by Pet Jeffery
As the Fodenbridge coach jolted its way out of Victoria Coach Station, a teenage memory preoccupied me: the wet afternoon on which I'd seen Mrs Jackson spank her daughter, Chloe. The drumming of rain on the vehicle's windows and roof may have helped to evoke my recollection. There was also the fact that, at journey's end, I hoped to receive Chloe's and her mother's hospitality. If they turned me away, I had no idea what I would do; the coach fare had consumed almost all of my money.
With steamed-up windows, we shifted slowly along Buckingham Palace Road. I couldn't be bothered to wipe the glass with my hand or my sleeve but, presumably, the traffic was all but gridlocked. With no view of the outside world, the occasion of Chloe's spanking played in my head almost as vividly as though I were watching a movie.
Chloe and I were both sixteen at the time. We had left Leicester Street School, Chloe passing on to the Fodenbridge College of Further Education, where she intended to take A-Levels. Perhaps Mrs Jackson would have preferred Chloe to enter the Girls' Grammar School sixth form, and she might have been able to arrange that. Chloe's mum knew Mrs McAllister, the Grammar School headmistress; both of them had served on the Fodenbridge in Bloom committee, as well as cooperating on several other worthy projects. Chloe preferred the college because of its relaxed dress code. I think, too, that Darren Hall, a boy on whom she harboured a crush, attended the college. Spankings notwithstanding, Mrs Jackson allowed her teenage daughter to make her own decisions, at least up to a point.
Meanwhile, I'd landed a job in Thomas and Braithwaite's factory on Furnace Road. My task, repeated hundreds of times during the working day, was to slot one piece of white plastic into another. My guess was that they were parts of an electrical switch, although I could have been mistaken.
Chloe's spanking, four years ago, was on a Saturday, a day of leisure for both my friend and me. Despite dark and threatening cloudbanks dominating the sky, Chloe and I had intended to go window shopping in the town centre, but our hopes were soon dashed. As Chloe opened her front door to greet me, the gathering storm's first heavy raindrops splashed into the inadequate shelter provided by the porch.
When I stepped into the hallway, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Emily Forest, typical Fodenbridge teenage girl. I wore one of those cheap bomber jackets from the market. Mine was lilac with a purple faux fur collar. My skirt was of faded blue denim, short enough to raise my mother's eyebrows, but not short enough to start an argument. My dyed blonde hair fell loosely, almost to my waist. My heavy eye makeup was of inexpensive cosmetics. If I'd been caught in the rain, my mascara would have dribbled down my cheeks.
"I expect it's only a passing shower," Chloe said optimistically, "but we'd better amuse ourselves indoors for the next half hour."
I nodded my agreement and followed her into the living room. Bismarck, the Jackson's large black cat, sat at the window looking at the weather with obvious disapproval. His full name suited the imperious and rather portly creature, but the shortened form, Busy, seemed to suggest an animal who spent fewer hours sleeping.
There was, at that moment, no sign of Mrs Jackson. It might be an exaggeration to say that I was disappointed when I failed to see Chloe's mother, but her presence would have reassured me. She was the sort of woman who, when she said 'do this', you did whatever she required, speedily and with a minimum of fuss. I felt that, if my own mother were like Mrs Jackson, I would be at college studying to further my future career, rather than standing at an assembly line, slotting one stupid piece of plastic into another.
But there was no use in wishing that my mother was like Chloe's. Mrs Jackson was a one-off. She held a senior managerial post with our local bus company, Greenfinch Road Car Co. Ltd. She had started work as a conductress on route 22B. Keeping order on those buses could have been no picnic; the route served Leicester Street School. Worse, the outer terminus was at the dye works; I wouldn't have wished to tussle with the vulgar and strident women who worked there. The 22B was no more than the start of Mrs Jackson's career; she worked her way up the corporate greasy pole to success, relying upon pure grit and determination. Nothing could stand in her way. I couldn't help but admire her. How did I know so much about Chloe's mother? Fodenbridge is a town in which everyone knows everyone else's business.
On a sweeter note, Mrs Jackson made little cakes of corn flakes submerged in caterers' chocolate; I adored them.
Not least in shaping the way I regarded her was my sense that Mrs Jackson had saved my life. Melissa Hardy, a girl from the year above us at school, had attempted to interest Chloe and me in buying drugs. Perhaps I might have been tempted, but Chloe responded: "No way! My Mum would kill me." Taking drugs with Chloe would have been an adventure; taking them alone would have been sad. So, I too refused the offer. Subsequently, Melissa's boyfriend was stabbed in drugs-related violence and Melissa herself was rushed into hospital after taking too much Ketamine which, I believe, is a horse tranquiliser. As I said, Fodenbridge is a town in which everyone knows everyone else's business. In this case, my knowledge left me feeling that, but for Mrs Jackson's strictness with her daughter, I might have been in the back of an ambulance, testing the paramedics' skills, and quite possibly dead by the time I reached Fodenbridge Royal Infirmary.
On that wet day, on which I witnessed Mrs Jackson spanking Chloe, my friend led me to an old-fashioned music centre, as I believe they were called, and a stack of ancient CDs.
"These were my dad's," she explained. "They're almost prehistoric, but some of them are not half bad."
Chloe's parents' relationship had soured years before. Although they weren't yet divorced, they had long since ceased to live together. Mr Jackson was a mining engineer, currently living somewhere in Cumbria.
My friend slipped one of the discs into the player. It had a good beat and a catchy tune. At the time, I didn't recognise the song but, a couple of hours later, Chloe told me that it was Girls Aloud's Something Kinda Ooooh. That afternoon, after Chloe's punishment, we found it easier to speak of the music than of the spanking.
As soon as the intro began, Chloe picked up a hairbrush, as an improvised microphone, and leapt up on to the coffee table, her stage. When the girls began to sing, my friend mimed the words as she swung her hips in time to the beat. It was at this point that her mother entered the room. Mrs Jackson spoke quietly, but with inescapable authority.
"Get down this instant, you bad girl. That table was my mother's. It came from Maple's, made when the world was right, and people were glad of it. Fortunately, it's not the only piece of furniture she left me."
As an obviously crestfallen Chloe stepped down from the coffee table, her mother lowered herself slowly and deliberately on to a solidly built chair. It was, I later learnt, another part of the legacy from my friend's maternal grandmother, and it served only one purpose. For the moment, Mrs Jackson's intent was lost on me, but her daughter recognised it immediately. Bismarck also knew that a spanking was about to commence; he left the room as, I subsequently discovered, he always did on such occasions.
"Please, Mum," Chloe protested. "Do it later, double if you like, but not while Emily's here."
"I believe," Mrs Jackson replied, "that it was Lord Hewart, then Lord Chief Justice of England, who laid down that 'Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done.' You know very well, by now, how this must go."
"Yes, Mama," Chloe said very quietly.
I had a strong sense of foreboding, but I had no real idea of what was about to happen until Chloe draped herself, bottom up, over her mother's lap. At some point during my first sixteen years, I must have seen a picture of an over the knee spanking, because I instantly recognised the significance of Chloe's position. This, I thought, was a private matter between mother and daughter. My remaining here to witness the punishment was surely an intrusion, not withstanding justice being seen to be done, and whatever else a Lord Chief Justice might have said. I should have departed but, at that moment, the storm rattled another fusillade of mingled rain and hail upon the window; such squalls would soak me as soon as I stepped from the porch. So, I remained in the Jackson's living room.
Having remained, I couldn't take my eyes from Mrs Jackson as she flipped up Chloe's skirt, exposing my friend's white cotton knickers. A moment later, Chloe's mother raised her right arm, so that her hand paused just behind her ear. It remained there for no more than a second or two before it started its fearsome descent. Sometimes, at moments of crisis, events seem to take place in slow motion. This was one such occasion. Instead of a blur of speed, Mrs Jackson's arm appeared to descend at a leisurely pace. It was an illusion. Her hand struck my friend's bottom with an unexpectedly loud clapping sound. Chloe yelped.
I hoped that the single smack would suffice, but I knew that Mrs Jackson was a thorough woman. The continuation of the punishment was clearly inevitable when she raised her arm for the second slap. It landed as noisily as the first. The cry with which Chloe responded was louder than before. This time, I noticed a slight pinkening of Chloe's skin where her knickers didn't quite cover her bottom.
After the third slap, there could be no doubt that Chloe's bottom had started to redden. The smack had struck lower than either of the first two, landing where the curve of Chloe's buttocks met her upper thighs and leaving the imprint of Mrs Jackson's palm on my friend's exposed flesh. Chloe shrieked in response. Feeling, more than ever, that I was intruding, I turned my head, looking instead at the rain striking the window; the storm had not abated.
Although I didn't see the next half dozen smacks, I certainly heard them, both the percussion of Mrs Jackson's hand on Chloe's bottom and my friend's answering cries. How long did this, or any, spanking last? Could there be many more slaps?
People who avert their gaze always look, eventually, like Lot's Wife in the Bible; I was no exception. When my eyes returned to Mrs Jackson and her daughter, I saw that a considerable area of Chloe's bottom was now exposed. Perhaps Mrs Jackson had deliberately lifted aside her daughter's knickers. Possibly, the act of spanking had served to disarrange the teenager's underwear. Either way, the exposed flesh almost glowed red and was obviously extremely sore. A further smack, echoing loudly, didn't improve the appearance of my friend's posterior.
"I think that's probably enough, Mrs Jackson," I said quietly.
"I was thinking much the same myself, Emily, love," Mrs Jackson replied. "Maybe just one more for good measure."
I winced as she gave Chloe another hard slap.
"Up you get, sweetheart." Mrs Jackson's voice sounded remarkably soft.
The next part of Chloe's interaction with her mother astonished me. Mrs Jackson embraced her daughter tenderly, placing chaste kisses on her face, wiping away her tears, and smoothing her hair.
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