by Steve Rayer
Stephen was sitting in the school chapel at Evensong determined not to fidget on the hard wooden seat. All the fellows round him would recognise only too well the symptoms of a caning -and Stephen had been caned: severely, accurately, unforgettably. Standing on a chair in the dormitory washroom in front of the wall mirror, he had stared in disbelief at the purple reddish stripes across his bottom, carefully traced with his fingers the sore, hard ridges and accompanying furrows they brought, all nine of them, noting how eight were more or less parallel to each other in the small area to where his punishment had been confined. There was one further ridge, standing out from the others, which appeared at a slight angle so as to criss-cross its predecessors. That must have been the final stroke, the worst one of the lot.
Crikey, for a first timer, Miss Julia, or Miss Chevalier as he must remember to call her, had certainly shown she'd learnt very quickly the way to handle a cane. Such intensity, and how the fellows would mock him if they ever learnt the truth of his fidgeting!
'Hey fellas, heard the latest? Dozy Sykes has had the cane off Miss Chevalier.'
'No! Really? But she's not allowed to cane.'
'Well she did and he was seventeen last week. What a dickhead! Go on, show us the marks!'
No indeed, those marks on his bottom must be kept a closely guarded secret, a bargain struck between him and her: he to avoid ridicule from his fellows, she to avoid strict censure from the school authorities and possible dismissal. Unthinkable, the one person in that ghastly place to show him any real understanding sent away discredited? Perish the idea! And yet deep down he did rather regret not being able to brag to the wonder of the other fellows about his nine on the bare bum and after a thorough whacking with a hard-soled slipper: a record surely, a beating to end all beatings.
He had given up asking himself what it was that induced his father to send him to such an unsuitable school, a question he had asked on the first day of his arrival, just short of his eleventh birthday.
"It'll do you good, lad, make a man of you," was the firm reply. Frank Sykes, estate agent, was a man who from humble beginnings had bullied and blustered his way to commercial success, elbowing aside his cowering family in the process. Any hopes that his son had inherited similar attributes were disappointed, Stephen showing from an early age his following of his careworn mother's instincts for consolation in music, art, and literature.
Frank Sykes was not a man to admit defeat. He would send his lad to a really tough school, he knew of just such a one. And as for all this high-snobby arty nonsense, they would soon beat it out of him. Do him good!
Human nature being what it is, the only result was to fill Stephen with a growing resentment, which as the years passed blossomed into a determination to do as little as possible.
"Sykes, you're a failure at everything you go in for," Hampson, the house captain snapped at him after a particularly poor showing on the rugby field.
Stephen didn't care. There were better things in life, of that he was sure. He loved books, the ways in which a good writer played with words and, a secret to be kept from the fellows above all else, he was beginning to read poetry, a secret only broken by accident when Miss Chevalier had stumbled across him one rainy afternoon, all alone in the school library.
She had approached and stood quietly behind him, looking over his shoulder until he'd become aware of her closeness, causing him to blush furiously. His attempt to hide from her what he was reading only made matters worse: T.S.Eliot, modern stuff.
"How are you finding it?" she wanted to know, and he was forced to admit there were parts he didn't understand although the rhythm of the words appealed to him. She had offered to take him up to her room at the top of the building and they would read it through together but Stephen, blushing more than ever, had mumbled "No thanks," and she had smiled at his confusion and left him.
What, go and sit in her room, just the two of them, reading poetry? He was having none of that. Supposing the fellows found out, what then, eh?
Apart from the domestic staff, Miss Chevalier was the only lady teacher in that all-male enclave. Naturally there had been great surprise when she had joined the previous year to teach the fellows French. Rumours flew. Her home was near Paris, she had a French father and an English mother, or was it the other way round? She must be about twenty-six, and single. She wasn't outstandingly attractive but then she wasn't unattractive, and as Hampson was heard to remark, "She knows how to wear her clothes."
More to the point, despite being young and female, she quickly proved herself effective at her job with no problem in maintaining order over a class of sniggering boys eager to pounce on any show of weakness. Her cool readiness to send any miscreant out of class to higher authority for an immediate beating was soon established. She had earned respect.
Stephen was mightily uncomfortable in her presence. She knew his secret and he could have sworn that whenever their eyes met in class or, say, when they passed in the corridor, he got the tiniest flicker of a smile. What was it, recognition, conspiratorial, his secret safe with her? He didn't know, but who was she to start taking liberties with him and he would jolly well give her the cold shoulder. So he scowled all through French classes and made sure any work he showed up was just the right side of poor to keep him out of trouble.
He should have known it couldn't last. One morning Miss Chevalier was taking them for verbal translation, beginning at the front row of class and working along the desks one by one. A bored Stephen, sitting near the back knew his turn would be a while in coming. He always made a fool of himself in verbal translation: French was such a daft language. There was time enough to read through again that passage he'd copied out, King Arthur and his knights of the round table, fascinating stuff:
Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves
And barren chasms, and all to left and right
The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels-
And on a sudden, lo! the level lake,
And the long glories of the winter moon.
Wow! Totally absorbed, he picked out the short sharp vowels, hammer blows: clash'd, chasms, clang'd, crag, rang, followed by the long drawn-out vowels with their calming influence: lo, lake, winter moon. Try writing like that in French!
"Sykes, what are you reading?" Miss Chevalier was at his side. "I've asked you twice to translate. What is it you are reading?"
All the fellows were staring at him, eager spectators of the scene to come. This should be good.
He waited whilst she read through the lines of poetry, waited for the axe to fall.
"Come and see me after morning lessons are over," was all she said, and to the astonishment of everyone, Stephen included, quietly went back to the front of the class and carried on with the lesson.
Orders were orders so in the half hour between the bell announcing the end of morning lessons and the bell for lunch assembly, Stephen climbed the steps to her room and knocked on the door. The interview was brief.
"I'm giving you an N.S. card. I'm tired of watching you pretend you've no brains. You have the intelligence to do really well. Here, take this. You may go."
Hiding the card in his pocket, he walked slowly back down the steps to the noisy crowd in assembly. Of all the darned cheek, giving him an N.S. card as though he were still a junior! The other fellows would mock him to bits. For the next two weeks at the end of every French lesson he would have to take the wretched card to her and she would write in some comments, possibly with an N.S. and sign it. An N.S. comment on the card would mean a trip to his house master, Soapy Joe, a world-weary gentleman who had long since given up trying to communicate in any real sense with the boys entrusted to his care. Stephen didn't have to guess at what would happen.
"A very poor card, Sykes! Bend over," and four strokes of the cane would follow. For some reason, in his experience, Soapy never dished out more than four and Stephen had experienced them often enough, but surely at the age of seventeen he was too old for a beating. The humiliation! And that cheeky young woman had put him up for it! Darned if he was going to give way to her! His sullen mood deepened as the days progressed, and the comments on his card worsened.
What fun for the other fellows, what a joke when the two weeks were up, the final lesson on Saturday morning, and he would have to take his full card to her and no doubt onwards to Soapy. The jeers came thick and fast, Miss Chevalier getting him the cane at his age. What if she came to watch Soapy giving it, having to stick his bum out in front of her, he was scared of her wasn't he?
"Scared of that pie-faced twit?" he responded and it drew a laugh, so he repeated it. "Scared of that pie-faced twit?" Only this time the room went quiet. The pie-faced twit was standing in the doorway.
Consternation all round, Sykes had really gone too far. Nothing was said however, the only indication she had heard the insult being he was left alone until end of lesson bell when a curt "Sykes, follow me," order came and he had no other option but to do so, to the sniggers of the other fellows.
Up in her room, he watched as she took off the black scholars' gown all the teaching staff wore, drew up a chair for him, another one for herself, smoothed her skirt demurely over her knees and with chin resting on the back of her hands regarded him intently.
"Stephen, is there anything you would like to say to me? No? Nothing? Nothing at all?"
She had called him Stephen. No one used Christian names in that place. She was searching for a kink in his armour, he was sure of it He wanted so badly to say sorry, he hadn't meant to call her a pie-faced twit, honestly. If it hadn't been for the other fellows egging him on, it wouldn't have happened. But the words refused to come out. The defensive wall he had thrown up to protect his sensitivity had grown stronger as the years progressed and now at the moment of truth, refused to be breached. He couldn't even meet her gaze.
"Very well, let's talk about your N.S. card. Not good is it, supposing I were to send you to your house master and see what he makes of it, what will his reaction be do you think?"
Of course she knew what his reaction would be! She was playing with him, goading him on and he lost his temper.
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