Alice Under Discipline, Part 2
Page 21
Of the less fortunate, those left behind to languish in the infernally hot workrooms in their Bri-nylon workhouse uniform dresses, tabards and aprons; some would go on to one day take the vows of ‘Holy Orders’ themselves, becoming nuns and so part of the machinery of this corrupt (and corrupting) Church establishment. Others, their eyesight fading, ruined by the long soul-destroying hours of close needlework in the dimly-lit, continually-shuttered workrooms or hands clawed by tendon damage and ligament contraction would eventually move on to courser work or ironing and then - some now possibly only partially sighted - would be put to work toiling in the fields, tilling the soil like yoked bullocks under the tropical Sub-Saharan African sun until well into middle age.
The appearance of middle age will arrive early here of course; the patterns of old age following on even more rapidly, as the sun’s ultraviolet rays work their wrinkling, leathering magic on soft peaches-and-cream English-country-garden complexions. Teeth will loosen surprisingly, shockingly, early, hair will thin out and arthritis will gnarl and twist delicate fingers like old twigs and knobble knuckles with arthritic nodules like rough barnacle-encrusted pebbles. But then, the life expectancy at birth for the general population is only forty-seven years, and only a little over a third reach forty; so they should perhaps think themselves lucky that by the grace of God they’ll likely survive beyond those years, even if worked to the bone and decrepit.
One can only guess at the additional anguish suffered by a tousle-haired twenty-four or twenty-five year old when, bent over the trestle yet again, bottom bared and awaiting the attentions of the overseer’s cane - a large, portly and profusely sweating tribal African woman - she catches her reflection in a metal tray on the ground. How is she to feel, seeing how the once-taut skin covering those high cheek bones is beginning to sag, how her eyes have dulled and sunken, how the bags have grown beneath, blue-darkening and circled, and how the first few wrinkles are beginning to line her forehead reminding her of her mother’s own, but when that woman had been hitting her forties?
Little wonder, then, if a girl should opt, given the choice - half a chance even - to take her vows, become part of the whip-hand, part of the machinery, an overseer herself. Or even if the life of a concubine or household servant should be preferable, however degrading and humiliating. But these are not considerations that need trouble Alice; her fate has already been mapped out for her... in part. But what proportion of that future will encompass the reassuring cosiness of the straitjacket and comforting routine of the psychiatric ward or the embarrassing, belittling, humility of the maid’s uniform and an existence spent pressed into service under the yoke of her hated stepmother - reduced to the status of a lowly servant girl in what should morally and legally be her own home - still remained to be seen...
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