Sent home

Sitting in the railway station buffet, awaiting a much-delayed train. A Range Rover pulled up outside, in what was supposed to be the taxi rank; two girls, clearly sisters, emerged from the station and walked over to their father’s car, hand-in-hand.

One lived at home, I surmised: doing well at the local grammar school. Her younger sibling boarded at a posh public school, to which she’d gained a scholarship – and from which she’d just been suspended for a week for arguing with and then pushing a teacher.

And oh, how protective the elder lass felt. For she’d seen the switches that daddy had cut from the garden that morning and sat at the kitchen table trimming and tying. She knew from bitter experience how much a birching hurt when she incurred her father’s displeasure and disappointment. She realised that, when they got home, her sister would be taken without further ado into the living room; how the door would be shut firmly behind them. An explanation – not that there could be one – would be sought. How the younger girl’s shortcomings would be discussed, her apologies and vows of future good conduct noted but ignored when it came to confirming her sentence. How the punishment would be inflicted – bent over the arm of the sofa, her skirt lifted and her knickers lowered below her knees, flogged until she’d sobbed and pleaded and finally fallen silent – beaten and ashamed.

How she’d be sent to their room, to lie face down on her bed. How she’d be left alone, for at least half an hour, before her father permitted her big sister to go up and hold her, comfort her, dry her tears, reassure her. And how daddy would hug them both tight when his girls finally came back down some time later, and how no more would be spoken of what had happened now that it had been thoroughly dealt with.