BEXHILL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, Assembly (6 page)

Miss Holloway
was in such a state of arousal that she was afraid her knees might
be visibly trembling.

“I think you
had no other choice, Headmaster.” Her voice sounded strangely
hoarse. Mr Masterson put it down to the emotional experience
she’d just been through. He returned the cane to its cupboard,
picked up Stinger and replaced it in the drawer.

“Well, thank
you Miss Holloway. Make yourself a cup of tea, and you might bring
me one, too. I think we deserve it!”

She went back
to her office, put the kettle on, and then groped in her bag for
her spare pair of panties. She hurried to the staff toilet, her
mind in still in turmoil at the events she’d witnessed in the last
few minutes.

***

Later that
evening, after supper, Mrs Winchester sent for Margaret. The girl’s
stomach knotted: was her mother going to beat her as well? She
entered the study nervously.

“Now, Margaret
dear, Mr Masterson tells me that he had to cane you this afternoon.
You were caught smoking by Miss Fraser?”

“Yes, Mum. I’m
sorry.”

“How long have
you been smoking?”

“It was the
first time, honestly. I just wanted to try a cigarette, but I
didn’t like it.”

“It was a very
stupid thing to do and I’m glad you were caught. There are some
things that your father and I don’t want you even to try: smoking
is one of them. If you’re caught again, we’ll be extremely angry
with you.”

“I won’t smoke
ever again. It tasted horrible and it made me cough. I think that’s
why Miss Fraser found us.”

“Well, you
deserved your punishment. I hope it taught you a lesson.”

“It certainly
did: I don’t think I’ll able to sit down for days. I’m really
sorry, Mum.”

“Just don’t let
it happen again. All right, off you go to bed. No doubt your
dormitory mates will want to see the state of your bottom!”

As she opened
the door, her mother called after her.

“The Headmaster
said you took your punishment bravely. He caned you harder than the
others so that there could be no question of you getting off
lightly because you’re my daughter. I’m glad you didn’t make a lot
of fuss, like Alice did. Well done.”

Margaret smiled
back at her mother. “Thanks, Mum. Goodnight.”

***

At the weekend
Miss Holloway was still savouring the stimulation from having
participated in the punishment of the three smokers on Wednesday
afternoon. On Saturday evening, she and Dick were going to cinema,
the early performance, and then Miss Holloway had invited him back
to her flat for supper. She went to great trouble: she tidied the
flat, carefully chose some romantic big-band records, decorated the
kitchen table with a vase of flowers (she didn’t have a dining
room), and prepared the ‘party food’ she was best at: prawn
cocktail, beef stroganoff, and ice-cream with a rich fudge sauce.
She asked the local off-licence for advice about drinks and came
away with a bottle of dry sherry and a Bordeaux red wine for which
she paid more than she could really afford. She spent the rest of
the afternoon washing her hair.

She dressed in
a blue polka-dot skirt with a white blouse, and when she met Dick
outside the cinema, he thought she looked stunning. He took her arm
and paid for the most expensive seats. Miss Holloway declined his
offer of popcorn. The film was a romance:
‘An Affair to
Remember’
, with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant. Dick put his arm
round Miss Holloway and pulled her head on to his shoulder.
The people sitting behind them ostentatiously moved to seats with a
better view of the screen.

It was a fine
evening, so afterwards they walked back to her flat hand-in-hand,
humming the film’s theme song: ‘Our love affair’. The date was off
to a romantic start.

When they
reached Miss Holloway’s flat there were a few moments when they
flapped about and told each other how cold it been outside.
Basically, both of them wanted to embrace the other, but shyness
prevailed and after a while the moment passed. Miss Holloway put
one of her big-band discs of the gramophone, while Dick wandered
around the sitting room making admiring comments on the decor, the
pictures on the wall, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece. He
picked up a ship in a bottle.

“This is
clever. Where does it come from?” He was hoping for a reply along
the lines of ‘It was made by my great-grandfather, the one who
skippered schooners, whilst he was ship-wrecked on a Polynesian
island’. What Miss Holloway actually said was:

“I got it for
five shillings in a jumble sale.”

“Oh. And these
African prints. Have you lived in Africa?”

“No. My
neighbour threw them out in the rubbish. I rescued them.”

“Ah...” And so
on. The conversation was a little stilted.

“Would you like
a glass of sherry?” Miss Holloway asked, suddenly afraid that he
might want a beer. “I’m afraid I haven’t got any beer”, she added
unnecessarily.

“Sherry would
be lovely, thanks.”

She didn’t have
any sherry flutes, so she poured a stiff measure into two wine
glasses.

“Well, cheers
then.” She gave a glass to Dick and tapped it with her own.

The sherry, a
beverage to which they were both unused, soon started to break the
ice. Miss Holloway put the stroganoff into the oven to heat
up, went back into the sitting room and sat on the sofa. She hoped
Dick would sit next to her, but he chose the armchair.

“Seen anything
of Annie recently?” Dick asked. Miss Holloway glanced at him
anxiously to see whether he was registering any untoward interest
in her friend.

“Not for a
couple of weeks. Since just before my car broke down, actually. It
was so sweet of you to fix it.”

“Oh, my
pleasure. At least I got something out of my National Service. Has
it been running OK since then?”

“It gets me to
school and back, which is about all it has to do. Sometimes I take
it up to Surrey to see my parents, but I don’t want to stress it
too much. Tell me about the army - what was it like?”

“Boring, most
of the time, but at least I learned a bit about mechanics and got
to see some of Germany. We spent a few months near Hannover but I
was glad when my time was up.”

“I wish I’d had
the chance to go abroad. I hardly seem to left the education system
at all - straight from school to a secretarial course and then from
there to Bexhill. What was Germany like and why didn’t you go into
engineering afterwards?” Miss Holloway wasn’t really sure what Dick
did for a living and hoped this would give him an opening.

“Germany was
OK. They were starting to work their way out of the all the
destruction at the end of the war. But I didn’t want to go on
fiddling about with engines and things. I didn’t like getting my
hands all greasy! Anyway, a cousin of mine was just starting an
import business and asked me to look around for suitable stuff in
Germany - you know, everything from power tools to beer. I rather
enjoyed that, so when I finished in the army, I joined him and
we’ve managed to build the business up quite well. Nothing
dramatic, but it’s interesting and provides a reasonable
income.”

Just then the
oven bell rang.

“Supper’s ready
- I’ll dish up if you would pour the wine. The bottle’s on the
sideboard there.”

“Wine - how
posh! You’ve really been extravagant. What are we eating?”

She took the
prawn cocktails out of the ‘fridge and put them on the table.

“Oh Marlene!
How did you know? My favourite starter!”

They sat down
and once again clinked glasses.

By the time
Miss Holloway served up the stroganoff and some steaming
vegetables, they were on to their second glass of wine and the
conversation was flowing freely.

“So what’s it
like at the school? Do you like working there?”

“Yes, very
much. They’re nice people and there’s lots of variety. Have you
ever seen the place?”

“I’ve driven
past a couple of times - seen the girls running around on the
playing fields. Did you go there yourself?”

“Oh no - my
parents couldn’t have afforded it. I went to the local grammar.
Were you at boarding school?”

“No - it was a
day school, but a private one. I wasn’t sorry to leave. I hated
getting caned.”

Miss Holloway
choked on her mouthful of stew.

“Are you all
right?”

“Yes, of
course. I’m sorry.” She took a gulp of wine.

“I don’t
suppose they smack your girls, but they were real sadists with us.
I couldn’t wait to get out of the place.”

“Well, actually
they do use corporal punishment at Bexhill - quite often.”

“Do they
really? Goodness, I thought girls were spared all that.”

Miss Holloway
hadn’t expected this turn in the conversation, but now she was keen
to keep it going.

“No - they’re
quite Victorian at Bexhill. If the girls step out of line, they get
thrashed. Most of them seem to accept the idea and some even prefer
it to detention or whatever.”

“Surely they
don’t use the cane, do they?”

“Oh yes. The
headmaster and the deputy head have canes. Of course, they use
other things too, like a hairbrush or a strap, depending on how
severe the offence is, and I heard they’re going to allow ordinary
teachers to use a paddle in the classroom if they need to. Matron
sometimes spanks them as well, so all in all I suppose most of the
girls end up getting smacked at one time or another during their
time at Bexhill.

“I’m really
amazed! At my school we’d have done anything to get out of a hiding
- detention would have been much better.”

“Well, at
Bexhill even the Head Girl has a cane, although she’s only allowed
to give six strokes. It’s a sort of ‘badge of office’.”

“That’s
extraordinary. My school would never have allowed the pupils to
beat each other.”

“With us, even
the dormitory captains can use a slipper. Actually, that’s not
really formally approved, but the headmaster turns a blind eye to
it because it keeps the juniors in line without him having to get
involved.”

“But surely it
must lead to bullying and all sorts of abuse?”

“It doesn’t
seem to. I suppose they choose the Head Girl and the dormitory
captains quite carefully and anyway the staff are usually aware of
what’s going on. It’s been a tradition for ages.”

“Probably comes
from those posh boys’ public schools, like Eton. But I’m glad we
didn’t have the system at my place.”

Miss Holloway
divided the remainder of the stroganoff between their two plates
and refilled their glasses. Whether it was the way the conversation
had developed, or the wine, or simply the buzz she had felt since
Wednesday’s events, whatever it was, she was starting to feel very
aroused.

“So what sort
of things were you caned for?” she asked, raising an eyebrow
coquettishly.

“Oh, the usual
stuff: poor performance in class, ragging about, being cheeky. The
ordinary teachers could give us the strap, and they often did so.
But they didn’t need much of an excuse to put us on report to see
the headmaster and then we were doomed. I’m sure that old creep
enjoyed whacking us.”

“What happened
when you had to see the headmaster?”

“Well, if you
really want to know, I’ll tell you, although even now it makes me
quake to think about it.” He mopped up the last of the food on his
plate with the remains of a bread roll and pushed his chair
back.

“We used to
have a daily Assembly after lunch. The headmaster would always
preside over it. At the start, he’d read out a list of any boys who
were on report. That meant you had to line up outside his study
after Assembly. If your name was on that list you couldn’t
concentrate on anything afterwards - you were terrified, because
you knew what was coming.”

“Gosh, you poor
things.”

“Yes, but the
worst bit was waiting outside the study and listening to maybe
three or four people in front of you being called in and getting
the cane. You could easily hear the whacks and the cries, and you
knew your turn was coming. Once, when I was the last of five or six
waiting to be called in, I had to rush to the toilet. Golly, even
now I can still feel that dread as we waited out there!”

“But go on -
what happened when you were finally called in?” She could feel the
damp beginning to form between her legs.

“He’d be
sitting behind his desk. You had to stand in front of him and he’d
read out the report or tell you why you were there. He’d go on for
a bit and then ask whether you had anything to say. Of course, you
knew you were done for already and it wasn’t worth arguing. He’d
get up and walk over to the rack on the wall where he kept his
canes. The junior ones - the thinner ones - were on the lowest
rungs, then the seniors, and right at the top he kept a Dragon. Do
you know what a Dragon is?”

“Yes - Mr
Masterson asked me to bring one in the other day. It looked really
vicious.”

“They are,
they’re denser than ordinary canes and they hurt like anything. You
always hoped he’d take down a junior or a senior instead. Then he’d
swipe it around a bit. It would make that awful swishing sound. I’m
sure he did it deliberately, to scare us even more. That’s why I
think he was a sadist, although I didn’t know what that was at the
time.”

Miss Holloway
cleared away the plates and got the ice-cream out of the
‘fridge.

“Go on. I’m
just going to warm up the sauce.”

“How delicious!
Where was I? Oh yes, ‘swish’, ‘swish’. Then he’d tell you to go
over to the sofa. There’d be a hand towel across one of the arms.
He’d tell you to take off your trousers and your underpants and
place them on the other arm of the sofa. Then you had to kneel on
the sofa, lie across the arm with the towel underneath you, and put
your hands on the floor. It was really undignified, with your
bottom stuck up in the air like that. Maybe the old goat was queer,
too. Anyway, he’d tell you how many you were going to get. It was
always at least six, but for really serious offences like smoking
or drinking alcohol, it would be twelve. And then he’d start
beating you - hard, but very slowly, one stroke every twenty or
thirty seconds. He’d walk around the room in between. It was
absolutely agonising, but you daren’t get up. If you did, he’d give
you extras. Gosh, even talking about it now makes me shudder!”