‘Bend over that chair!’ the malevolent headmaster flexed the cane between his hands and fixed the boy with a steely glare.
Jack, aged 18, was dumbfounded. Falsely accused. He had been seen in the sixth-form common room with a can of beer. But it hadn’t been beer; it was lemonade shandy but no one wanted to hear.
St Michael’s was a traditional grammar (Latin, rugby, corporal punishment). Dr Billingham studied the cane as if he had never seen it before. It was about three-feet long, as thick as a pencil and with the standard curved handle. An article created with the single purpose to beat children. He swished it through the air.
Jack could have walked out, told the headmaster to stuff it. But then what? Expulsion for certain. No exams, no place at university, no professional career with the middle-class lifestyle attached. It would be down the pit for life. He couldn’t let that happen.
It was a low-backed, battered leather chair. How many generations of schoolboys had presented themselves across it? ‘Head low. Bottom high. Knees straight. Legs apart. Keep still. Don’t make a fuss. Take it like a man.’
Dr Billingham sawed the cane across tightly stretched trousers, getting his aim. Six swipes, delivered with all his muscle. The howls were heard in the playground. It was over in thirty seconds. Jack rose, smarting with injustice. Tears trickling, he hobbled from the study.
That happened fifty years ago and after half a century Jack’s resentment still boils.
Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 