There were less good memories, too, from our years at Aspley Guise. (We were there, I suppose, from the time I was two or three years old and through the war years until perhaps the end of the forties, when we moved---not very far—to Braughing. From Bedfordshire to Hertfordshire, a matter, surely, of no more than fifty miles…)
But this was in Aspley.
You may not remember it as clearly as I do. I would have been four years old, or so. Maybe younger. Maybe terrible twos. Or threes. But I had done something bad. I had pulled Flora’s hair, perhaps, or taken one of her toys. The kind of bad thing a little boy does to his older sister, just to be mean. Or because she was being mean to me.
The resulting screams of pain or rage must have brought you running up the stairs to the nursery, where you identified me as the culprit. Reverting to some old masculine idea of punishment, you unstrapped the narrow black belt from where it cinched your cassock and shouted at me in a fury.
I ran.
Terrified, I ran from the nursery, out across the landing and down the corridor that led past the upstairs bathroom to the guest rooms, with you in hot pursuit, shouting, the leather belt raised and poised to strike. Alerted by the uproar, my mother must have run upstairs herself and was now making our stampede a threesome.
Reaching the dead end of the corridor, by the linen closet, I made a quick turn into the main guest bedroom, with its two twin beds. I remember the color of the counterpanes, one yellow and orange, on dark and light green.
But here I was trapped against the nearest of the beds. You towered over me in your flowing cassock, a giant black crow, your belt up behind your shoulder, ready for the first smarting blow.
Then my mother intervened. “No, Harry, no! Please no!”
And you came to the sudden realization of what it was you were about to do. Your arm dropped, and with it, the belt. The rage subsided into something different—a sense of guilt? An understanding of the misuse of your power over the powerless?
I managed to relax a little as I watched you do the same. You fumbled with your belt as you fastened it back around your waist. Then you said, “You’re right. I’m sorry, Peter. I should not have been so angry. And I promise—promise—that I’ll never, ever try to hit you again.”
And you never did.
I think you left my mother to take care of restoring peace and order in the family and returned downstairs to resume the work I’d interrupted in your study.
So that was that. I could have used a hug.
With love. Your son,
Peter
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