Oh! To Dream Of School Outfitters And Charity Shops

It all now seemed so long ago - perhaps it was all a dream.

“Come along, over my lap - that’s a good girl.”

As she had on countless previous mornings, Lavinia Vitesse surrendered to Aunt Julia’s authority without comment yet not entirely without protest - even if the latter went unvoiced. Dropping to her knees she allowed her aunt to guide her over her lap, draping herself across the woman’s plastic apron-covered skirt like a limp rag doll while continuing to clutch purposelessly at the elasticated waistband of her latex-lined pyjamas defensively as she did so. Laying there, her bottom encased in soft comforting plastic beneath her night things, she felt vulnerable and utterly juvenile, more like a toddler than an adolescent. Once, not so long ago, tears would have been flowing gently down her cheeks by this stage. The thought of lying across her aunt’s lap bare-bottomed to receive a trio of suppositories, her bottom cheeks prised apart under her aunt’s latex-gloved hands, had been not just humiliating but intolerable.

In the early days she would have simply refused, shaking her head in disbelief. Just as she had refused initially to wear the school uniform her aunt had bought for her, even around the house, just as she had balked at wearing those odd, polythene, knickers to bed. Aunt Julia had an answer to that - it was called the cane. And if she refused to touch her toes, grasp her ankles or bend over her bed, or indeed the dining room table or auntie’s writing desk in the study that doubled as her office? Well, then Aunt Julia had an answer to that, too: Just about to enter her eighteenth year, well past the age of consent and considered by most to have now fully blossomed into adult womanhood the potential for such dissent was understandable and ever-present; especially in an age in which corporal punishment was outlawed and practically unheard of. In fact to have not rebelled would have been less comprehensible to most.

But then, Aunt Julia didn’t think of herself as a woman of this age, she held more with the values and virtues of the Victorians. And were her charge, as her aunt now viewed her, to challenge those methods of correction - and it had happened, on more than one occasion in the past - Aunt Julia held the solution. It came in the form of the two shiny cellulose capsules she had just so obediently swallowed - or rather it would come in a day or two of not having her prescription fulfilled, when the fear and the panic would drive her ‘back into the fold’ as Aunt Julia was fond of saying. It was code for being under the woman’s thumb.

Now Aunt Julia had her practically back in nappies, or so she felt, and in one-piece drop-seat pyjamas; thick fluffy pink winceyette things with a flap over the bottom secured by two fat rubber buttons and a rubbery waterproof lining that extended from the waist to the upper one third of the thighs. School uniform was not only now worn about the house but outside of the house as well. Not that she was particularly encouraged out from her room any longer, let alone to venture outdoors, other than for her visits to her aunt’s therapist friend - despite her aunt’s avowed concern over her becoming agoraphobic. Indeed the thought had crossed her mind as to how much the latter might even suit her aunt, not to mention her guardian - the former as it kept her under her roof and subject to all those seemingly ever more restrictive rules and restrictions she seemed forever to be cooking up and the latter as out here in this isolated little spot she was out of harms way, out of everyone’s hair and unable to meddle in any of the schemes that hateful woman might be brewing up to prize her fingers away from her inheritance.

The innocuous secretarial-looking smart panelled skirt it had started with, having migrated through something akin to a flat-fronted wraparound PE or games kilt - knife pleated at the side and back - to an unmistakably school-girlish circular pleated waist skirt, then a zip-backed pinafore, had now become a fully-fledged archaic, early-nineteen-sixties or late fifties gymslip in some horrid bottle-green polyester / rayon blend. Blouses had become progressively more formal, then starched, then vertically striped, then teemed with a school tie, then gradually more and more high-collared - the latest incarnation even had exaggerated puff-ball shoulders and long stiff three-button cuffs that made it look even more like something from the past.

At some point, way back in this progression, by which time she had been coaxed step by step into something that to most eyes already approximated to a school uniform - and Aunt Julia could be as persuasive as she could be forceful when it suited her purpose - all pretence had been dropped. After a particularly fraught confrontation she had been marched straight down to the local school outfitters. This had turned out to be an achingly traditional emporium situated slap bang in the centre of a gently-curving Georgian terraced, flanked by several other shops of various kinds, pretty much all of which had preserved all of their original period character.

The shop itself consisted of a pair of timber framed, bow-fronted oriel windows with small glass panes either side of a central half-glazed door, the latter having the name of the proprietor and the words ‘school outfitters’ diagonally sign-written in scrolling gold-leaf across the glass and a bell dangling on a coiled spring bracket that embarrassingly clattered and clanged on entry. There she had been marched straight up to a glass-topped counter full of trays lined with diagonally-striped school ties and enamelled-pin and sew-on cloth badges where, in front of a teenage shop assistant who couldn’t have been all that much older than herself and a brace of clucking nodding middle-aged housewives wearing flowery headscarves, it was announced in an overly-strident tone that from that moment on she was to wear full school uniform at all times.

Stifled by embarrassment and prevented from rushing out by her fear of open spaces in the absence of the continually reassuring presence of Aunt Julia, she had found herself able to put up little resistance. She left with a bottle-green V-necked cardigan, emblazoned across the breast with the gold-thread insignia of a semi-local well-known girl’s grammar, fully buttoned over the basic plain, tailored skirt and open-necked blouse outfit in which she had arrived and a matching blazer, that in hindsight she now saw as reassuringly plain, over that - the latter with a cloth badge in the pocket that she would later be required to sew on to it herself.

Well, that had been her first experience of kowtowing to her aunt to the extent of being put in a real school uniform rather than something that had merely hinted in that direction. And compared to the uniform her aunt now insisted on at this point in their relationship it had been rather an informal affair, almost lackadaisical. Nevertheless she had felt a heavy burden of defeat pressing down on her as she had stumbled out, red faced with embarrassment, into the public glare of the street.

If she had felt crushed then, she was devastated some ninety minutes later when, with a heavy black plastic bin liner in each hand, she had been escorted into the charity shop that abutted the green in the neighbouring village, Aunt Julia taking up the rear with three others, two sacks in one hand and a fuller, gradually splitting one in the other. It was catching sight of her favourite slacks and the glitzy silver Donna Karan party dress oozing from the slit in that bag in her aunt’s hand that had really made her blanch. The latter had been the only really mature thing she owned now that she was effectively in self-imposed exile from her own home - albeit with the encouragement of her aunt - thanks to her dispute with her legal guardian.

That she had had to save so long from her allowance had been part and parcel of that spat - the way that woman, her guardian, had seemed driven to move heaven and earth, through this legal wrangle or that, with the result that the allowance she had received from her father’s trust fund had gradually dwindled to a meagre trickle. Under her aunt’s authority that trickle had now dried up altogether - but that was a different story; money had to be set aside if she was to mount a legal challenge when she came of age, she understood that, though it was difficult to set aside her independence until then..

She had been driven down in Aunt Julia’s hatchback run-around she occasionally used for shopping - though she had a woman for that - or visits to the garden centre or for dumping garden waste, the rear jam-packed with knotted black plastic sacks. Until that moment in the charity shop it had not dawned that she was being made instrumental in throwing - or rather, giving - away her own belongings; all her cloths, her mementoes, her phone, address books, her diary; everything she had had with her at Aunt Julia’s in fact. It was the moment she had realised her aunt had meant what she’d said in that shop when she’d talked about her being in school uniform from then on - she now had nothing else.

Of course what constituted ‘school uniform’ had not been at all that stringent then, not like it was now. There had been further visits to that outfitters - and later a corsetiere her aunt knew of - but now every garment her aunt provide her with was bespoke, to Aunt Julia’s own design or so it seemed and with discipline foremost in mind. Discipline, discipline, discipline, it was all she seemed to hear; you have to learn discipline; sit up straight; do as you’re told - it was a continual, if often surprisingly gentle, bullying that went on day and night. By day it was symbolised by that uniform Aunt Julia made her wear; by night it manifested in the precautions Aunt Julia took to ensure she didn’t ‘touch’ herself, in the sweaty discomfort of plastic pants and rubberised sanatorium- style bedding and by way of the ever-present unfulfilled aching lust in her loins.

No, although perhaps not particularly draconian in retrospect, the new addition to her attire that day of cardigan and blazer nevertheless did lead to a particularly bitterly embarrassing outcome later that afternoon; one that turned out to be particularly damaging to her self-esteem and confidence, so much so that it remained fresh in her mind still, growing like an out of proportion monster ever since and adding to her general dread of crowds and the outdoors. Now she would have automatically fully buttoned her blazer - it was one of Aunt Julia’s strictest rules. Back then she wouldn’t have wanted to - it would have made her feel stifled - and she hadn’t been told to fasten it either. She wished she’d had, perhaps then she might have gotten away with it, the insignia on that damn cardigan wouldn’t have been in view and those girls wouldn’t have seen it.

Again, in retrospect, she wondered what had been wrong with the charity shop a few doors down from the school outfitters, why they had had to drive aimlessly around for so long before her Aunt had finally opted for that particular shop. It had been perhaps only ten minutes away on foot from where they’d started out - just down the road, across the old humpback bridge and on the far side of the river - yet they’d messed about, circling round for near on an hour and a half before stopping. Then, already self-conscious, she’d exited the charity shop, Aunt Julia close behind ushering her out.

She’d reached the safety of the car, parked just across the pavement from the shop, before she had realised that her aunt had ducked back inside for something; she’d half-caught her saying something about her brolly but had been focused on getting inside. Without Aunt Julia by her side, the open sky, the wide expanse of the green opposite - one of the largest village greens in England - had brought a familiar tightness to her breast and a sickening pounding in her ears that she knew all too well. Beginning to feel faint and just a little dizzy she had taken a few deep breaths as her therapist had recommended, fighting to control the panic, before turning to face the empty pavement - a particularly broad expanse with a wide half-moon cobbled apron between it and the shops, this being where the village market would have been held, had it been a Thursday, which she thanked God it was not.

Clutching the car door handle for support she had closed her eyes, visualising the pavement as something narrow and easily traversed, banishing from her mind the idea of a swirling, suffocating throng - which she knew there was not, though somehow this trick of visualisation had the habit of backfiring, planting in her mind the very image she was trying to erase, like being told not to think about something and then finding you must.. Somewhere throughout a bell had been ringing, a fairly distant high pitched clamour with that varying muffled quality that tends to characterise sound wafting through windows and opening doors or swirling in on the wind, but she had placed it to one side, out of mind, concentrating instead on controlling the palpitations she feared she might otherwise suffer. Opening her eyes, Aunt Julia having still failed to reappear and thinking that her aunt must have become entrapped, chatting with the gossipy elderly women in the shop, she had turned, meaning to retrace her steps, having reassured herself that she had only the empty pavement to cross... except... the pavement wasn’t empty, not any longer.

Everywhere she looked seemed to have become a churning, ever-changing bobbing sea of a certain shade of green - a distinctive bottle green. Clusters of giggling young schoolgirls merged and dissipated then merged again like swirling fluidic vortexes shed from a bridge support in a fast-flowing stream as the chattering tide split, passing around the one market stall that had been left out and the rickety old handcart chained to it piled high with old empty wooden apple crates. Small tributaries had begun to join the throng, streaming across the road from the pavement opposite bordering the village green and passing between the closely parked cars in jostling single file, a constant dribble of uniformed girls now squeezing past fore and aft of her aunt’s hatchback and bracketing the increasingly self-conscious Lavinia.

Elsewhere others peeled off towards the shop fronts; the village bakery, the trendier crêperie and the ubiquitous village chip shop each drawing them in like iron filings to around a magnet. A small excitable semicircular group had congregated pushing and shoving outside the newsagent and confectioner’s where a signboard, prominently displayed behind the curved diamond lattice leaded glass window stated authoritatively ‘ONLY 3 SCHOOL CHILDREN AT A TIME’.

They had all been in conservative bottle-green pleated skirts that just grazed the tops of the knees and, to a girl, all clad in light brown cotton knee socks. Of course Lavinia had been wearing a style of skirt more suited to her years - though of precisely the same hue, or something very close - and her usual nylon pantyhose.

Teamed with the more sophisticated open necked white blouse she had been wearing it would have been coincidence and nothing more and she would have thought no more of it - just as she had thought little of it when her aunt had bought her that particular skirt. Yes it was in a rather unfashionable polyester but it was just a practical and functional office skirt, the colour just one of Aunt Julia’s little foibles, a shade she had just seemed to favour - she had never had to wear a uniform when she had been at school and until the visit to the outfitters the connection had just never occurred.

It was the addition of that blessed awful cardigan and blazer that had turned it into a uniform. And that was the real horror of the situation, the dawning realisation that the crest and motto emblazoned on the breast pockets of those girl’s school blazers was all too familiar, that it matched the insignia embroidered on the horrid little buttoned cardigan she was wearing, that these girls were from the very school that insignia represented.

“Are you all right?” The girl had been one of the older ones, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, her shoulder length ash blond hair pulled back into a ponytail with a green scrunchie. She had had a friendly smile on her lips and a concerned wrinkle on her brow and a breathtakingly pretty heart shaped face with a neat little chin that hovered above a tightly buttoned shirt collar encircled by a red and gold diagonally-striped school tie that was firmly knotted at her throat and that lay neatly on show between the lapels of her fully buttoned blazer.

Lavinia had known she looked pale, was shaking and was noticeably upset and that the danger was that she was likely to draw attention to herself. Yet there was little she could do: Being in the midst of a crowd, any crowd was enough to fill her with a cold creeping dread. If being trapped in a midst of a clamouring crowd of schoolgirls was a nightmare then finding herself dressed in some ways almost identical to them was a the worst possible nightmare. The culmination of any such nightmare, the point at which she might have woken up screaming, the bed soaked with sweat, had it actually been a night terror - and she’d fervently wished at the time it had been - was to have one of them actually address her. But that was exactly what had happened back then on that fateful day, the questions coming thick and fast and her face burning with shame and humiliation throughout.

“What year are you in?”

“Are you with Mr Wilfred’s group? Come on, if you’re sick I’ll take you back inside.”

“Don’t be silly, she must be from the sixth form, from the sixth form college - are you from the college?”

“Now who is being ridiculous - they don’t have to wear uniforms in the sixth form college; daft cow.”

“Well she hasn’t got on the correct skirt - look, it’s the right colour but it’s panelled and tailored like one of my mother’s; just look how tight it is across her bum. And she hasn’t got her tie on...And there’s no badge on her blazer... She’s from the sixth form college - you are, aren’t you?”

They were all around her now clamouring, all talking at once, questioning nonsensically, their voices joining together in one long Amazonian parrot squawking cacophony. One girl - bolder than the rest - had flicked back one wing of her open blazer, staring at the label on the inside pocket and scrutinizing the cardigan underneath:

“No, no she’s one of us, look she’s wearing the cardigan - look it has the school crest on it and everything. It’s the right blazer, too. It’s from the official outfitters, but it’s brand new, that’s why there is no badge. It’s not her fault; her family must not have much money. It’s one of the cheaper ones they’ve introduced, you know - where they give you a cloth thing to go with it, a badge that has to be sewn on at home afterwards. That’s why she’s already out of school - she’s been to the school shop with her mum for a new blazer.”

“But she’s wearing tights.” Another girl had chimed in - a young thing probably not much older than twelve, perhaps thirteen tops, but having a snooty carefully-enunciated pattern of speech sounding way beyond her years. “We’re not allowed to wear tights until the sixth form, the last couple of years before going off to university.”

Those tan-coloured tights Aunt Julia had used to buy her; how she wished to god she had those now rather than the frilled teardrop socks Aunt Julia so often insisted she wear about the house. At least she was allowed knee socks to wear out, and sometimes even stockings, though the latter did nothing to dispel the childishness she felt, being itchy black lisle and hung from the suspenders of a wool-lined liberty bodice or, for certain purposes, an Elastane-panelled corselette. Her thoughts spun back again to that awful day and the ordeal she had found herself inadvertently trapped in:

“You’re going to be in all sorts of trouble if you’re seen wearing those with your uniform if you’re not in the sixth form.” Yet another of the younger section had offered, giggling immaturely. There had been laughter then, mocking peals of laughter, some of it forced and clearly aimed to embarrass - that had been the most bitter - some of it accompanied by mock gasps of “oh my God”.

“But she’s so tall.” That girl, too, had been right. Naturally willowy with a catwalk models stature and still at that stage being allowed certain of her ‘grownup’ shoes with heels; she stood at least a head’s height above all but the tallest, a couple of particularly gawky specimens at the back - more above the majority.

“Well I’ve not seen her around - what class you in again?”

“She’s one of the new girls, the ones we’re taking in from some of those poorer schools in the town - that’s why she looks so... so tarty”. More peals of laughter.

Whether it was her height or her mature and relatively buxom build - the school cardigan on her looked notably incongruous over her bustline even though not particularly well endowed in that department - they were all over her. She looked like one of them, was dressed nearly identically, yet somehow didn’t merge in with them. Not that any of them seemed to question that she was actually at their school - and that seemed to make it all the worse; she was their latest figure of fun, a replacement for the two gawky girls that hung back and that undoubtedly would ordinarily be the target of their jibes and putdowns. To make matters worse, rapidly becoming overcome with that all too familiar dread and unable to offer up any sort of defence, she had begun to cry at that point, not loudly, just silent salty tears trickling down.

“If you’re not in the sixth form, how old are you? I bet you she’s just fourteen or fifteen like me, she’s just a bit stringy, aren’t you love, a bit of a beanpole like ‘Little Jenny’ over there.” This one, a bit of a ringleader and chewing gum, indicated with her shoulder one of the two gawky things at the back, the taller of the two. Lavinia had had no idea how to reply - to give her real age, rather than respect, would have earned her ridicule. To agree with that laughing mare of a girl was to humiliate herself in a different way, entering in to the role her aunt was mapping out for her. Her head in turmoil and her pulse pounding in her ears to a backdrop of shrill calking laughter she had brought her hands up to her face.

“Look she’s crying, the new girl is crying. You’re not going to last long here if you burst into tears as easy as that”

As much as anything else all that talk about the sixth form had got to her; had she not gone to live with her aunt when she had she would have been approaching the end of the upper six form herself having just taken her final examinations and preparing to move on to university. Indeed she had been informally offered a dance scholarship at a renowned performing arts college already, based on her earlier academic achievements. As much as her guardian might have baulked and complained about the school fees that woman could have done nothing legally to curtail her studies and she would have never have stood for her interfering in any way in her plans. It was ironic, then, that when she had gone to live with Aunt Julia, her aunt ostensibly taking her side against her guardian and taking her under her wing, one of the first things her aunt had done, once she had been brought sufficiently under her control, was to take her out of school. Somehow Aunt Julia could do that sort of thing - she could stand up against most people but not Aunt Julia.

Somehow she had managed to ford the surging river of girls and reach the door of the charity shop, only to have it flung open by the manageress - a flustered bustling red-faced woman - even as her fingers had tightened around the handle. Through the doorway behind the woman’s back she could see two or three figures dressed in that all too familiar shade of green circulating around one of those rotating floorstanding display stands stuffed with paperback books such shops usually possessed. A hand was held up in front of her barring her way and an elderly finger pointed at the handwritten card rocking behind the glass panel of the door, her brusque manner and tone shocking Lavinia to the core:

“Can’t you read, child? Don’t they teach you to read on in that school of yours? It says: Only three school children at a time. There are three of your chums in here already and that is all we can keep an eye on. We can’t have great mobs of you in here, hands all over the place. - We’ve lost enough stock as it is that way over the years. You’ll just have to wait outside until they come out I’m afraid”.

Lavinia had felt her cheeks burn, the words of explanation she should have given freezing on her tongue; but then saying that she was looking for her aunt would have done nothing to dispel the impression the woman had obviously formed of her - the woman could see no further than the uniform and its implications. That term ‘child’ had bitten hard and the offhanded way she had been dismissed even more so.

The door had been about to be shut in her face, condemning her to the jostling horde, though in truth it had begun to thin out, when someone had taken her by the hand from behind and a familiar cultured, authoritative voice had spoken:

“I’m terribly sorry Mrs Quillick; this is my niece, Lavinia, the girl I told you about.”

The stony faced silver haired woman holding the door had allowed a slightly feeble smile to stretch her thin lips. Discarding the stridency her voice had possessed only moments earlier, adopting a more discreetly intimate tone, she had nodded towards Lavinia as if she herself would be unable to comprehend and before addressing her aunt standing at her shoulder.

“No’ I’m the one who should apologise, Ms Soames; I didn’t recognise her from earlier, what with all the other girls rushing past behind her.”

“I shouldn’t worry Mrs Quillick...”

“Evelyn, please.”

“...Evelyn. I shouldn’t worry: I think you were out the back when she brought the bin bags in. I expect you only caught a fleeting glimpse.”

“They all look the same after a while in their uniforms, real little madams some of them.” Beckoning the pair of them into the shop the woman had dropped her voice still lower, adopting a semi-whisper, yet still loud enough to be audible to Lavinia and briefly glancing back at her over her shoulder. “Is anything wrong? She’s shaking like a leaf, she looks like she’s been crying... and she looks awfully pale to me.”

“She’s not been very well of late.”

“What is wrong with her?” The woman, she remembered, had been regarding her with a sort of patronising concern written on her face that hadn’t quite rung true, a little twitch of a smile hanging around at the corners of her mouth. She could distinctly remember how the elderly woman’s lips showed that excessively coating of lipstick that such women seemed compelled to apply, the thick waxy foundation that looked fit to crack like a mask and the overly-shaded hooded eyes the woman had.

“Oh nothing physical...” Aunt Julia had answered matter-of-factly before then dropping her voice conspiratorially. “...just a few, how shall we say?... psychological...ah...difficulties, that’s all.”

“Oh! I didn’t realise - I’m so sorry.” The woman had nodded again towards Lavinia smiling, that wan smile of hers now coloured with sympathy. For her part Lavinia had felt her cheeks burning and remembered praying for the ground to swallow her up, seeing two of the three mid-teenage schoolgirls, thumbing through a slightly racy romance novel together, nudge each other giggling knowingly and realising that both her aunt and the manageress had now moved into their earshot.

“Oh I’m sure it’ll come to nothing - just as long as she follows my advice. Young Lavinia, here, just has a... an issue, yes, an issue with crowds... and open spaces.” Another giggle had bubbled from the smiling bookworms, neither of whom was any longer paying attention to the book and both of whom were furtively glancing sideways at her; their companion had now also edged her way into earshot, pretending to rake through a box of vinyl records nearby that she couldn’t possibly have had any interest in.

“Agoraphobic, then?” The woman had offered.

“Yes slightly and admittedly worsening. And there are certain... behavioural problems that need to be addressed, one or two other minor mental health issues. But she’s seeing a psychotherapist friend of mine and as long as she does as she is instructed she is going to be just fine...” Aunt Julia had raised her voice slightly, smiling and placing an arm around her shoulders before completing the sentence. “... wont you pumpkin?” She’d dumbly nodded, only too aware that her face was now glowing like a red-hot poker; aware too of the whispering between the little knot of girls - all three having by this time gathered around some literary gem that had suddenly developed a undeniable teenage fascination - the words ‘mental’ and ‘head-case’ drifting painfully to her ears.

Presumably sensing the undesirable nature of the interest being shown by the girls and wishing to change the subject the woman had then ushered the two of them over towards a cloths rail that she remembered had seemed to run the entire length of the shop and that was supplemented by two shorter rails, one mounted above and one below towards the door.

“I think you said you were interested in the Playtex, Ms Soames. I think it should fit, looking at her. Would you like her to try it now - we have a fitting room at the back?” With that the elderly manageress had plucked a hanger from the midst of an array of crumple poplin dresses, swinging up on to her outstretched other arm and hand a pinkish ‘flesh toned’ rubber girdle of indeterminate vintage. Lavinia recalled it had been an old-fashioned thing, moulded in one continuous piece with the four trailing rubber suspender straps each an extension of the body of the garment and terminating in white metal tabs. She’d heard the giggling behind her and had shaken her head wildly when the woman had nodded towards a narrow alcove with a bench seat and mirror towards the rear of the shop having little more than a skimpy curtain hanging from rings threaded on a thick brass pole for privacy.

She could still hear Aunt Julia’s words as the fabric-lined latex garment had been unceremoniously plonked in her hands. “I think that would be for the best, just to be on the safe side. She’ll have to wait for me by the car again if not - I have another couple of things to see to at the post office next door.” With that, blinded by unimaginable embarrassment and guided by an arm around her shoulders she had found herself enfolded by the scant privacy of the fitting room, the thin worn curtain having been drawn across with what she remembered as a wheezy metallic scraping sound. She could remember staring dolefully at the thing laid across her lap, hearing the bell on the shop door rattling at her aunt’s departure and the simultaneous fading of girlish laughter moving out on to the street as those mocking girl’s, too, had exited.

Had she imagined her aunt’s voice chatting cheerfully out on the pavement as the door had opened and eased shut once again, her purse closing with that characteristic springy click it had and a younger voice filled with a tone of gratitude? She didn’t know for sure; she’d been too busy fumbling with the unfamiliar undergarment and the high-waisted nineteen-fifties style ‘Gymphlex’ knickers that had then been tossed in though the gap in the centre of the drapes - “I forgot to say, your aunt asked me to tell you to change into these while you’re in there, she bought them earlier”. All she had known for sure was that the implication in her aunt’s words had been clear enough and no matter how humiliating or embarrassing, the alternative of waiting for her, out there, alone in the street by the car’ had not been an option.

Even now - perhaps more so than ever now - she couldn’t quite believe that her aunt would have picked that particular shop deliberately; just a quarter of a mile from the school whose uniform she had dressed her in. Nor could she believe that she had been driven around and around waiting for that particular time of day. The chances were that Aunt Julia didn’t know the exact location of the place, or simply just didn’t think. “Cruelty plays no part in discipline”, as Aunt Julia always says: “I must be firm, strict even - for your own sake - but never cruel. When I have to punish, when you give me no choice, it is to correct, to refine, behaviour, for your own good, to improve you - not for its own sake.”

Nowadays she had learned if asked, not that she came into social contact with many, to give her age accordingly, to fit in with her appearance and the way she tended to be treated. And the way she tended to be treated was highly influenced by her appearance, which in turn tended to modulate the way she both responded and felt about herself. She had learned too, now, to always do as she was told - but she didn’t need to be told how to behave when lying across her aunt’s knee.

Unbidden, Lavinia now folded her arms in the small of her back, gripping each elbow with the hand of the opposite arm. In response to this submissive tractable behaviour a satisfied smile spread across the older woman’s face, her bright blue eyes glittering deep in the shadow of her high-fronted starched white nurse’s cap and echoing the royal blue of her uniform dress. She was totally dedicated to this system of discipline she had developed - it certainly seemed effective when it came to taming a petulant teenager.

The indignant pout playing around Lavinia’s generous lips was as predictable as the rising of the sun and equally as inspiring in the tyrannical woman’s eyes - that and the hot glow painting the girl’s otherwise pallid cheeks brought a fresh, girlish prettiness to her charge that seemed both to justify her methods and encourage her to even greater stringency.

The girl’s demeanour, the sloth-like manner in which she positioned herself across her lap, both delighted and amused her: Lavinia was now displaying the kind of reluctant passivity more common in children who, realising they will have to obey eventually, acquiesce while not wanting to be seen to comply willingly. It had been yet another sign to the girl’s aunt of her charge’s gradual and progressive regression at her hands.

Regression therapy might well be a controversial intervention, it might well have been described in the past as having the potential to be emotionally and psychologically devastating, - and perhaps it was deleterious in that manner - but it was the approach Julia Soames favoured. And she’d been in no doubt that it was bringing about the changes that were required of the girl, those little alterations in her personality...