Tim and the Titch

By Mike Ward

To be seventeen years old is a great thing. To know that one is nearing the end of tedious school days with their unrelenting timetables and stress-inducing workloads. To know oneself to be a man even if others still look upon you as a boy, or at best a �youth�. But regardless of what others may think, at seventeen a young man knows that very soon he will be eighteen and have attained the traditional age of publicly acknowledged personal responsibility; the right to vote, and of more immediate interest, the right to buy alcohol. To be seventeen years old is a great thing and it would be even better if others, and most especially parents, would acknowledge one�s maturity and insights. A seventeen year-old knows stuff, indeed nowadays most seventeen year olds know more stuff than their parents could dream of knowing even after years of university and working life.

Thoughts such as these were going through the mind of Tim Swain as he worked his way home along the suburban streets that would eventually take him home. I say that he worked his way along the streets rather than simply walked as young Tim was, not for the first time, quite drunk, and walking was proving to be more demanding than usual. Tim liked being drunk. He loved that heady feeling of freedom, the increasingly pleasant notion that if a guy wanted to sing or dance in the street, there was really no good reason for not doing so. Other than the fact that dancing seemed to be out of the question for the moment. He also liked drinking, that feeling of easy sociability as the big cider bottle was passed around among an intimate group of friends with the solemnity of a peace-pipe.

Speaking of pipes; there was an added sense of achievement as Tim remembered his first pull on a dope-enhanced roll-up. That had been earlier in the evening when one of his mates had lit up and offered a joint around the circle. It had been nowhere near as good as alcohol, but, like losing your virginity it was a stage in the path from childhood to adulthood, and Tim was glad that it had happened. He certainly wouldn�t want to be one of those nerds who turned up at university with virginity intact and no experience of the good things of life.

Ah yes, losing your virginity. Tim stood into a rhododendron bush by someone�s gate and pissed into the darkness. Bliss. Tim preferred to think of his fumbled minutes with Michelle as the moment when he passed that particular milestone and he allowed his mind to play back an enhanced image of that treasured moment. But for some reason, conscience perhaps, or just association, Michelle was always supplanted in his thoughts at these moments by Philip. Months before Michelle there had been Philip. Indeed, months before Michelle, Philip had had Tim. But that had just been a passing phase, an adolescent exploration. Tim shook himself dry and gently zipped up again. It was really quiet, it must have been really late. Under a street-light Tim managed to interpret the blurred hands of his watch and concluded that it must have been after two o�clock in the morning. It had been a great night; but no more than a proper celebration. The summer holidays were officially underway. Only one more year of bloody school to get through and then he would be off to university and his real life would get underway. It was great being seventeen.

Tim was pleased enough that the house was in darkness as he silently engaged in the delicate task of opening the front door. Parents are always at their best when they are not to be seen, and Tim was conscious enough of his genial state to know that if they had been up there would have been a prolonged and painful discussion. Tim hated parental discussions. They always went on and on and on, and it wasn�t as if they ever mentioned anything that you didn�t know already. �You�re drunk!� Well, duhhh, yeah, that would be because I�ve been drinking insanely large quantities of alcohol. �You only got a B.� Well it would be hard to get anything less in RE! Parents, so stupid, you�d wonder how they�d manage to get it together enough to do the necessary and produce their kids. It was definitely time to sleep, but first there was the little matter of a visit to bathroom. It would be nice, just a little comforting, just to kneel here by the toilet for a few minutes until this slightly nasty feeling passed.

It was late in the afternoon. With the resilience of youth Tim swung himself out of his bed and greeted the first afternoon of the long summer holidays. No fucking school, brilliant! He grabbed a towel and wrapped it round his waist, a gesture towards decency as he stepped out of his bedroom and into the bathroom. Somehow it had seemed right, about a year or so ago, to ditch pyjamas. Tim liked sleeping naked. Pyjamas were just so childish, or so middle-aged. And it just made things so much easier when stepping into the shower or whenever he felt like having a little play with tiny Tim.

Alive and ready to embrace the day and whatever adventures it might bring, Tim returned to his room. It took a moment or two. Actually, to be honest it took over three minutes before Tim�s brain kicked into action and concluded that the reason he couldn�t find any clothes to wear was because there were simply no clothes whatsoever in his room. Not even the gear he had been wearing the previous night, not even the old dressing gown that usually hung on the back of the door. Nothing. This was completely weird. And then he laughed. As jokes go this was actually pretty good; must have been his sister, he�d have to get her back.

He wandered downstairs wearing his towel. The house was empty of any other person. No sister, no parents, not even the dog. On the kitchen worktop was a note; �we�re all out, back later, you might want to look over the contents of this envelope�. The envelope was addressed to his parents and bore the logo of his school. Ah yes, the old routine of the school report; another thing that would come to an end within the year. It wasn�t dreadful; mostly Cs, one A, a couple of Bs and an F from that bastard Hitchens. Nothing to worry about.

Tim had worked it out long ago; teachers always mark their pupils down in the hope that they might be scared into doing more work. Old Hitch the Titch was an ancient hand at this game. He really picked on Tim and kept making snide remarks about how Tim�s dad had always come top of his class in the old days. Yeah, the Titch had a real chip on his shoulder but that might have been because his shoulders only reached the stomachs of some sixth-formers. Or it might have been down to the fact that he was so old that he had been on the staff when Tim�s dad was a lad. Whatever his problem was, there was no point taking his marking too seriously. Come the real exams it would all be different. Tim had seen it before. His GCSE mocks had produced abysmal results, the real thing had been great. It was all a great swindle, but no doubt the rents would be ranting as usual. But it was cool. This stuff could be handled and anyway, Titch had retired at the end of this term and good riddance to him.

Tim went back upstairs and opened the laundry basket hoping to find something to wear, but his Mum was clearly on top of the laundry, the basket was empty. He tried the doors of the other bedrooms, all locked, the first time he had ever come across a locked room in this house other than the bathroom. Back downstairs he looked in the washing machine and the tumble dryer. Nothing, absolutely nothing. He had no clothes to wear and that was that. He settled down with a bowl of cereal in front of the telly. Good bloody joke, if someone didn�t come home soon with his clothes he would miss meeting up with his mates again.

He heard the front door opening, at last he might be released from his naked prison. They might think it funny but Tim was determined to give them a piece of his mind. He rewrapped his towel around his waist and went out to greet the new arrival. There were two of them, his dad and shockingly, the fucking Titch. What was he doing here?

Tim said hi anyway. If his dad wanted to hang around with ancient tossers it was no real concern of his. But right now he needed some clothes, there were things to do, holidays to be celebrated, and a possible secret party at the home of a bloke a few streets away. Tim was ready to be up and out and no doubt his dad could help him find something to wear. But Dad was in some sort of contrary mood. All he said was, �we need to talk�. There was something in the tone as well as the words that alerted Tim to possible dangerous waters ahead. Dad and the Titch went on into the kitchen and called Tim in after them. The report was in the Titch�s hands. Shit, but this was going to be one long bloody lecture. Tim figured that the simplest thing would be to let it all wash over but first he reckoned that the dignity of some clothes might help him withstand the inevitable onslaught.

But his Dad�s reply was really weird. He just said that he thought that Tim was actually over-dressed for what was about to be said and the actions that would follow, and then he just let rip. Dangerous waters! This was a serious storm. Dad just freaked and freaked. Tim was a disgrace. Tim was heading for total failure in his A-levels. Tim would certainly never manage to get a place at even a third-rate university at this rate. Tim was just going to have to knuckle down and change his ways. The days of partying were over. Tim must have a really thick neck to think that he could produce an abysmal report like this and yet come home in the early hours of the morning waking the whole household with his drunken retching in the bathroom. He would just have to repeat this whole school year and see if he could develop a better attitude to his studies. And then the cataclysmic bombshell. Tim was going to be tutored by Mister Hitchens through the summer holidays, and starting right now they were going to see if the more traditional approach to schooling which had done Tim�s dad so much good and helped him get to Cambridge would help Tim reform himself.

Any protest seemed futile. Tim felt that his near-nakedness left him at a serious disadvantage, but he was also shocked by his father�s rage. Neither of his parents had ever spoken to him like this before. In fact, nobody had ever spoken to him like this. It was as if his mind was overwhelmed by his dad�s anger. Random bits of what had been said seemed to register at different times. Spend the summer holidays being tutored by the Titch, that was just outrageous. Repeat the whole year! To leave school with a younger group a year after his friends had gone on to uni. He couldn�t stand for that. And what was all this muck about traditional schooling meant to be about? His dad had clearly lost it. Tim guessed that if he proclaimed his remorse and promised to do better immediately then all this stupid stuff would soon pass over. It was obvious that his dad had been put up to this by the Titch. Tim would just let things quieten down and try talking more sensibly with his dad when the Titch was gone.

Poor Tim. Things quietened down all right but that was just the total silence that descended when the Titch reached into a briefcase and uncurled an iconic school cane. Iconic because although Tim had never seen one outside of ancient comics, he recognised it for what it was. The cane was passed to Dad and Tim just knew from the calmness in Dad�s eyes that he really intended to put that thing to use. Tim did what he had to do, turned and fled upstairs to his bedroom and put his shoulder to the door. His dad was right behind him and for a guy who wasn�t at all overweight he managed to put a lot of mass into opening that bedroom door. Tim found himself sprawled on the floor, his precious towel fallen away, and his dad glaring down at him. �Right son, let�s get this out of the way and then maybe we can get down to the details of how you are going to be spending the next couple of years�.

Now it had been a long time since Tim had even been slapped and he certainly wasn�t keen to volunteer his naked backside for that cane but in his panic he couldn�t get the words out to beg his dad to leave him alone. Instead, in some sort of fugue-like state, Tim stood up and was pushed into position over his desk by his dad. Let Dad do whatever he wanted; Tim was thinking about how as soon as this was over and he had his clothes back he was going to be out of this house forever. No way was he going to have extra study sessions with that fucking Titch. No way was he going to be repeating a year of school. No way was he going to stay in this house for even one more day if his Dad was going to freak like this.

The cane made contact for the first time. Tim�s furious thoughts now turned to an intense concentration on the pain which was totally unlike anything else he had ever experienced in his seventeen years. He had imagined that the cane would be pretty much like any other extreme pain like a kick in the nuts, but there was something else here, this was pure pain, distilled pain. And it came again and again, six times in total.

Even a lad born at the end of the nineteen eighties and so exempted from this kind of formal corporal punishment throughout his life knew enough about the old days of caning to know that six-of-the-best was the usual sentence and Tim breathed out on the sixth stroke and marvelled at the fact that he was still alive. Not only was he alive, he had the strange sensation of being more alert than he had ever been. Adrenalin was pulsing through his body in a way that no football game or boyish adventure had ever produced. The thrill was wonderful. Then the adrenalin must have dropped back to a more normal rate of production and all at once Tim became aware of the pain again, throbbing, bitter, agonising pain.

�That�s that for now,� he heard his dad saying. �When you are ready, get dressed and come back downstairs while we go over the next stage in our plans to get you back on track�.

Well, at least he had been told to get dressed. Tim heard his dad leave the room and a few moments later he pushed himself up. He picked up his towel, rubbed his face, and eyed the bag his dad had thrown on the bed. He wasn�t all that surprised to find that it contained his school uniform and with an air of tortured resignation he pulled on the white shirt and buttoned it up. He glanced at himself in the wardrobe mirror and noticed the marks on his backside. They looked pretty impressive in a cruel way and he moved closer to get a better look. He was definitely getting out of here, there was no way that he was taking anything like that again. He reached for his underpants and they tumbled out with his trousers. Well, they were his underpants in kind of way, being a pair of blue briefs that had been lying in his underwear drawer for a couple of years since he had switched to trunks. But these certainly weren�t his trousers. He was trapped. His life was in ruins.

Going downstairs required a great massing of will over reason. Tim now knew that things had moved to a point way beyond his control. There was, he realised, no way that he was going to voluntarily leave the house and go outside dressed like this. Running away and making his own way in the world was out of the question when the only clothes you had were these stupid school clothes and in particular these, well, Tim couldn�t even bring himself to think about the trousers he had just pulled on. If it wasn�t for these trousers Tim might have made his escape and chanced his luck on getting to sleep on a sofa somewhere until this nightmare had passed. But that was a terrifying prospect; no way could he allow himself to be seen by any of his friends while wearing this outfit. The only thing to do would be to go downstairs and hope that somehow his dad might see reason.

But in the kitchen, standing to attention, Tim�s thoughts turned to complete despair as his dad outlined plans for Tim�s immediate future. Kind Mister Hitchens had been persuaded to take Tim away and tutor him through the summer holidays. The Titch, it seemed, had a retirement cottage in the West Country, near the coast, away in the countryside, far from distractions and temptations. It would be good for Tim, it had been decided, if he was packed off to such a place with an attentive and interested teacher to instruct him and set him back on the path of study, work, and general graft. Nobody wanted to see Tim throw away his obvious talents. Surely Tim could see that this was all for the best.

Tim stood still and grappled with the concepts and words that were being thrown at him. Actually he didn�t feel that he was throwing away any talents. He certainly didn�t believe that he was putting any less effort into his studies than anyone else in his class. This was all just so unfair. He tried to articulate these thoughts when he was given the chance but somehow it all came out so confused and it didn�t help his case that his dad told him that even though class-rankings were no longer put on school reports he knew from Mister Hitchens that Tim, who had shone so brightly as an A-student only a year ago, was now riding along at the bottom of his year-group in several subjects.

Tim and the Titch would be leaving for Devon as soon as lunch was over. He wouldn�t need to bring much with him as the Titch would take him shopping for some �suitable� clothing to help focus his mind on his studies. Traditional discipline, attentive tutoring, less fashionable clothing, the absence of computer games and television, and lots of healthy exercise; these would be the key elements to getting his life back on track. There would be absolutely no negotiation. Tim heard the words and knew that he was doomed. There was no obvious way of escaping without being utterly humiliated in front of his friends. He had no doubt at all, as through tear-filled eyes he looked at the Titch, that this would be a miserable summer holiday. His first caning had proved an eloquent explanation of what was meant by those terrifying words, �traditional discipline�.

He wanted to run, but he did not dare, and in a daze he nodded his submission. What else could he do? He knew that he needed to finish school and get to university if he was to have any chance of making a decent living. He knew that he really wanted to get into a decent university and make the most of that chance to postpone the bitter realities of working life. He needed his dad�s money to make this possible and if it was going to take a few weeks of torture to make that happen then maybe it would be worth it. There were some ominous references in his dad�s lecture to the possibility of a fresh start, a chance to try again in new surroundings, an opportunity to make some decent friends instead of constantly hanging around with �that gang of thugs�. Tim suspected that there was more to these plans of his dad�s than he really understood just yet; but he didn�t feel that this was the moment to start arguing and questioning. It definitely was not the time to get into another row, not now that the Titch had picked up that vicious cane and was flexing it in that threatening way.

�Well lad, if you are going to be spending time under my tutelage and authority, it might be as well if we started off with a little reminder of what you can expect should you choose to be disobedient.�

Tim was directed into position, bent over and gripped his ankles. The Titch moved around behind him and eyed the target. That youthful backside was simply perfect for the purpose. Those perfect buttocks seemed to radiate a magnetic attraction for the cane as he carefully lined up his first stroke. It had been a grim day for the Titch when schools had been prohibited from making use of corporal punishment. Somehow teaching had never been as interesting thereafter. But things were working out just fine. Tim�s dad had always been an impressionable lad. It hadn�t taken much to convince him that his son�s behaviour was even worse than that of any other teenage boy. And now, bent over in front of him, was the sacrificial youth, his backside presented ever so beautifully with its covering of grey terylene. Even the Titch couldn�t believe how readily the older Swain had acquiesced to the suggestion that young Tim might prove more malleable and obedient if his urban-chic baggy jeans were to give way to a proper pair of old-fashioned grey schoolboy short-trousers. The Titch was old enough to remember the days when thirteen and fourteen year old boys wore shorts more often than not. It must have been, � what? Gosh, some thirty five years since he had lasted lined up the cane over a short-trousered backside.

Well, there would be plenty of canings in the weeks ahead. Retirement might not prove as desolate a prospect as he had been expecting. He wondered if the years of prohibition might have taken the edge off his technique. He need not have feared. The first stroke landed with that long-forgotten thud that was the old familiar sound of an evenly-placed stroke. There was that little gasp from the boy and suddenly it was if the past few decades, with all the nastiness and vulgarity of modern life, had been obliterated from the records.

The second stroke seemed to be even better if that was at all possible. There was a little wobble from the boy as he struggled to hold his position in spite of the pain. Even the Titch felt a little flutter of compassion. This was, afterall, only the second time the lad had felt the cane. But he would get used to it. He might even come to love it. One more stroke this time. The boy would know that he was now under the authority of Mister Hitchens, scholar and schoolmaster. Those decades of enduring the scorn of the hundreds, thousands, of boys who had not been overly careful to conceal their laughter and jibes about his shortness of stature were about to avenged. The frustration of controlling classes of barbaric youths throughout those recent years without even the possibility of threatening effective punishment was about to be channelled into this third stroke on the buttocks of young Timothy Swain. At least for a few weeks there would be one of these vulgar teenagers living the traditional life of an obedient and docile pupil. This lad was going to suffer. He, Mister Hitchens, was going to enjoy taming and training this particular specimen. The third stroke was perfect. The boy had been unable to control a sob. Fair enough. In the days ahead that boy would come to know the true meaning of discipline. It might be a forgotten concept for most contemporary youths, but for one young man it was about to be a living reality. The third stroke was enough, for today.

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� Mike Ward 2006