The Bottom Line (11 page)

The next morning Mrs Manning asked me whether it was true that I'd been out after the curfew and I admitted that it was, but only by a few minutes and then only because we'd missed the path coming back through the grounds. It had been a cloudy night so there was no moonlight and nobody thought to take a torch. She warned me that she'd have to report the incident, since breaches of curfew were viewed very seriously, and I could expect to hear from her again, but for all that I didn't anticipate any serious consequences, so I was quite surprised when she summoned me on the Thursday morning. By then she'd found out about the kitchen window as well, and the expression on her face warned me that I was in trouble.

As soon as she dismissed me I went to look for Birgit, my closest friend and the person who seemed to know everything. When I told her that I was to be put up, her mouth dropped.

‘You're joking!' she exclaimed. ‘Put up? Just for being a couple of minutes late when we lost the path?'

‘Well, no actually,' I replied. ‘It wasn't only for the lateness. Mrs Manning said she might have overlooked that, since it was the first time. It was really for coming back through a window after curfew. She said it was a serious security risk and the boss had decided to make an example of me to show that even new girls had to learn that breaking the rules was serious.'

‘Oh hell,' she said, ‘I'm really sorry. Mind you, you may still get off fairly lightly. You won't know until Saturday just what you're going to get.'

‘So what happens?' I asked her. ‘I mean, I know I'm to be punished but that's about all I know. I heard some of the girls talking one night about being put up, but I didn't understand them. What does it really mean?'

In hindsight I think I'd rather not have known, because having to wait over forty-eight hours until the punishment was carried out was nearly as bad as the punishment itself, and what Birgit had to tell me certainly didn't offer much relief.

‘It can mean all sorts of things,' she said, ‘but it's always physical punishment.'

‘I'd assumed that,' I said, ‘but how serious is it? Are you talking a token slap or are you talking something more serious?'

‘It'll be a lot more serious than a token slap,' she told me, ‘but only the boss will decide what it's actually going to be.' There was a pause as she gathered her thoughts. ‘It'll probably be two forms of punishment - it usually is. It was when I was put up, but it wasn't all that bad, really.'

By now I was getting quite panicky. ‘What do you mean, two forms?' I asked.

‘It means you'll be punished twice, punished with two different weapons.'

‘Weapons?' I gasped. ‘You make it sound like a medieval torture chamber instead of a posh hotel in the twenty first century. For heaven's sake, what are they going to do to me?'

‘I got about a dozen strokes with something like a slipper,' Birgit continued, ‘and then six with what they call a paddle. That's a stiff, flat piece of leather with a broad blade and it really hurts.'

I hardly dared ask the next question. ‘Where?' I managed, not knowing how best to put it.

‘In the staff dining room, straight after dinner,' she told me.

But that wasn't what I meant. ‘No,' I said, and explained what I did mean.

‘Oh, I see,' she said. ‘On your bottom, of course. Where else would they punish you?'

‘But that's barbaric,' I blurted, ‘it's like going back to public school floggings. I thought corporal punishment had been banned for years. I mean, how can they get away with it?'

‘What do you want me to tell you first?' Birgit asked. ‘Well,' she went on as I sat silently, too numb to comment, ‘to start with, being beaten on your bottom will do far less damage than it would anywhere else. Just imagine what it must have been like when your parents were at school to be caned across the hand.'

‘It's still barbaric,' I grumbled. ‘And I don't know how they can get away with it in the twenty-first century.'

‘They can get away with it for two reasons,' Birgit continued. ‘No, three. To start with, they have a statute of exemption from European domestic law because they still have their own island parliament. And then, of course, you signed a contract accepting the conditions of service of this retreat. And finally, you won't have to accept it if you decide you can't face it. On Saturday the boss will tell you exactly what the punishment is and she'll ask you whether you're prepared to accept it. If you are, it'll be carried out immediately. If not, you'll be dismissed and you'll be back on the mainland on Sunday morning.'

I thought carefully about what she was telling me. Part of me wanted to escape from this ghastly situation, but another voice was telling me that, however frightful it sounded, I could survive the ordeal as countless others must have done, and it would be stupid to throw away such an excellent opportunity after such a short time on the island. It was certainly true that the working conditions were outstandingly attractive. We were paid at least three times as much as one would expect for such work. We had very comfortable accommodation and the same standard of meals as the guests, many of whom were people constantly in the public eye. And finally, for a linguist like myself, there was the knowledge that I was able to practice my linguistic skills every day and in a variety of languages. The competition for a position at the retreat was intense and it was said that, after a year there, you could probably pick your job. I turned back to Birgit.

‘What did you feel like when you were put up?' I asked, still never thinking to question the verb itself, but assuming it meant being singled out for treatment.

‘I was scared, of course,' she admitted.

‘Did you think of leaving instead of accepting it?'

‘Oh no,' she assured me, ‘not for a minute. And I knew I'd be able to take it, because I'd been disciplined before, of course.'

‘What do you mean, “of course”?' I asked. ‘You mean you'd been punished somewhere else before you came to work here?'

‘Well, yes,' she said. ‘I was punished occasionally at home.'

I could hardly believe this. The thought of having to submit to physical punishment at the hands of one's parents was something that took a lot of coping with, and yet I had to know more.

‘You wouldn't understand,' she warned me, no doubt seeing the look on my face. ‘You have to live in a loving environment and accept that your parents want the best for you. At the same time, if you're living under their roof and are dependent on them - financially, I mean - surely they have the right to expect you to behave as they think you ought to?'

I found it difficult to cope with this information. Birgit obviously came from a very caring family and yet here she was telling me she was systematically punished at home.

‘You'll have to explain,' I told her.

‘Okay,' she said, ‘but what you really mean is that you want the gory details.'

I didn't answer.

‘I've probably been spanked six or seven times in my life,' she began, ‘but never before the age of sixteen. If I've done something my parents think is really bad, then they talk about it, my mum decides what the punishment is to be, and my dad carries it out.'

‘But what does he actually do?' I asked. ‘And how does it affect relationships in the family after you've been punished?'

‘Right,' she said. ‘So you want a blow-by-blow account. Well, here goes. To start with, it never happens until the evening, and even then I'm given a chance to explain, to put my case. But if I'm to be punished it happens almost immediately. I'm told to go to my room and get ready for bed, so I put my nightie on. Then I come back downstairs and my mum asks whether I'm ready. When I am I have to kneel in an armchair, facing the back of it. Then my mum lifts my nightie over my waist and my dad gives me the punishment.'

At this point I simply had to interrupt. ‘Are you telling me that your dad punishes you on your bare bottom?' I asked. ‘At your age?'

‘Of course he does,' she said. ‘He needs to see what he's doing, and if I'm getting the fleurthoo he needs to see what damage he's doing.'

‘The what?' I asked. ‘Whatever is a fleurthoo?'

‘Oh,' she laughed, briefly lightening the tone, ‘the fleurthoo. It's like a paddle but longer and straighter so that it lands on both sides at the same time, and it hurts like hell.'

‘But don't you mind your dad seeing you like that?' I asked her.

‘Why should I mind?' she said. ‘We have an outdoor sauna. We see each other naked the whole summer long. You must bear in mind that we are not as prudish about our naked bodies as you British.'

‘But how can you let you parents do that to you and still love them?' I asked.

‘I told you,' she answered. ‘Until very recently I lived in their house and I was dependent on them for paying my way through university. I'd rather have a quick punishment like that and get it over than be fined or grounded.'

I could understand the words, but the concept was a difficult one for me to grasp. ‘So what happens next?'

‘When the punishment is over I go back to my bedroom. The next morning my mum comes in and asks me what I would like for breakfast. I get up, have breakfast and life is back to normal.'

‘And how recently did your dad...?'

‘I told you that you really wanted the gory details. About eighteen months ago. I'd got into a slanging match with one of the neighbours and told her to fuck off. I didn't just tell her, I shouted at her, and my mum heard me. I got eight of the fleurthoo then and I was bruised for days. Usually it was a hand-spanking, a dozen or so, occasionally with a couple from the fleurthoo to finish with, but my mum can't stand rudeness.'

‘So,' I said, ‘you're telling me that your dad thrashed you with this thing on your bare bottom when you were twenty-two years old?'

‘Yes,' she nodded, ‘that's what I'm telling you.'

‘Well,' I said, collecting my thoughts, ‘I suppose if you can stand that, I can face whatever they're going to do to me on Saturday. It can't be as bad as that and it surely won't be as humiliating.'

‘I don't want to scare you,' Birgit said, ‘but you won't know how bad it's going to be until the boss tells you what the punishment is, and as for humiliating, it depends on whether you'd rather be punished by your own parents or by strangers in front of strangers.'

‘Yes, I know,' I began to say, ‘but at least I won't be...'

‘Oh, yes you will,' she said. ‘In fact it's best not to wear any knickers, then you won't have to face having them pulled down. You can wear a G-string if you like, if you have one, but I think it makes you look tarty and it doesn't give you any protection, so you either accept what's going to happen or you start packing.'

Needless to say I didn't start packing, even though my conversation with Birgit had given me a great deal to think about. It was true that I had signed a contract; it was true that the job was an excellent one with outstanding prospects, and it was true that nobody who would be present would be likely to describe to anybody outside the island the shame I was going to have to endure. None of this helped me prepare for the ordeal to be faced on Saturday, nor did it help that I would not find out exactly what punishment I had to face until the boss read it out to me.

And there was one more unknown: I had forgotten to ask exactly what was meant by being ‘put up'.

The next two days passed in a blur but I got through them, without committing any more indiscretions, and dinnertime on the Saturday arrived. Mrs Manning warned me not to have a huge meal, since some girls, she told me cheerfully, were inclined to feel sick. I didn't feel like eating much anyhow, but what I couldn't understand was the fact that my apprehension was tinged with a touch of anticipation. I certainly didn't relish the prospect of having my bottom bared before everybody present, nor did I know how well I would cope with the actual pain which was to be inflicted upon me, but I felt I had an opportunity to prove to my peers that I could take my punishment with the best of them.

I nearly had second thoughts, however, when coffee had been served and drunk and the curtains were drawn back. At the end of the staff dining room was a small stage, used for a variety of purposes including the present one. On the stage, dimly lit at the moment, were a table bearing a collection of instruments I could hardly see, a single dining chair turned sideways, and a contraption in wood and leather that resembled nothing which I had ever seen before.

‘What on earth's that?' I whispered to Birgit, my nerves temporarily giving way to my curiosity.

‘It's the birching block,' she told me. ‘Don't worry, you won't be getting that. I've never seen it used and Mrs Manning told me that only one person has been birched in the past five years. It's the most serious punishment of all.'

There were other questions I wanted to ask but a hush fell over the dining room. Lady Merchant, the boss, had entered and was walking briskly towards the stage. Without pausing to speak to anybody she climbed the steps and turned to face us, as a single spotlight was trained upon her. Mrs Manning, Lady Merchant's butler - who was known simply as Butler - and Danvers, one of the footmen, followed her onto the stage. She said something to Mrs Manning and then turned towards the assembled and tense staff and audience.