by Pet Jeffery
"Great work, Maddy!"
I jumped, startled by the unexpected sound of Mrs Sweetman's voice. My task had deeply absorbed me. There was something almost mesmerising in checking the light bulbs which, after dark, would illuminate a five-foot-tall faerie castle.
"I do my best, Mrs Sweetman."
"I know you do, Maddy, and I appreciate it. Most girls of your age are so slapdash."
Not for the first time, I had the impression that my employer believed me to be much younger than my actual age. I squirmed at the involuntary recollection of sound spankings aged fourteen or fifteen, the age at which Mrs Sweetman most likely placed me. In fact, I was twenty-two years old but, despite a series of unkind blows from fate, I could evidently still pass for my early teens. I'm not entirely sure what makes me seem so youthful. Plenty of young women have small breasts and are petite, without anyone doubting their age. Perhaps my freckles and the gap between my front teeth shaved off a few years from my appearance. Possibly, I would be more convincing as an adult with shorter hair; I could almost sit on my flaming red tresses.
A little less than two years before, on my twenty-first birthday, life still ran smoothly. I lived with my parents in a rented house and worked in Langton's, a shop that sold toys and fancy goods. Then, less than a week after my birthday, my father drove his car into a heavy goods vehicle, killing both himself and my mother. I was devastated; my whole world changed in an instant. The landlord remained heedless of my grief. My wages wouldn't cover the rent on my parents' house, so perforce I moved into a bedsit. The next blow was the closure of the steel works on which the town depended. That didn't affect me directly, but the unemployed men and their families had little to spend on toys or fancy goods. When Mr Langton laid me off, my future looked bleak.
At this low point in my fortunes, Susan, my best friend from school, came to my rescue. She worked in Freeman, Hardy and Willis, a high street shoe shop. The British Shoe Corporation had now offered her the post of deputy manageress in the Seacliffe branch of Curtess, another of their shoe chains. My friend said that I'd be welcome to stay with her in the seaside resort, and I eagerly accepted the generous offer.
Unfortunately, while Seacliffe wasn't depressed, like my northern industrial hometown, neither did it offer much employment. Many Seacliffe residents took advantage of an excellent railway connection to commute into the city. If I'd had shorthand and typing skills, I'd have joined the commuters. As it was, the only job I could find was in Sweetlands, Mrs Sweetman's visitor attraction.
From noon until half past four in the afternoon, Sweetlands comprised a full-sized mock castle ruin, a miniature fairyland, and a cave with stalactites and stalagmites. There was also an enclosure with goats, rabbits, and a few other animals requiring minimal upkeep and scant expense. At half past four, we closed so that Mrs Sweetman and her two teenaged helpers could partake of a meal to which they referred as 'supper'. During my first few days, I had not joined them for this repast, and had instead eaten a sandwich in a public seafront shelter.
At half past five, we reopened for the evening. Bolted and padlocked gates now shut off the cave and the animal enclosure. After supper, instead of the pets and the cavern, we opened a number of low-key fairground attractions. There was a rather sedate and undersized roller coaster, also swing boats and a helter skelter. Perhaps we closed these rides during the afternoon because they seemed so tawdry in bright sunshine; I suspected that an attraction elsewhere had replaced the rides with something better, allowing Mrs Sweetman to buy them cheaply. Alternatively, maybe it was just that we were too busy with maintenance during the day to properly supervise the rides.
I would have been perfectly happy at Sweetlands apart from two things. One was a strong doubt that my employment could continue into the autumn, after the visitors departed. The other drawback was my low wages, better suited to a teenager working in her school holidays than to a young woman who needed to support herself. My feeling was that Mrs Sweetman had offered me the work in the belief that I was fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen, and that my parents still supported me. I was reluctant to reveal my true age, in case she dismissed me.
"Would you like to join us for a bite of supper before the evening rush?" Mrs Sweetman asked. "Or maybe your mum and dad would be wondering where you are."
"My mother and father died in car crash." Perhaps this went too far, I thought, toward revealing me as an independent young woman. "I'm staying with my school friend, Susan."
"I'm sorry to hear that, Maddy. Still, I wouldn't want to worry Susan's mum and dad by keeping you out at teatime."
"You needn't worry about Susan's parents, Mrs Sweetman. This evening, they're miles away."
This was true. Susan's parents still lived in my northern hometown.
"Well, I dare say that Susan is as responsible as you are, Maddy, love, so I expect it's perfectly all right for them to leave her in charge of the house."
"Yes, Mrs Sweetman. If anything, Susan's more reliable than I am."
"Call me, Mum, Maddy. Bobbi does, and she's my niece, not my daughter, so I don't see why you shouldn't."
"Thank you, Mum."
An hour later, Bobbi and I sat at the dining table, awaiting Mrs Sweetman's daughter, Jane. Both Bobbi and Jane were, at my guess, about fourteen or fifteen years old. The pair of them worked at Sweetlands. Jane had spent that afternoon on the gate, selling tickets, whilst Bobbi and I attended to routine maintenance.
When Jane stepped into the dining room, I was surprised to see that she wore heavy makeup: scarlet lips and sooty eyes. Jane's long hair hung loosely, covering one eye in a manner reminiscent of Veronica Lake. Given that Jane wore what appeared to be school summer uniform, a blue gingham dress with white collar, and white cuffs to its short sleeves, the effect was more startling than strumpet-like. The teenager's mother shrieked, obviously harbouring stronger feelings than surprise.
"Jane Elizabeth Sweetman!" Mrs Sweetman exclaimed, as her shriek faded and died. "What do you mean by it? Not only is all that makeup inappropriate for a fourteen-year-old, but Sweetlands is a family attraction. What are visitors to think when they catch you looking like that? Will they see our fairyland as a suitable place to bring their little daughters?"
"Sorry, Mum. Ticket sales have been a bit down, but I didn't think..."
"If you don't think with your head, young lady, maybe a bit of sense needs to be spanked into your other end. Wash your face, Jane, and then it's over my knee."
"Yes, Mum."
There was resignation in Jane's voice. Clearly, this would be far from her first spanking. I would have expected as much; in my experience, spirited teenagers often nursed sore bottoms.
Jane left the room. Mrs Sweetman spoke of the prospects for the summer, but her remarks sounded a little forced. Neither Bobbi nor I spoke. I glanced at a glass-fronted display cabinet filled with toys. There was a large doll, and a dolls' house complete with miniature family. Perhaps they had been Mrs Sweetman's childhood playthings; they surely dated to a time before my infancy. Nothing within sight diverted me from dwelling upon the forthcoming smacks. Worse, a memory of corporal punishment from my own teenage years, returned vividly to haunt me.
It was July 1953, not long before the end of the summer term. Christine Williams had invited Susan and me to tea in her family home. During afternoon break, Susan and Chrissy had swapped several of Susan's issues of School Friend, and Chrissy's coronation souvenir booklet, for two bottles of nail varnish that had belonged to Anna Brice. Chrissy still had possession of the nail varnish when we set off for her home. We trudged through the sooty streets of our industrial hometown, dressed in red gingham school summer dresses and burgundy blazers; leather satchels of homework swung from our shoulders. As we took a short cut through the park, Susan and Chrissy started to argue about who should have which bottle of nail varnish. Chrissy laid claim to the scarlet one.
"The coronation is real history," she said. "I expect that book will be worth hundreds of pounds in a few years. The pink nail varnish is good enough for a few measly old comics."
"Measly!" Susan sounded outraged. "The Silent Three are a jolly sight more exciting than some old queen riding down the road in a golden carriage."
"Some old queen? That's treason! I'll tell the police on you!"
"Tell on me, would you?"
Susan fell upon Chrissy and the two of them rolled on the newly mown grass. Chrissy soon gained the upper hand and, with it, rights to the gloriously red nail varnish. She also extracted an apology on behalf of the queen and her golden carriage.
Almost as soon as we entered the Williams' home, Chrissy's mother objected to her daughter's condition, and its imagined cause.
"Christine Mary Williams! You're all over grass stains! You've been with those boys!"
"No, Ma! I haven't! Truly!"
"Don't lie to me, young lady. What's that in your pocket?"
Evidently, Mrs Williams had just spotted the bulge of the nail varnish in Chrissy's blazer pocket.
"Just something I swapped at school, Ma."
"Show me!"
Nervously, Chrissy removed the bottle from her pocket and showed it to her mother, who snatched away the offending item.
"Rolling in the grass with those boys," Mrs Williams enumerated Chrissy's supposed crimes, "getting ready to paint your nails like the scarlet whore of Babylon and, not content with that, lying to your mother. Upstairs, girl, and fetch the strap."
While Chrissy was gone, her mother spoke at length to Susan and me about the coming summer and her plans for a seaside holiday. Neither Susan nor I said anything.
After what seemed a long time, Chrissy returned with a strip of thick leather about ten inches long. I shuddered as our friend passed the fearsome-looking object to her mother. Hand spankings sometimes warmed my own bottom and I had seen enough of them applied to other girls' rear ends. I'd witnessed Miss Jennings, the PE teacher, wallop offenders' bottoms with a plimsoll. But Mrs Williams' strap looked far worse. It might even be more dreadful than the headmistress' cane, which I knew only by reputation and by glimpsing, in the school toilets, the marks it had left on a smoker's rump.
Meekly, Chrissy placed herself over her mother's lap. There never was any use in arguing with an adult. Mrs Williams lifted the hem of her daughter's dress, exposing thin white knickers smeared with grass stains. The irate mother lifted the strap above her shoulder before bringing it down on Chrissy's bottom with a noise recalling a cowboy film pistol shot. Chrissy yelled with what must have been the full force of her lungs. I had seen more than enough, and I looked away. Another eight loud whacks assailed my ears, each followed by a high-pitched scream.
When I looked again, Chrissy was crying. Her mother remained in the chair, still grasping the strap.
"It's all your fault," Chrissy said to Susan, holding back her sobs for a few moments.
"What?" Mrs Williams roared.
It was as though the outraged parent saw, for the first time, the grass stains on Susan's red gingham dress.
"Leading my Christine astray with the boys!" Mrs Williams accused Susan. "Covering yourself with the marks of shame! You can take Susan's place over my knee, you young strumpet."
Not to be reposted, reproduced or distributed, in part or whole.