To the ballet, dahlings…

In Budapest for work last week, I treated myself to an evening at the State Opera House, watching a rather splendid new ballet. (I say ‘treated’: the tickets came to the equivalent of £4 / $6).

It started at 7pm prompt. As the conductor walked to his podium, a mother and daughter appeared – flustered – and sat down in the seats on the opposite side of the aisle to me. The former was severe-looking; the latter (aged twenty or so?) really rather demurely gorgeous.

I couldn’t help but imagine the scolding that had been given on the tram on the way to their last-minute arrival at the performance: “I told you to get ready to leave by 6.15… Don’t you argue with me, young lady… I’m warning you… Right: you’ve left me no choice but to punish you when we get home… No, no more discussion.”

The poor lass would spend the next three hours entirely distracted. It had been two years or more since she had last been in such trouble, and she prayed she might be able to negotiate her way out of it later. But once her mother’s mind was set… It would start with a spanking over the knee, as it always had done – hard enough to make her cry, if she hadn’t already given in to tears before the punishment started. But after? Would her mother’s harsh hand be deemed enough? Or would she be told to remove her knickers and then to fetch the heavy hairbrush – or, worse still, the leather strap from the living room, where is still hung next to the fireplace as a warning, a reminder and a deterrent.