Taught to Serve

* * *

Rob took it all in his stride. He was not immune to families and their peculiarities. His own parents were dead, though he stayed close to his sister and made a point of speaking to her every week on the telephone. If he was shuffling his feet slightly, it was because of Casey’s attitude. Seated in the rather dim and cramped front room of an old cottage, he could not deny his own accommodation was vastly superior. It saddened Rob to see his girlfriend embarrassed by her humble origins, to watch her glare annoyance at her mother and to listen to her interrupt her father’s attempt to speak about his job in the local council offices.

When it was time to go, he thanked them each for their time and hoped they would come to visit next time.

“Oh, yes,” said Casey eagerly. “Just wait to see where I live now.”

Rob said nothing about her smug expression as he curled back into the car.

“Thank goodness that is over,” sighed Casey before they had reached the end of the narrow street.

Rob continued to be uncommunicative. With a headache imminent, he detested the sensation of disappointment, having the sentiment sit inside like an unwanted intruder. Casey would not be quiet. She apologised for the dull proceedings, her parents’ ignorance, and the inelegant presentation of the tea.

Rob made a decision and told Casey to take a different route home.

“Why that way?” she frowned. “It’s miles out of the way.”

“I want to see some countryside,” he replied. “Humour me.”

The chosen roads were certainly devoid of traffic, and Casey was forced to drive slower to accommodate the curves and bends. The concentration kept her mouth from spouting out further tirades.

“Up that lane,” Rob pointed ahead.

“There?” she questioned. “That doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Well, for the time being that will be perfect. Not going anywhere is fine.”

The lane was overgrown with weeds, and even the hedgerows seemed to squeeze the narrow Mini between them. The car jolted and bumped over the small potholes, and Rob thought the ancient Mini was on the verge of coming apart.

“Park there,” he told her, pointing at a small copse of trees with a grassy frontage. “Turn off the engine.”

“Rob, what’s going on?” asked Casey, turning the key. “My parents weren’t that bad were they?”

“Bad?” asked Rob, turning to face her. “No, Casey, they were not bad at all. They were everything parents should be: proud, loving, and considerate. They tried hard to make me welcome, to make me feel at home, but unfortunately, a certain disgraceful young lady ruined it. This child, who I had thought would remember her own difficult transition, suddenly became a snob and rude. You glared, interrupted, talked over them, and did everything you could to imply your parents were something shameful.”

“Rob, I…” blustered Casey. “I thought… I mean… they are so different from us, from you.”

“From me?” snorted Rob. “You know very little about my upbringing, Casey.”

“I assume they were classy people with wealth and…”

“The wealth came from overseas, from a childless great-uncle who was fond of me and left me an inheritance. My own parents died years ago. They had very little, and every penny they saved went towards my education. Neither of them had a profession, though both were lovers of books. I made my own way, but it was their support that sustained my sister and me. It is you who has been appalling.”

* * *

&n

bsp; “Me…” said Casey, fingering the steering wheel. Shutting her eyes, she replayed the day, and each minute she saw played before her eyes made her cringe. “Shit.”

“Yes, quite,” said Rob in agreement. “Get out of the car.”

Casey wanted what was coming, and now she understood the remote location. Rob stretched his legs and headed into the wooded area, while Casey remained pensively behind. Being made to wait for the inevitable conclusion to his little lecture served only to make her more disheartened by her attitude. She tracked about the rough grass in a circle, head low and eyes on the tiny ants making a route through the giant wilderness of their natural terrain. She noted how hard they worked amongst the tall blades and the focus such small creatures had to finish their chosen path without deviation. Her own route through life had been disorganised, and she imagined if she had been an ant, every blade of grass would have thwarted her journey to the point of giving up. In that moment, she cherished, like never before, Rob’s efforts to tame her lack of direction.

Rob returned some considerable time later with the dreaded object in his hands, and he tapped the still warm bonnet of the car with it. “A dozen of this. Over.”

Rob had decided in a traditional fashion to use birch branches to birch her. She reckoned he had twenty or so silvery thin branches, which were about two feet in length and had been gathered together to form the rod. The sight of the sticks nearly undid Casey. He had not chosen dry twigs, which would snap easily and risk cutting her, but the kind of slender young branches found on a sapling tree. Somehow he had removed the leaves and sharper edges to create something that resembled the end of a witch’s broomstick. Clasped together at one end in his hand, the sticks were not straight enough to gather into a neat bundle, nor were they of an even length. Casey wanted to baulk at him and plead for mercy, but she did not and was quite resolved to go through with his chosen act of discipline. She had to trust him.

In the end, Casey said nothing as she bent over the front of the car. Today she wore knickers, since she had known Rob would not expect her to be in her parents’ presence with no underwear.