Alice Under Discipline, Part 1

by Garth ToynTanen

  “...But a,a a week - I can’t get through a week... Not without my medicine.”

  “Perhaps you should have thought of that, before you decided to defy me, before you decided to try to call my bluff - I don’t bluff, young lady... ever! That’s something I can see you still have to learn.” And there is a lot more you’re going to have to learn - and in the more conventional sense of the word, ‘learning’, - if you are going to have any hope at all of fulfilling all those highfaluting ambitions of yours.”

  “W, what... What do you mean?” Young Alice’s voice was becoming delightfully timorous; Karen Lamberton-Marchment could hardly disguise the smile on her face and it was taking a supreme effort of will to maintain some semblance of sympathetic concern.

  “Well... Look; I’m not sure how well you expected to do in your exams, but...”

  “B, but? But w, what? Please! Just tell me, for heaven’s sake!” Yes! She had her stepdaughter really worried now. The girl was too worried, even, to mention her medication, despite the uncontrolled tremor afflicting her hands, her shivering leg muscles - the movement clearly discernable through the denim of her jeans - and those trembling lips that were already beginning to invest her speech with a notably drunken-sounding slur.

  “There’s no easy way... Provisionally, at least, the university you applied to has accepted your application - we both know that...”

  “Yes, yes... B, b but what are you telling me? Please... For God’s sake, I can’t take this as well as...” She was cut off by her stepmother clearing her throat, her eyes now focussed hungrily on the last smouldering silvery embers of what had been her prescribed narcotic substitute, puzzled as to why she should be going ‘cold turkey’ so soon after having received her day’s allocation.

  The thoughts running through her stepmother’s mind at that very moment would have shocked her, had she any inkling: ‘Oh my God; here we go, this is it - the perfect moment to press home the advantage, after all this time. Produce the rejection letter first, and then the school report - that was the way to do it; just as Mrs Larkspear suggested’.

  Using the girl’s new-found dependency as a lever to ensure her passivity she planned to take Alice back a couple of steps, pass her back through the upbringing of a different era, something more akin to the 1950s. There would be no easy ticket through university for the pouting, foot-stamping young Alice Lamberton while she had any say in the matter. Quite the opposite: She planned to have the girl home-schooled for a period, ‘in the hope of improving her dismal academic performance’. She couldn’t help but smile to herself at that last thought: Improving academic performance indeed - just how cynical could she get?

  Karen Lamberton-Marchment cleared her throat a second time before continuing, just to make sure - it was important to sound confident now, unimpeachable. It was ironic, then, that the news she was about to deliver - and particularly the protracted manner in which she was going about delivering it - was designed to shatter young Alice’s self-confidence like a fumbled hand mirror. She would be in a million shards after this - and ready to be introduced to the next stage in her re-education.

  She was gladdened to see that kneeling posture already come so naturally to the girl; she could foresee her Alice someday spending a lot of her time down on her hands and knees:

  “Ahem... As I said; Provisionally, the university accepted your application, based on the results you achieved in your mock exams - though I understand that even then their decision was a little... shall we say... borderline. A little leeway was cut in respect for your family’s name and your father’s memory - he funded an entire wing at one time, I am given to understand. That letter of acceptance you received back then was not an absolute promise but rather was provisional on you achieving at least the grades it was suggested you might, based on your academic performance at the time...”

  She paused, waiting for the information to soak in, just as Mrs Larkspear had told her she should, knowing that Alice would be racking her brains, struggling with the memory that surely her mock results had been good to excellent rather than ‘’borderline’. In the latter young Alice would be correct - but she had an answer to that; yet another solution that had been proffered by the redoubtable and talented Mrs Daphne Larkspear, a woman who had actually once been one of her teachers when it had been she who had been the schoolgirl. The letter presently residing on the little round fireside table would be the convincer, along with the final exam results and the report from Alice’s school that she had ready and waiting in the wings, hidden away in her desk.

  These too had been the devious Daphne Larkspear’s doing; for a woman of her generation she was no slouch with the computer. The university letterhead had been the easiest to acquire, downloaded straight from their website. The school’s letterhead had proved a little more difficult and had had to be scanned in from the original documentation. While a correspondence opened up with the school’s head teacher - on some pretext or other - had at length furnished a signature and yielded plenty of handwriting samples from which could be pieced together the damming indictment that spelled out in no uncertain terms young Alice’s utter academic failure.

  “... I know what you’re thinking: ‘surely my mock exam grades weren’t that bad’. The trouble is they were that bad; it is the school’s fault as much as the university’s, really, for encouraging you to build up unrealistic expectations. Apparently they don’t like to risk discouraging borderline pupils whom they consider might do better at a later date and so the exam markers tend to try to find excuses for poor answers, dredging up marks where they can - and in your case exaggerating your, frankly rather poor performance. And in your case you most certainly didn’t do better at a later date, you just didn’t apply yourself at all from the looks of things. In fact you seem to have been on a downward spiral academically from day one...”

  She took a deep breath before going on. “I could show you earlier school reports, those you father kept hidden away from you for the same reason as the school; to avoid discouraging you in the hope you would one day improve scholastically.” And she could, too; thanks to the efforts of good old Mrs Larkspear. “Up you get! Let’s have no more of all this silly whining.” Tucking her hands under the kneeling girl’s armpits she helped the shaking teenager unsteadily to her feet, all the while smiling sympathetically. “Here; read this.” Gathering up the folded letter from the side table she thrust it into her stepdaughter’s shaking hands, watching the girl struggle with the crisp paper and the shocked expression spreading across her pale face as the gold and red university crest came in to view and the gist of the rejection letter became clear.

  “Please... I need help... I need a, a, ...a fix...” The hand with the letter had dropped down limply by her side, the three sheets fluttering to the floor. Her other hand, her right, swept up to her brow, dislodging the beads of sweat that had now broken out before cradling her face and attempting to hide the tears that were now flowing freely, the droplets trickling between her slender fingers to splash down on the red knotted silk rug. “Please... I can’t go a week, I...”

  “There will be no more ‘fixes’ for you, I’m afraid young lady - as I have told you before. Even if you had made it in to town there is no one you know there who could help you. The police mopped up the whole bunch your boyfriend had become involved with; one of the most successful drug busts there has ever been in Britain, apparently. They broke the whole supply chain; the streets of that town are officially the cleanest in the United Kingdom as far as narcotics are concerned. No, I’m afraid you are just going to have to rely on that prescription substitute the doctor was kind enough to provide you with until you can be slowly weaned off of it entirely.” The latter point made her smile involuntarily; she could feel the corners of her mouth twitch as she fought against it, but the irony was almost too much to bear.

  “But I don’t have any... and a whole week...”

&n
bsp; It had gone on long enough now. Tucking her fingers in to the tight confines of her skirt’s hip pocket Karen Lamberton-Marchment plucked out the key to Alice’s late father’s office safe, twirling it triumphantly around her index finger on its ring. Such a little thing; but it was as much the key to his daughter now as his safe - at least in so far as it pertained to the control of Alice Lamberton’s behaviour. She’d see about the girl refusing to clean her Wellingtons when she came in from the stables and refusing to work under the supervision of her housekeeper. She’d have the girl polishing those new custom designed rubber boots she had recently bought to a mirror finish before long, let alone cleaning them - and in a manner the girl probably couldn’t even conceive of at the moment. If young Alice felt humiliated now, standing there weeping like a child, it was nothing to how she would feel after she had accomplished that task a few times.

  Looking her stepdaughter up and down for a moment she nodded pointedly at the denim jeans that offended her so much, dangling the little silver key. “There does just happen to be one more packet - safely under lock and key, mind. And it will have to be rationed out if it is to last the week.”

  Alice Lamberton made as if to snatch the key, only to have it whisked out of her reach by the much faster and somewhat less addled older woman. “Hold you horses, there, my girl! This key would be of no use to you without the numerical combination to go with it; and, yes, I have taken the precaution of changing it since your father’s day.”

  “But please... I need it!”

  “Yes I know! And I need you to understand that I won’t have jeans in the house; not for you, anyway. So perhaps we can do a deal; you get those things off right now and I’ll get you a capsule from the safe.”

  “But what else can I wear?”

  “You have that old tennis dress I came across.”

  “But it’s a least two sizes too small - and it’s a bloody child’s dress!”

  “Don’t exaggerate, it’s a little tight around the bust and the skirt is a little on the short side, but it’s perfectly adequate for around the house - and there’s no one to see you here, anyway.”

  “But it’s going to be too bloody cold!

  “That’s enough of that swearing - I chose to ignore it just now; but any more, or if you continue to raise your voice to me, I’ll see to it you get nothing.” The girl’s stepmother shook the key threateningly as she spoke, her voice taking on a serious tone. “Now say you’re sorry - come on... I’m...” she coached.

  Alice could only now bite her lip in frustration, her face colouring red in the embarrassment of defeat. “I’m, sorry” she finally managed, twisting back and forth and staring down at the rug.

  “Right, thank you - now; no more of it! Yes, I accept it is a little chilly around the house at this time of the year but that cardigan you have on will be perfectly acceptable to me if worn over the top of the dress and I realise your legs would be cold with its short skirt, but if you look over there at the armchair in the corner you’ll see that I have thought of that in advance.”

  So saying Alice’s stepmother nodded toward a red wingback chair at the far side of the room. The contentious little white cotton A-line tennis dress lay folded on the seat with what appeared to a particularly voluminous pair of high-waisted knickers spread out on top. The latter Alice had not seen before but appeared to be made of some glossy white manmade fabric that took on an almost silvery appearance in the wintry light filtering in through the frost-laden window and had a diamond-shaped panel over the abdomen, a stiff-looking kite-shaped gusset and broad elastic around the waist and leg openings.

  Over the back of the chair was spread out a pale blue quilted housecoat with a plain mandarin collar and long sleeves terminating in buttoned cuffs. It looked both heavy and to be long enough to hang practically to the floor on Alice’s petite frame. It fastened down the front from neck to hem with glassy-looking plastic buttons of a similar appearance to those that might be found on a gentleman’s pyjama jacket. A frumpier looking garment Alice would have been hard-pressed to name, though there were those around her - or soon to be around her - who would not have been quite so hard pressed to come up with something, as she would find out in due course. The real surprise was the breast pocket. As it was hung over the chair the upper portion of the housecoat was upside down, but Alice could see that there was a crest embroidered in red and god thread on the pocket. It was in the shape of a shield having an open book at its centre, a gold church cross surmounting it and extending beyond its perimeter and a scroll top and bottom bearing an inscription.

  Reading upside-down, something Alice was particularly adept at, she could make out the words ‘St Aloysius Convent Reformatory School’ running across the upper scroll and ‘Re-education and Indoctrination Centre for Delinquent Girls’ running across the lower. It had been part of some sort of school uniform at some time, and she was going to have none of it. She certainly wasn’t going to be dressing up as some sort of schoolgirl. What sort of school made their pupils wear a thing like that in this day and age - or in any day and age come to that? And what did ‘Re-education and Indoctrination Centre’ mean? Didn’t indoctrination mean some sort of brainwashing or something? And Delinquent Girls’ - she wasn’t going to walk around the house with the word Delinquent pinned to her chest.

  Her stepmother seemed to read her mind even as her lips began to form the word ‘no’. “Don’t think I’m going to take no for an answer! Or do you want me to get the whole pack from the safe and toss it on the fire in front of you, as I did the other one? Then you will go the whole week without your medication - make no mistake.” Again her stepmother dangled the key in front her, right under her nose this time. “Right, then - let’s get those jeans off right now, that dress and those knickers on and that housecoat buttoned up over the top - I think we can dispense with the cardigan for the time being. There’s a proper longline bra that should fit you lying under the tennis dress - we’re going to have no more of your fripperies and fancies in your ‘undies’ drawer from now on. Now, get going - I won’t tell you again, you’ll just see your medication going up in smoke!”

  Ten minutes later and shaking worse than ever, sweat pouring down her cheeks and cramping starting in her abdomen Alice found herself shuffling down the steps to the cellar and that old wood stove she knew was waiting to receive what was her last pair of jeans. In fact she was carrying pretty much the last of any of her clothing she could actually call her own, now that her stepmother had insisted she collect together the last of the contents of her underwear drawer and her last couple of tee-shirts.

  The tennis dress was every bit as tight and brief as she remembered it being the first time she had been obliged to try it on. The knickers pulled in her tummy mercilessly with their Elastane front panel while the elasticated side panels constricted her hips and waist, and the thick back-seam worked its way up between her buttock cheeks as she walked, the tight leg and waist elastics cutting into her flesh and adding to the discomfort. The longline bra lived up to its name, nearly reaching as low as the waistband of the knickers at the front and elevating and thrusting her bust upwards and outwards, making the constriction of the little ill-fitting tennis dress even more apparent. The housecoat was as heavy as it had appeared - and as she had feared it would be - when first she’d seen it folded over the back of that chair. The quilting made it actually a little on the over-warm side rather than cosy, despite the drafts that seemed to permanently chill this part of the old house, the nylon fabric’s inability to ‘breathe’ detracting still more from its comfort and the buttoning cuffs on the long sleeves adding to the unrequited warmth. The hem brushed the ground as she negotiated the stone steps, constantly threatening to trip her and somehow continuingly bringing her mind to dwell on that embroidered badge on the housecoat’s top pocket and that shaming word - delinquent.

  Her stepmother had got her own way but still she h
ad had no respite from the gnawing hunger that seemed now to be consuming her soul. Now there was something else she had to do first. Now, she had been told, she would have to wait and watch while the flames consumed the last of her personal things, her last few posters, those taken from the bedroom wall alongside her bed, having been carried down by her stepmother to further fuel the fire.

  “Hands on head, fingers interlocked” her stepmother had ordered. She’d thought the woman to be joking - but she wasn’t and that key had been again dangled under her nose. Despite herself and the humiliation it made her feel she had hurried to obey - hating herself for her weakness even as she had complied. But was it over? The flames were beginning to die down behind the mica window of the stove and even that dense strong denim had been reduced to unidentifiable ashes, helped along by her stepmother’s wielding of the poker - but was it over? Something about her stepmother’s face suggested it wasn’t. And that hairbrush that her stepmother had carried down to the parlour with her after gathering up the posters was one of her stepmothers’ own, not hers, and definitely had not been destined for the flames - so what was it destined for then?

  CHAPTER 2

  UNDER HER STEPMOTHER’S HAIRBRUSH

  Her heart pounding as the reward for all this humiliating supplication beckoned Alice trudged back up the narrow grey stone stairway to the parlour following on the heels of her stepmother, all the while gazing, fixated, at the twinkling silver key that the woman dangled tantalisingly from her fingers as she led the way. Having reached the top and having crossed the red quarry-stone tiling to the silk rug set in front of the fireplace, Alice could only watch in cold-blooded horror as, rather than heading off to her father’s office and the safe, her stepmother instead slipped the all-important key back in her skirt pocket before brushing down her skirt and regally seating herself on one of the high backed wooden chairs that stood to the side of the chimney breast.