Witsend, a
morality tale for Halloween
�
The McCoys lived at Witsend, which had been their cottage�s amusingly arch name when they first moved in some fifteen years ago, but nowadays simply seemed to sum up the unutterable awfulness of their family life.
To any casual observer the McCoys would have seemed to be the very ideal of contentment and happiness in the early years of the twenty-first century. Matthew and Libby had met up during their first freshers� week at university and through some outrageous act of Cupid were still, nearly twenty years later, madly and passionately in love with each other. Their little legal practice in a small town provided plenty of rewards for comparatively little stress, being mostly involved in the drafting of wills and negotiation of property purchases. Their cottage in a nearby village was close to the coast and over the years had become a very cosy, comfortable home with all the usual conveniences of contemporary life. They were both fit, enjoyed walking along the shore, sailing racing dinghies, and occasional rounds of golf with prospective clients. Matthew still turned out for the local rugby squad and was self-confident enough to recognise that he was in pretty good shape compared to many other guys in their late thirties.
To top it all, the McCoys had two healthy, intelligent, fit, good-looking children. Liz was nearly ten, young Matt was fourteen now, a child of their days as trainee advocates. The kids enjoyed a whole range of sports activities, were already competent sailors who took most of the junior prizes in the local regatta. Liz was always top of her class at school and radiated the kind of joy and happiness that comes from life in a secure and loving home. To the casual observer, as I say, the McCoys were the perfect family.
But perhaps perfection comes at a price, for there was one cloud that had cast a long and very deep shadow on life in the McCoy household. The McCoys knew about it. Their neighbours knew about it. In fact everyone with any conscious mind at all for miles around must have known about it. For the simple and rather brutal fact was that young Matt was a bully.
And not your ordinary common or garden bully either. Matt had managed to bring a whole new approach to his reign of terror among the youngsters of the village as well as among boys, the older ones just as much as those younger, at the secondary school he attended in between exclusions. Perhaps it was something to do with his frightening intelligence for he constantly scored in the highest percentiles on every IQ test that had been administered over the years by a battery of school psychologists in their search for some explanation of Matt�s delight in the misery of others. But it is just as likely to have had something with the fact that he was a big lad, tall for his age and already developing the build which had made his Dad such a devastatingly useful member of the front row in every team he had ever played for.
Matthew and Libby were not the sort of parents who just let misbehaviour go unchallenged. They set limits, defined boundaries, and imposed penalties whenever penalties were required. It sometimes seemed as if young Matt was either continuously grounded at home, excluded from school, or both. Detentions were as nothing to a boy who had entered puberty standing nearly as tall as his teachers; he would simply stand up and leave the room whenever he wanted. Long and embarrassingly frank conversations between Dad and son were nothing to a lad who would stretch out his legs and yawn in exaggeratedly affected boredom while the paternal wrath descended like verbal rainfall in the monsoon season. Matthew and Libby would share anxious debates about their son�s behaviour but even they had to admit that it appeared that young Matt simply did not give a phuck about what anyone else thought of him. They really had been at wit�s end, but Halloween last year had driven them way over the precipice.
Matt and his little cohort had decided to have some fun as the local children made their journey around the village. Matt himself, who always made such a thing about being above childish activity, had dressed up in his suit and his Dad�s old undergraduate gown, explaining only that he was going to be the Demon Headmaster. Within an hour of dusk the complaints had started to come in. Angry parents escorted anguished offspring to Witsend demanding apologies and action and possible compensation for the activities of a certain demonic headmaster who was going around the streets with a gang of demonic prefects. There was nothing affected about the tears of the children who had been forced to bend over for the traditional six-of-the-best administered by Matt wielding a length of gardener�s bamboo.
The anger of the local villagers was stoked even further when the local magistrates, true to their reputation for a certain nostalgic yearning for the days of hanging and flogging, and perhaps influenced by a fondness for two stalwarts of the local legal profession, had dismissed the case for assault and causing bodily harm, saying that it was clearly no more than an outbreak of youthful exuberance.
The McCoys were completely ostracised. Their Daily Telegraph no longer
plonked through the letter-box each morning. Their custom was manifestly
unwelcome in the little village store. Neighbours no longer dropped in for a
quick cup of tea and a chat. The rector could not bring himself to utter his
usual cheerful greeting as he passed by.
For the first time in his little reign of terror, even young Matt seemed to
have registered something of the awfulness of his behaviour; or at least he had
the good sense to avoid being seen outside on his own.
The winter months had struggled through to the warmth of spring, but the McCoys still felt the cold chill of neighbourly contempt. The heat of summer was nothing compared to the simmering anger of local parents. As autumn heralded another season of long nights around a lonely hearth, Matthew and Libby spoke to estate agents and looked at career options in other parts of the country, and indeed, at a few options in other countries. They would have to move; it was obvious that no other course of action could restore their perfect lives.
Things really could not have got any worse for the McCoys and so it was a very depressed Matthew who found himself visiting his son�s school for yet another appointment to discuss the terms for Matt�s readmission following an incident in which a seventeen-year old prefect had been found naked in the staff-room; just the latest victim of young Matt�s latest nasty scheme to humiliate and terrorise the youngsters of the county.
The headmaster was not an unkind man, but he knew that he had been overly merciful. Detentions and suspensions had clearly had no effect; for the first time in his career as a school administrator he found himself saying the words that he had once vowed would never pass from his lips. There was nothing for it, he indicated. The next time Matt messed up the exclusion would be permanent; his expulsion was a looming possibility.
The headmaster was not an unkind man, he knew that his words would cause pain; but he was not ready for the total collapse of this likeable lawyer who had made so many similar visits to this school, hearing over and over again so many similar tales of his son�s disruptive and dangerous activities. Matthew seemed to have reached a point of total personal disintegration; his face buried in his hands, his sobbing voice unable to speak anything that was even remotely comprehensible. The headmaster, competent, experienced, and highly trained, found himself reflecting on the fact that he had no resources whatsoever that could help him deal with the awkward situation represented by another middle-class man�s tears. And then it came to him. He did not have the experience, but he knew a man who might.
The headmaster picked up the phone and made an appointment. Matthew eventually calmed down and through his flustered apologies tried to repair his damaged sense of his own masculinity. He heard the headmaster�s suggestion and agreed that there was nothing to lose by having a chat with someone who might be able to offer some wisdom.
Within the hour Matthew was knocking on the door of a charming cottage with the equally charming if somewhat obscure name of Dunbirchin, a cottage that was within a hundred metres of Witsend and home, Matthew knew, to an elderly gentleman of distinguished stature who played an active part in many of the village committees.
Sitting across from each other in front of a blazing log-fire the two men talked about the difficulties of childhood and adolescence, the meaning of positive discipline in the twenty-first century, and the pleasures of sailing around the local bays. For the first time in a year Matthew felt at ease, hopeful even that something might yet be done to get young Matt to adjust his behaviour and to restore the happiness that had once been the mark of life at Witsend.
It is perhaps a measure of Matthew�s distress that he did not even flinch when Mister Smythe, a retired headmaster and veteran of many a tumultuous teenage battle, suggested that it might be worth thinking a bit more traditionally about young Matt�s behaviour.
The old headmaster outlined a plan of campaign and it seemed to Matthew that this plan might just about be enough to restore good relations between his family and the village, and would certainly provide young Matt with a shock that, although neither short nor sweet, might be counted upon to have him contemplate the benefits of treating others kindly. There was, however, one particularly unpleasant part of the old man�s plan that did not appeal to Matthew at all. But the advice was so expert, and the reassurance so comforting, that Matthew eventually, but most reluctantly agreed.
You see, the old Headmaster had of course suggested that young Matt needed to experience something of the firm traditional discipline that he had administered with such alacrity among the children of the village only twelve months previously. Matt would be feeling the pain of the cane, and as nothing else had worked, Matthew was willing to experiment. But the words of wisdom from the old man also included his view that Matthew himself should bend over for a traditional six-of-the-best, the idea being that the ordeal would remind him that a traditional schoolboy caning may be painful but it is never fatal. Without such a reminder there was a danger that Matthew might hold back when it came to dealing with his son, might be moved by pleas for mercy, and might buckle under the weight of his own sensitivity.
There being no time quite like the present time, Matthew was soon following a set of instructions that had him stretched over a dining room table and awaiting his first caning in twenty-five years. The old Headmaster took his time and in the circumstances it is hardly surprising that Matthew found himself reliving the memory of the last time he had been summonsed to a housemaster�s study for the inevitable thrashing that always followed the uncovering of surreptitious escapades. That last caning, four strokes over his school shorts, had been no worse than any previous punishment but it had triggered something in Matthew all the same and he had resolved that his behaviour would be exemplary thereafter, which indeed it was.
The six strokes over his suit trousers were not pleasant. Matthew felt quite surprised by how fresh the memories of previous canings were as with each whack on cloth he found himself recalling other instances in which, as a boy, he had accepted the justice of the rod. When the sixth stroke cut into his backside he felt an incredible sense of inner peace. He, Matthew, had been fourteen years old when he had suffered his last schoolboy caning. He was confident that his own son would eventually adjust to the shock of this new approach and would surely reap many benefits from this change in domestic administration.
The Old Headmaster tasked Matthew with a couple of purchases and handed him two fine old crook-handled school canes, promising that he would call around to Witsend on Monday night, the eve of All Hallows, ready to assist if need be.
So the scene was set. Exactly one year after Matt�s notorious exploits in the guise of the Demon headmaster three males assembled at Witsend; a wise old retired headmaster, a resolute father, and an anxious son. Matt suspected that something was up, and his suspicions were aroused even further when his Dad asked him if he fancied getting dressed up again this year. The boy turned the suggestion down but paternal suggestions like that can often have a life of their own and it was made clear to the lad that he would most certainly be dressing up and making a tour of the village.
This year, however, there was no academic gown, although one could say that the costume theme was not unrelated to that of the Demon Headmaster. There were tears and objections, but Matthew was resolute and firm. There was genuine fear in the boy�s eyes, and why not. For in his bedroom he was forced into the attire that strikes the deepest fear into any self-respecting teenage boy. The archetypal schoolboy is a creature of horror in his smart grey short trousers and kneesocks, and Matt was screaming as he submitted to his father�s authority. �Behold�, said the old Headmaster with a wry smile, �the Demon Schoolboy�.
Matt was escorted downstairs to the dining room for his first sighting of a genuine school cane. This really had become some awful Halloween nightmare and the poor lad was in a fit of blind panic as he obeyed his father�s instructions and stretched himself over the old mahogany table. His legs were trembling and even before the first stroke the boy was in tears. He begged and begged but there was to be no more mercy shown to this bullying youth than he had ever shown his victims. For the first time in his fourteen years he felt the crushing sensation of submission to genuine punishment. This was no detention, no grounding, no pleasant fortnight of lounging around while suspended from school. This was punishment.
The second stroke was so much worse than the first, but probably only because the boy had overcome his initial shock. For the life of him he couldn�t understand why his body was still stretched over the table. Every synapse and brain cell was screaming at him to get out of that room, out of that house, and far away from this wrathful patriarch who had supplanted his own dear loving father. But no, he remained in place despite it all as strokes three and four descended. With the fifth and sixth strokes his father recognised the calm submission that had overcome his son. The boy himself couldn�t understand it but he suddenly felt an incredibly deep sense of inner peace. Like father, like son.
There was more of course. Young Matt endured his tour of the village as the demon schoolboy. They limited their calls to a few select houses but at each one a child was called forward to witness as a parent took the school cane and delivered a sharp crack across the seat of those tightened short trousers as Matt bent over and adopted that most traditional of schoolboy postures. It took eight calls to complete the task of visiting each household where, only the previous year, a child had returned in tears having suffered a beating at the hands of that Demon Headmaster. From no household was the little party turned away. Smiles and handshakes completed each visit, and even the Demon Schoolboy had the good grace to join in, for something of the old schoolboy instinct surfaced in his mind, the product of generations of training, and guided him in the ways of schoolboy honour.
Of course he did not like being punished in this strange old way, but he was willing to see the rightness of it, and certainly could not deny that there was some peculiar justice involved. The following morning as he got ready for school he heard the long-forgotten sound of a newspaper being pushed through the letterbox. He went downstairs and breakfasted with a family that was smiling and glowing with the old happiness that had been so absent for so long. He knew that he would never again be a bully, but instead would grow up to be a man of honour and integrity like his father. And anyway, bullying was not likely to come so easy. For even the eleven year-olds were hardly likely to submit to the terrorising of a fourteen year-old boy who wore short trousers.
The unfamiliar chill on his bared legs was not an entirely unpleasant sensation and young Matt walked tall and proud as he made his way to the bus-stop. Sure, he might be teased, of course people would laugh. But amidst all the scary play-acting of Halloween, Matt reckoned that he had survived the most frightening experience that could ever be faced by a twenty-first century boy. With Halloween behind him the future held absolutely no fear for him.
Tell me what you think by email .
� Mike Ward 2006