Price caned me after breakfast the next day – twelve strokes across my bare bottom – and the rest of the week passed in a blur of pain. It wasn't that they were beating me hard any longer – in fact, they started to go a bit easier on me – but the state of my backside meant that I couldn't sit down without it being really painful. And most of every day was spent sitting at a desk, trying to get through lessons without giving away the fact that I couldn't pay anything like proper attention, and then spending the evening sitting doing prep, or trying to, for two hours.
And every day they beat me some more. The idea, as Jackman told me once when he was about to whack me, was to make sure that my rear end was stinging permanently for the whole week. The favourite whacking now was a gymshoe on my naked bottom, because it covered as big an area and re-awoke as many of the previous weals as possible. I got so used to bending over the two chairs with my pants down that I even began to dream about it. And they didn't have to hit me hard. Just a tap with a slipper was enough to set my backside on fire all over again every time, and every night I went to bed feeling as though I'd been sitting on red hot coals – which in one way I had.
I wasn't sleeping very well. I kept waking up from a dream where Price was going to cane me again and then I couldn't get off again. Nor was I eating properly. I couldn't force the food down. I took to hanging about on my own. I'd get permission from a prefect to go across to the form room and spend any free time I had there, reading. At least, I thought, I couldn't be whacked for doing that. Unfortunately, it meant that I didn't hear meal bells a couple of times, so got a whacking for that.
Every afternoon after school there were activities that we were meant to take part in. Usually it was something physical, like the colts rugger practice, or a run. One day a week though was free time, and that was when we all went down into the town to spend the pathetic pocket money that we got. I was dreading it because I couldn't leave the school premises and all my friends would be going out.
I went to see Amery and asked if I could go for a run instead. I loved running and the times I was out pounding round the roads or across the fields on the cross country course were the nearest I got to being happy that week. I went to him because he was a runner too. Once or twice we had run together and he had given me some good coaching tips, like telling me about this new Swedish training method called fartlek. He asked where I was going and I told him the senior cross country course. He could hardly say no, so ten minutes later I fetched my fags and box of matches from their secret hiding place and set off. I must have been mad. The running was good enough: I didn't need a fag at all, even though it had been nearly a week since I had one. And of course I knew that I ran worse because of the _s_h_i_t_ accumulating in my lungs from the fags.
I soon got into my stride and struck out up the hill from school and then over the stile into the fields where the course took off round the local farms. It was cold, but the sun was shining still, though it was getting down towards the western horizon. I would have to hurry. It felt so good to have the cold and the wind flooding into my lungs and past my limbs. I felt alive and it was good to be alive, in spite of the nagging throb of the weals across my backside.
Halfway round the course ran alongside a hedge which had numerous bramble clumps in front of it. You could get into the space between the clumps and be almost completely hidden from view. I got the fags out of the little pocket in my shorts and lit up. The first drag was wonderful. The smoke sucked down into my lungs with a sharpness that I realised I had been dying for. A couple more drags made my head spin slightly. It had been a while since I smoked last and the effect was stronger because of it. There was an old tree trunk there and I leaned back against it, looking out over the valley below me, taking great drags on the cigarette and feeling pretty _f_u_c_k_ing pleased with myself.
I had nearly finished the fag when I heard, much too late, footsteps pounding along the track. Almost immediately – I was still holding my cigarette up to my lips – Amery appeared in front of me, and my guts turned to ice. This time I really was dead. I expected him to be angry, or pleased to have caught me, but he wasn't either.
"You stupid _f_u_c_k_ing idiot," he said, really quietly. Then, "What the bloody hell am I going to do with you?"
I didn't say anything. I thought I knew exactly what he was going to do and as usual it would be my backside that suffered.
"Hand 'em over." He held out his hand and I put the half-empty packet of fags and the matches into them. "You know what these do to your running."
"Yes," I said. My guts were still performing somersaults, and there seemed to be an icy hand gripping my bollocks. I was still holding the nearly finished cigarette. It burned my fingers and I dropped it into the mud.
"You realise I ought to give you a _f_u_c_k_ing good thrashing?"
Hang on a minute – what was this 'ought to'? Did this mean that he might not? Could this be a glimmer of hope on the horizon?
"Yes, Amery," I said.
Instead of following this up immediately – was this another good sign? – he said, "D'you want to finish the run with me?"
"OK," I said. I did like Amery. He was the best of all the prefects, even though he had slippered my bare backside for being late for lights out my first day on the List, even though he knew that it was another prefect having me in his study for a whacking that had made me late. Since then, however, he was the only one who hadn't beaten me, and I think he genuinely felt sorry for me.
We set off. I think he moderated his normal pace and I kept up with him easily. We arrived back at school with plenty of time to spare before tea and he came up to the washroom where my kit was to have his shower.
He stripped off without any self-consciousness and got under the shower and I followed suit. He was tall and really solidly built with broad shoulders and a good meaty arse on him. Like all ginger-haired people his skin was really white and the little ginger hairs on his forearms were like gold.
"Cold for you, mind," he said as I turned my shower on. I didn't really mind cold water actually, and I noticed that he kept his shower cold too. We were both muddy and set about scraping the dirt off.
"Show me your arse," he said. I turned away from him, letting him see the damage his friends' canes had done to my bottom. He whistled, but didn't make any other comment. In fact, he only talked about running until we were both putting on our shoes and the tea bell was ringing.
"You'd better come to my study straight after tea," he said.
So _f_u_c_k_ing much for friendship, I thought. After seeming to be so nice and lovey-dovey, all he was going to do was cane my _f_u_c_k_ing backside as well. He was no _f_u_c_k_ing better than any of the rest.
"D'you want me in punishment kit?" I said, and I think he must have heard the edge in my voice.
"Just _f_u_c_k_ing get there," he said, "and don't be late for tea." And he stalked out. No different from any of the others, I thought.
I sat and fumed all through tea. All previous experience suggested that for smoking I was going to get the mother and father of all thrashings. It was always punished across the bare backside and older boys got anything up to a dozen strokes. Being on the Whacking List, I fully expected to get that many. And the thought that it was going to be Amery that whipped me made it worse. I think the worst part of all was that in my present state I didn't think I could take a beating like that without yelling and crying and it mattered terribly to me that this boy, out of all of them, should have a good opinion of me, should see me as the brave, determined boy that I knew I was.
So I wasn't looking forward to my interview with Amery, however much I might have thought he was a good guy. In fact, it turned out very differently from what I expected.
To start with, he sat me down in the easy chair on the other side of his fireside and we started to talk. I won't bore you with everything that we said because we talked for over two hours. I wasn't in the least surprised, some twenty years later, to discover that Amery became one of the foremost psycho-therapists of his day, the confidant of the rich, the famous and the seriously troubled. I found myself telling him about my father's mistresses, my mother's peculiar lifestyle and my various loony relatives that made coming to school every term a positive relief. He must have asked the right questions, but I'm buggered if I can remember what they were. I told him about my one _s_e_x_ual encounter with a girl, when this crazy cousin had manoeuvred me into _f_u_c_k_ing her in the loft over the stables, and the two or three times I'd tossed off with other boys – much less enjoyable than proper _s_e_x_, but at least available.
He seemed unshockable. He seemed to understand. We talked about rules and the way the school was run. He told me about thrashings he'd received when he was younger. We laughed about the times when we'd been offered the choice of a run or a detention and positively enjoyed what was meant to be a punishment. He got me to explain why I thought I broke rules so often. I told him my feelings about the other prefects, the masters, Madman who must have known that it was a boy's birthday when he turned up with dirty shorts, but still went ahead and beat him and humiliated him. He'd been on the Whacking List three times and I could have sworn there were tears in his eyes as he told me about the repeated, barbaric caning that had been inflicted on him.
He made me think about how I was going to change once I was off the List, how I could get through the rest of school – the rest of my life – without constantly falling foul of the system that, I realised now for the first time, was the only stable thing in my life. If I wasn't beaten for my gross derelictions, my life would be chaos. He made me cry – not once, but several times.
"And what do you want me to do about catching you smoking?" he asked as the supper bell was ringing and boys' footsteps were pounding past, prep over.
I looked at him amazed. What did he expect me to say? How could I want him to do anything?
"Cane me," I said, and there were tears running down my face again. I couldn't believe I had said that, but I also knew it was the right thing to have said.
He looked at me a long time before speaking again. "All right. Back here, after supper. In pyjamas."
He made me drop my pyjama trousers and bend over the end of his table, holding the sides as far up as I could and bracing my feet well apart. I don't know how many strokes he gave me. I just lay there and howled – not from the pain of the whipping, though that was pretty bad, but from the pain of my life – and for the only time in my life during a beating, I blubbed like a baby.