The institutionalised tr.., p.98
The Institutionalised Trilogy, page 98
Hesitantly the shaking girl put out her right hand and slid it up and down the cold smooth leather surface.
“Does that feel nice?”
The girl nodded dumbly, not knowing what else she could do. Only then did her eyes fell on the gold-embossed crest and monogram - her late father’s monogram, her family’s heraldic crest and motto. She gasped, she recognized this belt now - how could this be, how could this have possibly come about? She knew the history; it had been her great-grandfather’s belt, a miner’s belt, worn day after day and infused with a lifetime of sweat, toiling on the Nottinghamshire coalface. Such had been her ancestor’s lot; back then, the men toiled in the colliery the women coughed their way to an early grave on cotton dust in the mill or stagnated at home, fingers bleeding and eye-sight fading from the unending hours spent bent over the lace doilies.
All that had changed with her grandfather: Adventurer, explorer, inventor and entrepreneur - he had travelled the world as a merchant seaman, later settling and prospected for gold in Australia. Whether or not that was the basis of his initial fortune was always somewhat ambiguous in family tradition, nevertheless it was sufficient that he returned to Britain with enough financial reserves and backing to put into action a combination of product ideas derived from some dark crevice of his inventive imagination and a business plan that was as simple and profitable as it was groundbreaking and...well...brilliant.
One generation later and the family fortunes had been reversed; and to such an extent that they were now so well accepted in society as to be considered ‘old money’ her father having inherited the peerage awarded to her grandfather and the latter’s modest nouveau-riche origins having been well and truly forgotten in the mists of time - something encouraged by her fathers judicial editing of the truth in the autobiography that he completed shortly before his unfortunate demise. Lavinia had been a late arrival, her father being already well into his sixties at the time of her birth, but she remembered his belt - it had been handed down, father to son, the monogram and crest added by her father in his youth, just it had graced the company letter-heads and the publication information on the inside covers of the many glossy periodicals that had fallen under the control of the family’s publication empire over the years. It had often occurred to her that her great-grandfather must have been a surprisingly stout man for a coalminer of the time. Her father had never actually worn the belt; it would have encircled his trim waist at least twice. Instead it had been kept in a glass display case in her father’s study as a sort of private reminder of the past if he should ever be tempted to arrogance, a sort of short cut connection to the family’s modest roots. Keeping up a grandiose facade was another thing entirely - the title, the wealth and all the trappings that went with it were essential for the publishing group’s financial confidence and continued commercial success.
Was she now really to be beaten with that very belt, something that somehow embodied everything she had felt made her family seem so secure, both politically and financially? What twist of fate could have led to this - what betrayal, what treachery? As if reading her mind, the doctor spoke, seemingly delighted to be able to enlighten her:
“I see you recognize the belt. I expect you wonder how I came by it... Hmm?”
Lavinia went to speak, but her tongue betrayed her; it felt like a golf ball, swelling between her jaws - gagged by her own tongue; the irony was painful. The doctor went on, speaking almost gleefully now:
“I just thought it might be a good idea, from a psychological standpoint, for you to have some memento of your father here with you - a little home security to help you deal with things, to help you settle down; I’m sure you get the idea. Your Guardian, Ms Bartlett, was kind enough to send this along - so let’s hear no more nonsense about her working against you; clearly she has your welfare at heart.” As she spoke she let the sinuous, supple leather flow sensuously back and forth between her hands, her breathing growing noticeably heavy, her voice - though still tinged with a smug triumphant note - thickening, its character coloured by an odd huskiness. “Right, then, let’s be having you! You know the drill by now, I’m sure - skirt up, knickers down.”
Blushing prettily the shorn-headed girl, resplendent with the new boyish side-parted look they now favoured for the girls kept in the schoolroom section, reached down to the brief hem of her gymslip, reluctantly holding the thick serge skirt out at her sides and level with the garments overly-restrictive waistband. The archaic looking bottle school uniform green gym knickers came into sight. The fully elasticated waist was reinforced by a hidden spring-steel band sown within the fabric and that fastened by way of an inset lock at the rear. The soft, thickly woven bottle green nylon fabric gave the exterior a conventional enough appearance. Inside, too, the white nylon gusset panel, starkly contrasted against the dark green material, was the only feature of note. The styling was hopelessly institutional and anachronistic, the high waist reached up to her navel, the elastic latex-lined leg cuffs firmly and unrelentingly gripped her flesh at a point just below mid thigh, adding to her physical discomfort - her psychological discomfort was taken care of by the fact that the razor-sharp knife-pleats of her skirt failed to quite cover the cuffs, frilled with green latex.
Matron stepped forward, flourishing a small silver key on a length of chain that hung from her webbing nurse’s belt. Deftly she inserted the key in the neatly mounted keyhole in the rear of the waistband of the girl’s humiliating school bloomers. These were ‘toilet training bloomers’ used to enforce the institution’s concept of controlled ‘toilet times’. The garment was flexible in its styling in that it could be cut for an uncomfortably close, snug fit or made voluminous enough to accommodate a range of different pads or towels or even a thick wad of terry towelling should the need arise. This latter point was not lost on the young doctor - already she had taken into account the possible effects on her young patient’s self esteem. The school-type bloomers would be out of the question, of course. The look she had in mind for her charge was to be all ‘institutionalised mental patient. Baggy pyjamas or open-backed examination gowns, thick rubber pants and heavy canvas straitjackets - that was going to be the ‘look’ for this girl from now on.
But first there would be a good hard beating of the young trollop’s bare bottom - good and hard - just to make sure she would willingly change into her new garb with a suitable degree of docility.
“Your hair sweet Lavinia, your hair my darling girl; we really will have to put it up in ribbons, you know. Sweet little ribbons for a sweet little girl.” It was her aunt’s voice, Aunt Julia’s voice, calming yet controlling, softly ringing around her skull as if she were really there, in the room with them. But this was the here and now, not some faded memory of her aunt’s peculiar brand of discipline - this dark and dismal institution.
The doctor held the heavy but supple well-oiled black leather belt, doubled over in her hand, the long broad loop hovering menacingly above her left shoulder, her torso twisted at the waist, her muscles tensing in anticipation of the scorpion-stinging strike she intended to deliver. The girl, for her part, knew she would have to concentrate hard if she was to avoid her punishment doubled, perhaps to be caused to suffer the strap or cane landing across her palms or even the soles of her feet in addition to the belt about to be applied to her defenceless buttocks. She would be carefully invigilated throughout the ordeal; she had to remain up on her toes, her arms tightly folded behind the small of her back with her hands grasping her forearm, fingertips touching elbows. It was a posture almost worthy of a circus contortionist and tested to the full the flexibility she had worked for so long and hard, chasing her ambition to be a ballerina. Much of that flexibility had fled her now, fading through enforced inactivity alongside the gradual slackening of her once tight musculature, her expanding waistline and ballooning buttocks, breasts, thighs and hips.
The removal of her wrist restraints at such a time was an extraordinarily cruel irony. The onus of restraint was thus now left up to her own will power. They could easily fasten her down across the doctors desk, but it was necessary to restrain herself; it was cruel in the extreme but it was ‘good for discipline’ and discipline was ‘key to controlling the more disruptive or disturbed psychiatric patient’. The ‘disruptive, disturbed’ patient in question was of course young Lavinia - no opportunity was left unexploited to belittle her and remind her of her status as a mental patient. She was in due course to be shipped off to a standard secure psychiatric ward where she was to be surrounded by other disturbed young women, other ‘long term’ patients with little hope of rehabilitation - this was just one small stepping-stone along that path, one of many such steps.
The belt swung down, landing squarely across the centre of her buttocks with a resounding ‘crrraaack’, the young woman psychiatrist wielding it grunting with the effort like a Wimbledon centre-court star. The pain seared through the girl’s mind as the broad band of leather bit deep into the resilient pink flesh sending ripples of fat spreading out above and below, the girl’s well-rounded chubby bottom cheeks wobbling like blancmange. The doctor had put all her strength into that swing - this was not a beating she intended the girl to get through unscathed, either physically or mentally.
In her mind Lavinia was transported back to her Aunt’s house: she had hated the whole of the archaic uniform that her aunt had bought her from the skin outwards. The compulsory vest; a nasty woollen thing that was overly-warm and that made her itch. The crisp green and white striped regulation blouse in a hot sticky nylon / polyester mix that crinkled and rustled with every movement, the stiff collar tightly button beneath her chin and further neatened by a tightly knotted diagonally-striped school tie.
Most of all she hated the old fashioned square necked gymslip and having to wear knee socks - bottle green ones at that - it was a ridiculous fashion for a girl of her age; a young woman, really, in fact nearly old enough to get married. “Lavinia, go fetch your blazer and put it on. I don’t care if it is hot out I want you to look smart for your doctor - and I want to see all those buttons properly done up. Now get your gabardine on; do come along, child, you know you have an appointment with your therapist today - we’re running late as it is.” No perhaps that wasn’t the worst of it - perhaps it was the gabardine that was the worst part. The bottle-green blazer was piped with gold and green diagonal-striped satin ribbon - a feature that somehow lent it an even more infantile appearance than it might otherwise have had - and was tailored for a close fit to her figure. It was a typically uniform style of thing - typical, that is, for a private girl’s boarding school sometime in the 1950s. It was small wonder she had hated wearing it. But refusal was disobedience and for disobedience Aunt Julia would give her three strokes across the palm of each hand with her tawse. A second occasion and it would be the tawse across her bottom, just as now.
The regulation gabardine raincoat was a whole different affair entirely. This she would have been allowed to leave off - had she so desired - but despite its childish gawkiness, despite how inappropriate to the prevailing conditions, that mackintosh would be worn more often than not. The alternative was a cape that looked to be more appropriate for a past-times district nurse and that had been embellished with a hand-woven school badge and trimmed with diagonally-striped satin ribbon piping to match the gymslip, providing it with an even more institutional appearance than the raincoat. Both garments simply cried out to the world that here was a young woman dressed in some sort of uniform and clearly under strict disciplinary control - it was just that the raincoat did so a little less shrilly, perhaps shouted rather than screamed. The other alternative was no alternative at all - to walk out dressed - and seen to be dressed - like some archaic child.
But then again: what alternative did the gabardine actually represent? If she was to be allowed to wear it at all - and she had always to ask permission - it had to be worn strictly in line with her Aunt’s stipulations. First and foremost amongst the latter was that it had to be ‘properly done up’ - it was one of Aunt Julia’s strictest rules. In turn that inferred all buttons had to be kept fastened - from the hem at mid calf all the way up to just below the chin. It meant the belt had to be pulled in “good and tight” and the hood worn up at all times, whatever the weather.
That latter stipulation had been the bane of her life given a hot sunny day - what could be more guaranteed to draw attention than a teenage girl, scarlet-faced and obviously sweltering, dressed in a childish raincoat with the hood up? On the other hand; would she really have preferred those amused passers-by to have viewed her luxurious raven locks, her crowning glory having been tightly braided into two childish waist-length plaits? Would she have wanted the public at large - perhaps including even girls of her own age - to see how each thick braid had been tied-off with a bow formed of a generous length of broad, glossy, satin-nylon ribbon in a fetching red and gold diagonally-striped bottle-green before being coiled and pinned up at the side of her head?
But it was the gabardine itself that was the real trial - and the irony was that the punishment for inappropriate wearing, for failure to keep it correctly buttoned up and belted, was to have to take the hateful thing off! Even when summer came into its full blazing fury - when even Aunt Julia had to admit that the heavy, fully-lined serge gymslip was no longer appropriate - Lavinia had little scope to modify her outer attire.
In time, with the lengthening of the days, the gymslip had been duly replaced with what her aunt had described as a ‘summer dress’. But despite Aunt Julia’s warning that “full school uniform would still be the order of the day” - the imposition was in fulfilment of the girl’s psychotherapist’s suggestion, after all - Lavinia had been totally unprepared for what had arrived, parcelled, from her aunt’s dressmaker. More properly described as a ‘frock’ in days gone by, it was an ugly, button-through creation manufactured in fairly thick, crisp, woven bottle-green nylon. With its calf-length skirt, rather severe tailoring, fitted bodice and notably tapered waist, this new dress had more in common with the type of nylon overall that would have been worn by factory girls or shop assistants in the 1960s than any regulation school summer dress Lavinia had ever seen.
Where the school uniform aspect had been resurrected was all in the detail. The long sleeves were terminated in tight white stiffened cuffs, perhaps three, perhaps four, centimetres deep, fastening by way of two large in-line glassy plastic buttons and trimmed with a piping of red, green and gold diagonal striped nylon ribbon cord. The collar - white and similarly trimmed with ribbon piping so as to match the cuffs - echoed the infantile styling, being high-buttoning and of a girlish ‘Peter-Pan’ design. The hip patch pockets gracing the front of the flaring, A-line skirt - both merely stylistic elements having no actual functionality, it should be noted - were trimmed in the school colours in a similar way to the collar and cuffs; as was the single breast pocket along its upper edge. The latter was predictably beautifully embroidered with the customary school crest or coat of arms; a heraldic device favoured by her aunt and presumably of that stern woman’s own invention - though, of that last point Lavinia herself was never quite sure...And let’s face it: Aunt Julia would have been the last person to have enlightened her, had she had the temerity to have enquired.
The imagery of the traditional crook-handled school master’s (or mistress’s) canes crossed over an open school text book and the words ‘obedience comes through discipline’ - or something of similar meaning - through the obvious implication it announced to the world made her blood run cold. As for ‘St Mary’s Hospital school Reformatory for Recalcitrant Girls’ - well, she understood the word ‘recalcitrant’ well enough, though she would have thought of herself ever as particularly rebellious. But as for what a reformatory was - let alone a ‘Hospital school’ - these were not terms that were familiar to her at the time, She well understood the term ‘reformatory’ meant now, though - she had effectively been put through the mill of something based on the original Victorian model. What was more she had, stupidly, volunteered for it...then allowed herself to be coerced into volunteering again and again - each time signing herself up for a longer period, each time leading herself deeper into a world of incarceration and control.
Ah! That mackintosh, though, that ghastly regulation school mackintosh, a relic from the past if ever there was one - surely that had been the worst aspect of her uncompromising Aunt’s regime. After all, she had worn it by choice - in a way. In a manner of speaking, in choosing to wear her raincoat she was in effect choosing to punish herself. After all was said and done, had she been want to demure, to rebel against the way in which it was to be worn - perhaps on the hottest of hot days, when gently broiling beneath the heavy gabardine in a sweat-laden pool of nylon, polyester, Elastane, poplin and latex - she could choose to take it off. But in so doing she could - and would - have essentially been punishing herself, in an entirely different - yet equally efficient - way.
The thing had an outer layer of thick bottle-green gabardine and was traditionally lined in an equally dense bottle-green, red and gold tartan. However, it was what was sandwiched between theses two gabardine layers that was the true source of her torment - a thin layer of rubber that rustled like autumn leaves with the slightest movement and that, while undoubtedly functional - in that it ensured the waterproofing of the garment - tended to ensure the rapid discomfiture of the wearer, given a humid London summer’s afternoon. Coupled with the nylon, early 1960s style, school uniform summer dress, the thick, paper-crisp full-length white nylon slip her aunt had always insisted she wore beneath it and the tight, bust-reducing, latex-lined ‘foundation garment’ that customarily formed the basis of whatever outfit her aunt might choose to put her in and the result was stifling. It was little wonder, then, that those privy to young Lavinia’s situation could only marvel at the determination that lay beneath the girl’s wearing of that tightly belted and buttoned rubberised regulation school mackintosh day after sweltering summer’s day.
