Thompson smiled. "Plus, there's something about recently married women from our part of the world. A certain... performance anxiety about getting it all exactly right in the new identity."

"How long?" Nadia asked quietly.

"Two years? Three? About right for when the novelty of the British surname wears off and you start wondering if you've erased too much of yourself." Mrs. Thompson's expression grew gentle. "Iranian, I'm guessing? Something in the way you hold yourself when you're thinking. We Turks are more... theatrical in our emotions."

"Tabii. Of course. Different countries, same survival skills. We learn to become more British than the British, more organized than the organizers, more committed to their rules than they are." Mrs. Thompson's expression grew gentle. "It's exhausting, isn't it? The constant performance?"

Nadia nodded, not trusting her voice.

"The beautiful thing about committees," Mrs. Thompson continued, "is that they give women like us legitimate power. I can protect asylum seekers, manage budgets, make decisions that actually matter—all while appearing to be nothing more threatening than a retired British housewife with strong opinions about proper procedure."

She gestured toward her filing cabinets with obvious pride. "Three years I've been running interference for people like you, using my reputation for pedantic detail to make sure nothing falls through bureaucratic cracks. Mrs. Henderson thinks I'm on her side because I enforce regulations. She doesn't realize I'm enforcing them to protect people from her prejudices."

"The blanket decision—"

"Was never in question. I've been managing Mrs. Henderson for three years, dear. The trick is to let her think she's being heard while ensuring she never actually gets what she wants." Mrs. Thompson's smile turned mischievous. "Amazing how many of her suggestions turn out to be procedurally impossible when you know the regulations better than she does."

Nadia laughed, a sound like something unlocking. "You've been running circles around her."

"Elbette. Of course. That's what we do—we survive, we adapt, we protect each other when we can." Mrs. Thompson's expression grew thoughtful. "The next generation always thinks they're the first to face these challenges. But women like us? We've been figuring out how to navigate hostile territory for centuries. The secret is recognizing when you've found an ally instead of assuming everyone's an enemy."

"I thought you were—"

"The worst kind of British establishment figure? I should hope so. That was rather the point." Mrs. Thompson chuckled. "Kızım, after forty-three years of practice, I'd better be convincing."

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, two women separated by decades and continents but connected by the exhausting work of belonging.

"Same time next season then?" Mrs. Thompson asked finally.

"Wouldn't miss it," Nadia replied. "Though next time, I'll know I have backup."

"You always had backup, dear. You just couldn't see it." Mrs. Thompson reached toward her screen. "Sleep well, kızım. And remember—they only have power over us when we're too busy fighting each other to recognize the real enemy."

The screen went dark, leaving Nadia sitting in her kitchen at 4:17 AM, her understanding of the past three years completely transformed. Outside, British summer time had officially begun, but she suspected the most important conversation had happened in that stolen hour between official time and real time—the space where women who'd learned to survive in plain sight could finally recognize each other.

In her immaculate home office, Margaret Thompson—who had once been Emine Özdemir from the iron hills—filed away her meeting notes in a system forty-three years in the making. Tomorrow she would return to being the most British committee chair in parish history, protecting people who would never know they needed protecting from people who would never know they were being managed.

Some revolutions, after all, happened one perfectly organized meeting at a time.