BEXHILL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
Assembly
By Tom Simple
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Copyright 2012 Tom Simple
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Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1 Debbie
Chapter 2 Catharine
Chapter 3 The dinner party
Chapter 4 Miss Holloway
Chapter 5 Anna
Chapter 6 Sally + Linda = Mischief
Chapter 7 The French Connection
Afterword
Preface
The Bexhill School for Girls was one of any number of private educational establishments seeking pupils in the late 1950s. It had a reputation for discipline and academic achievement which appealed to the parents of more wayward girls and those youngsters who didn’t appear to take their responsibilities as seriously as their mother or father would like.
The Academic Year starts in the autumn, so there would always be a flurry of activity during the summer months when school reports arrived, informing parents that their little darlings were not doing as well as might be hoped at their present establishment. The search would then begin for a sterner alternative. Sometimes this would lead to Bexhill.
Thus, on a certain day each September, a few score girls would assemble at the redbrick edifice on the outskirts of town. The ‘old hands’ would greet each other noisily; the new girls would look on apprehensively. The staff would cast a calculating eye over their charges, and a new term would be underway, with all the trials and tribulations that these intertwining inhabitants would bring to it.
Preparation, as any teacher knows, is essential. Thus, before embarking on the story of how the next year unfolds, it will be as well to become familiar with some of those who will comprise the rich tapestry of school life.
Chapter 1
Debbie
Debbie sauntered down the oak staircase and into the elegant dining room. It was ten o’clock. The remains of breakfast still cluttered the polished mahogany table, although only one member of the family still sat there. Pat, Debbie’s mother, occupied a ‘carver’ - a chair with arms - at one end. She was a handsome woman whose looks belied the imminent arrival of the ‘Big Four O’. She greeted her daughter perfunctorily.
“Hello dear. I wish you wouldn’t go around the house dressed like that.” Debbie was wearing only a short, ‘Baby Doll’-style nightie. “Couldn’t you put a dressing gown over the top?”
“Dressing gown? Oh Mum, that’s so uncool!”
“And I don’t like having your bare bottom on the seats of the chairs.”
“I’m not having a period, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
“Well, what if someone comes in and you’re only wearing that nightdress?”
“Then they can feast their eyes, can’t they?” She wiggled her bottom provocatively.
“Debbie, I’m expecting a colleague. Please just go and make yourself decent!”
Debbie ignored her, went over the hotplate and opened one of the silver-topped dishes. It contained a few scraps of congealed scrambled egg. The other dish had evidently once held bacon.
“There’s nothing left!” grumbled Debbie.
“Well it is ten o’clock. Your father and brother finished breakfast almost two hours ago”.
“They might have left something for me!”
“And you might have got yourself out of bed a bit earlier and helped prepare breakfast!”
“Oh come on, Mum! You know Julian was taking me to Annabelle’s last night. I didn’t get back until well after dawn.”
“I thought we told you to be home by two?”
“Mum, for Christ’s sake! I’m not a kid anymore!”
“You’ll still do what you’re told while you’re living in our house.” Her tone hardened.
“You’re so old-fashioned! I’m not just a little schoolgirl any longer. I’m virtually an adult now.”
Her mother looked at her pouting daughter and then gently tapped an envelope that lay open on the table in front of her.
“What’s that?” asked Debbie, a note of uncertainty replacing the petulance.
“Last term’s exam results - the mock GCEs.”
Oh shit. Debbie paled and put down the piece of toast she had been raising to her mouth.
“Are they...OK?” The question was nervous.
“Not exactly.” Her mother held her with an icy gaze. “Perhaps you’d like me to read them to you?”
“If you want.”
Pat pulled a sheet of paper from the envelope. She carefully unfolded it and smoothed it out on the table. Debbie’s mouth had gone dry.
“I think I’m right in saying that grades one to six are passes, aren’t they? Anything more than six is a failure in that subject?”
“Yes, Mum, I think so.” She reached for her coffee cup, but she found her hand was shaking so badly she put it back on the saucer with a rattle.
“Very well. Physics, seven. Chemistry, seven. Biology, seven. History, eight. Geography, seven. English, six. Maths, five. Two passes - neither distinguished - and five failures.”
Debbie looked glumly down at her plate.
“You realise what this means? If you don’t pull your socks up, no university, no third level education of any sort at all. You’d be lucky to get a job as a waitress or a salesgirl.”
“But I want to go to uni. All my friends are doing so.”
“You should have thought about that a few years ago, when we sent you St Mary’s. This is where four years of fooling about and not studying gets you.”
Suddenly, a flash of the old defiance. “Anyway, it’s all your fault for sending me to a stupid school like St Mary’s. The nuns are useless, they can’t teach anything!”
Pat coloured just slightly but maintained her calm. “I don’t think you’re right. I called Sister Joanna at the school and told her we were very disappointed with your results. I asked her how the other girls had done. You were the only one to fail so many subjects. No-one else dropped more than one paper, and the average for your class was a grade 2. The Headmistress pointed out that your end-of-term reports regularly mention a lack of effort.”
“Sister Joanna’s a stupid bitch. All she does is blather on about religious gobbledygook. She’s just so square. She needs to get real. Anyway, you can pay for me to go to university! Offer them enough and I’m sure they’ll be glad to grab your money and take me. Problem solved - all you have to do is cough up!”
“We’re not throwing good money after bad, and anyway that’s not how universities work. You’ve been wasting your time at school and now you’re well on the way to blowing your future. We’re really disappointed in you!”
“’Did you say ‘we’? Does Dad know about this?”
“Yes he does, and I imagine he’ll have a few things to say to you on the subject when he gets home.”
“Why do you always have to drag Dad into these things? Can’t you ever keep anything to yourself, for God’s sake?”
Enough is enough, even for an even-tempered person like Pat.
“That’s enough, Debbie. I’m sick and tired of your attitude. You’re behaving
like a spoiled brat and I’m going to treat you like one. Go upstairs to your room!”
Debbie gulped. She knew she’d gone too far, that her temper and immaturity had got the better of her, and that she was going to have to pay for it. She’d been here before.
“Please, Mum. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
“Get upstairs! Prepare yourself. I’ll be up in a minute.”
“Please, Mum, can we just talk about this?”
“We can talk afterwards. Now go to your room immediately!”
Debbie knew there was no point in further argument. Indeed, when she’d tried this line before it had resulted in an even worse outcome. She stood up and slowly climbed the stairs. In her room, she smoothed the sheets and blanket on her bed. Then she took her two pillows and placed them in the centre of it, one on top of the other. She kicked off her slippers and lay down with the pillows under her hips. She reached back and eased the thin material of her nightie up until she could feel the cool breeze from the window on her bare bottom. She reached forward and gripped the end of the mattress.
Back then, political correctness hadn’t been invented, but heavy, wooden-backed clothes brushes had. Pat fetched one from the closet and climbed the stairs. To Debbie, her steps sounded like the footfalls of doom. Pat came in and stood beside the bed. Debbie glanced up at her mother and the brush in her right hand.
“I’m sorry...” she pleaded.
“So am I. So is your father. Your attitude leaves a very great deal to be desired, young lady. Now, keep still until I tell you to get up.”
With that, she laid the brush across the centre of Debbie’s pert, pink cheeks, raised it high, and brought it down with a loud whack. Debbie yelped. A rosy glow started to spread across her backside. Pat raised the brush again.
The advantage of being a doctor - a surgeon, actually, as Pat was - is that you can judge better than a lay person just how much pain you are causing and how much damage you are inflicting, unbiased by the yells and cries of the person whose backside you are tanning. Thus, Debbie’s mother gave the wriggling, squirming girl many more swats than a lesser expert might have done. When she finally finished, Debbie was sobbing and her entire bottom, from the top of the cheeks to the join with her thighs, was puce.
“Right. I’ve finished. Now stay in your room until lunchtime. And when your father comes home, I think he may have something to say to you.”
It wasn’t what he might say that worried Debbie. What concerned her was what he was likely to do with that awful, heavy leather strap.
Debbie stayed in her room, intermittently massaging her aching cheeks, until she heard her mother go out after lunch. Then she slipped downstairs and called Julian. They agreed to meet in the Café des Artistes, a popular hangout in Fulham road. Julian, who was training to be something in the City, was glad to have an excuse to get away and see Debbie, whom he hadn’t yet managed to bed, although he thought that event was imminent. He listened to Debbie’s account of her wretched morning.
“Your poor bottie must be awfully sore,” Julian said with keen insight.
“And there’s worse to come. I’m sure dad will strap me when he gets home. That hurts like anything!”
“Oh well, chin up old thing! Soon be over, I suppose. I say, I’m going to Quags tonight with my parents. First night of the grouse season. Should be rather jolly!”
Debbie wasn’t sure that she was getting quite the sympathetic hearing she’d been hoping for. Julian had bags of money and there was a title floating about in his family somewhere, but she did wish that he could be a bit more, well, concerned about her.
“You going to Tessa’s coming-out do on Saturday?” asked Julian. These events were always loaded with vacuous debutantes fishing for the rich and titled. Julian usually fancied his chances when he offered one of them a lift home. It didn’t matter much to him whether Debbie would be there or not, but he might as well know for planning purposes. If he brought Debbie back to his flat, he reckoned a bottle of medium white would be enough to get her into the sack, whereas the debs usually needed champagne.
“Ooo yes! Will you take me? I’ve got a lovely dress: you’ll adore it!”
“OK, pick you up at seven?”
“See you then”, she got up to leave.
“See you. Bonne chance with your little bummie tonight!” Julian caught the waitress’ eye and ordered another Pimms.
***
Debbie waited listlessly for her father’s return. He was a partner in a firm of solicitors and sometimes worked late. Debbie hoped that this would be the case tonight: he might be too tired to get involved in discussing her dismal results. She decided, a trifle unwisely, that she needed something to fortify herself. Her mother was still out, so she crept down to the pantry and helped herself to a strong - in fact, very strong - vodka and tonic. She had almost finished it when she heard the sound of her father’s car on the gravel of the drive. She gulped down the rest and hurriedly rinsed and dried the glass. Then she shot up to her room and closed the door. Maybe her father would think she was asleep.
“Debbie!” her father’s voice boomed from the hallway, “Debbie, are you there?”
She opened her door. “Hello, Dad.”
“Debbie, come down here please. I want to talk to you.”
Oh Lord. This was it.
Debbie tripped on the last stair, but regained her balance before she fell. She was feeling rather self-assured after the stiff drink.
“Yes, Dad, what can I do for you?”
“Come into the drawing room, please. Close the door. Sit there.” He indicated the sofa while he sat in his usual armchair.
“Now, I’m sure you know what this is about, don’t you?”
Debbie returned his gaze in a slightly unfocussed way.
“It’s about those wretched mock GCE results,” he continued. “They’re pathetic. I was ashamed today when people asked me how you’d done.”
“What’s it got to do with anyone else? Those old farts in your office should mind their own business!”
This wasn’t a smart start to the proceedings, but, as we have seen, Debbie was a bit of a slow learner.
“Do you mind not being rude about by work colleagues! They’re all highly qualified lawyers, which is something it seems that you’re unlikely ever to be!”
“They’re just a bunch of prats making money every time someone’s wife catches their husband shagging the nanny! They should get a life!”
“Debbie, how dare you!”
Debbie was on a run. “All you people are the same. Look at Mum. Spends her life slicing up people’s smelly feet. How much of a loser is that?”
“Debbie, shut up! Your mother is one of the most respected orthopaedic surgeons in London!”
“She still deals in smelly feet. Anyway, so what about my results. I don’t want to go to university anyway!” This was a new line, invented on the spot. “I want to travel. I’ll go to Africa or somewhere with Julian. We’ll become big game hunters or keep lions or something like those Atkinsons or Adamsons or whatever they’re called on TV!”
Debbie’s immaturity was showing rather too clearly.
“What you’ll do,” said her father, controlling his composure with some difficulty, “is what I’m about to tell you.”
“Oh yes, and what’s that?” snapped Debbie.
“Keep quiet and listen. I’ve spent most of the day considering what to do about you. I’ve spoken to St Mary’s and they’ve been kind enough to give me some excellent advice...”
“I suppose I have to say twenty ‘Hail Marys’ and flagellate myself!”
“I’ll deal with the flagellation side,” said her father grimly, neatly regaining the initiative as Debbie recalled the lurking presence of the strap. “I was in two minds: let you go to hell your own, ignorant way and muddle through life without a qualification to your name; or to persevere and put you back on the road to a proper future. I decided on the latter.”
“How awf
ully kind of you!” Debbie said, sarcastically. Her father ignored her. She was going to pay for this, but not just yet.
“The reason that your mother and I decided that we’d keep trying is that we’re a family of achievers...”
Debbie was just about to give some more lip, but her father held up his hand.
“I don’t want to hear another word from you until I’ve finished. Is that clear?”
“Democracy rules, OK!” It came out a little slurred.
“Whatever, in your ignorance, you may think of the firm of Arbuthnot and Bellweather, we’re well on our way to being one of the most respected family lawyers in the city. Your brother will shortly join the firm and shows great promise. Your mother has her own clinic in Harley Street. Only you present a problem, and I believe that the problem is fixable with a bit of discipline.”
Debbie misunderstood this to mean that she was going to get her strapping there and then.
“OK, let’s get it over with then,” she said impudently. “How do you want me? Over your knees? Touching my toes? Hands on a chair? Bending over the back of the sofa here perhaps?”
“I told you not to speak until I am finished. The discipline I referred to is the Bexhill School for Girls.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Exactly what it says: it’s a school in Bexhill which has a firm approach to discipline. I believe they’ll keep girls like you on a short rein, hammer knowledge into your head, and - hey presto! - in a few years time you’ll emerge as a beautiful, educated swan!”
“Sounds like crap!”
“Possibly, but worth a try. I enrolled you today. You start in September.”
“No I won’t!”
“Debbie, you exhausted your mother’s patience this morning. You’ve exhausted mine now. Thanks for your suggestions: I think over the sofa will do nicely. Get into position while I fetch the strap.”
BEXHILL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, Assembly Page 1
