It is a mistake, when you have five, lively boys, to live near to an elderly neighbour.

It was not exactly our decision either. Our house was, in its day, a mill house, and Anna and I bought it nearly derelict, twenty years ago, and did it up ourselves, bit by bit through my carpentry and her painting. Then about five years ago, developers bought up the ruined barn on the edge of the property and converted it, and the Kopeks came to live there. Why they wanted a two storey building we never did work out: they were an elderly couple and the stairs must have been difficult and there was a large garden attached which they struggled to manage. Mrs Kopek died a year or two later, and Mr Kopek, who seemed to have no family and to come from Polish descent, continued to live there alone. Mark and I mowed his lawns along with ours, the boys clipped his hedges when they clipped ours and Anna had a way of sending one of the boys over with a couple of scones or a cake, or pot of casserole most weekends when she baked, saying it was as easy to cook for eight as for seven. If it pleased Mr Kopek he carefully avoided telling us so.

The boys had, over the years, fallen foul of him for various reasons: mostly for what Mr Kopek termed as noise and trespass, and Anna and I had variously reasoned and attempted to negotiate with him on many occasions without much success. He still shouted and complained, until we had been forced to protect the boys by asking them to keep their distance from his land. Jack was the one that most often drew Mr Kopek's fire. Jack didn't do standing still. Sandy hair flying, usually in his eyes and over his collar since his hair was as active as he was and sitting still for haircuts wasn’t a talent of his, Jack was usually a blur of muddied football shirt zooming by in our house. Football was his primary passion, but it was Jack that climbed every wall and tree in sight, rode his bike around every trail in the area and was generally knee and elbow deep in mud. 'Muddying the grass and damaging the property' was how Mr Kopek regarded it, and although Anna and I repeatedly explained that it was our property and he wasn't actually causing any damage other than to his hands, elbows and knees, he kept on complaining. Then for Christmas Jack was given a pogo stick by some misguided but well meaning relative who shall remain nameless.

Well aware of Mr Kopek's likely feelings towards the rhythmic click click click of a pogo stick near his yard we asked Jack to use it only in the parts of our garden well away from Mr Kopek's property, and he did; but Mr Kopek developed what was more or less an acute pogo allergy. He could hear the pogo stick with all his doors and windows closed, even when Jack was at the far end of the garden.

"He's an old man," I comforted Jack and Toby, having come to their rescue after Mr Kopek tottered across his garden to harangue them over the wall. "Little things bother him and he needs a lot of quiet."

"We stayed on the grass and it wasn't loud." Tobe told me, still gulping since Mr Kopek, to someone of Tobe's height, I could imagine was highly intimidating when angry. "And he still shouted at us."

"I'm sure he can't really hear that stick from inside the house," Mark said rather crossly for Mark, who'd been watching me do my best to placate Mr Kopek. "As soon as he catches a glimpse of Tobe or Jack out here he starts watching for it."

"When you're that old you're entitled to be eccentric." I said firmly. "You two take it around the far side of the house where he can't see it or hear it and then there's no risk of you bothering him."

Mark watched the two little ones take the pogo stick around the side of the house and out of sight, and pulled his gloves back on, coming to help me with the repairs we'd been making to the shed roof.

"He doesn't need to be quite as sharp with the kids as he is. Jack's all over the place, but he isn't noisy and he tries not to do anything to disturb. He and Tobe are getting afraid to play anywhere near Mr Kopek's garden and it's not as if they're doing damage or making any real noise with that stick anyway."

"When I'm Mr Kopek's age I'll probably feel threatened by things that wouldn't worry me now." I said peaceably. "If necessary we'll take Jack and Tobe down to the park to play with that pogo stick, but if they stay well away from his property there shouldn't be a problem."

Mark looked rather cynical but he didn't say anything more.

I suspect, on reflection, that the elder boys held some kind of a discussion on the matter on their own. They rarely attracted Mr Kopek's attention these days, but they're a protective crew and especially so regarding the two littler ones. Whether they did or not, for a few weeks we didn't have a problem. The pogo stick was played with out of sight of Mr Kopek's property and I assume our little boys then fell into a false sense of security. That ended one afternoon when Tobe challenged Jack to bounce all the way around the house- which was some distance- without falling off. The house, strictly speaking, was well away from Mr Kopek's property, but from what I heard afterwards, the sight of Jack on that stick worked like a charm. Jack was only half way around the side of the house when Mr Kopek erupted from his back door and staggered across the garden on his walking stick, shouting and waving a fist. Jack paused, bouncing on the spot to try to explain that he would only be in sight for a minute, not wanting to get off the stick and break the circuit of the house, but Mr Kopek wouldn't let him get a word in. It was apparently then that Dan, who had been sitting and reading in the sun on the front steps, apparently oblivious, got up, shut his book with a snap, and walked across the lawn to Mr Kopek's wall.

I was working at the kitchen table, taking advantage of an hour's peace and quiet before Anna and the older boys came home, when I became aware that the pogo stick sounds and the chattering of Jack and Tobe had stopped, and instead I could hear Dan's voice, talking steadily and unusually loudly. I couldn't make out the words. There is a kind of radar that developed very early on into parenthood, that identifies not exactly odd noises but unusual noises indicating someone doing something that they definitely shouldn't. I put my pen down, got up and went out of the front door.

Daniel, his glasses on the end of his nose, was standing at the garden wall with Jack and Toby looking aghast behind him, and he was lecturing clearly, precisely and at length.

"- not necessary to equate age with joylessness, or to use it as an excuse for being surly and pedophobic. Age does not make that acceptable, nor do you have any rational justification whatsoever unless you'd care to admit to senile dementia. Legally my brothers are on my parents' property, they are breaking no legal restrictions of noise or nuisance, and in fact we would have considerably more justification to prosecute YOU on grounds of aggravation and harassment-"

"DANIEL." I said very loudly indeed, starting to jog across the lawn. Mr Kopek looked as shocked as I felt.

Dan looked around at me, then turned his gaze back to Mr Kopek.

"Further more, your behaviour is disgraceful. You're rude, you're arrogant and you're intimidating towards children, which I'd call bullying and another indictable offence in terms of these modern times which you seem to be quite oblivious to-"

"DAN." I grabbed Dan's shoulder and found myself looking at Mr Kopek's stunned face over the wall, his mouth open. Daniel folded his arms but finally closed his mouth.

"Excuse us." I said to Mr Kopek, put my hand on the back of Dan's neck and took him across the lawn and into the house, steering him ahead of me. He came without protest but I could feel that he was rigid from the neck down. In the cool of the hall I let him go and said with what I felt was immense self control, "Go on up to my room and wait for me."

Dan didn't comment. He nudged his glasses back up his nose and with his hawk glare of disapproval that told me he was hopping, flaming mad, he stalked upstairs.

Dan is clever. It's alarming how clever that boy is, I'd been watching his progress through books and grades the last couple of years with covert amazement as much as pride. I know how fast his mind works and he can lecture with the vocabulary of a Harvard professor when he gets going. But that was not going to stop me from warming his backside. He felt passionately about things – well so did Jose who was a magnet for any animal in need in a five mile radius, we'd had things recuperating in our garage that made the local vets back off in a panic- and Tobe is not much better. But our kids are not rude, they are not aggressive, and every one of them knows better than to hit out on impulse, whether they do it with fists or with their vocabulary. What I'd just heard Dan say was nothing short of outrageous.

I went out into the back garden and stood there for some minutes, hands on my hips, letting myself calm down. I was less angry than startled; the sheer audacity of Dan's assault on Mr Kopek had staggered me. After a few minutes I heard Jack jog across the lawn to me. I didn't need to look; no one but Jack moves that fast or that noisily. He thudded into my side which is Jack for 'father, a hug might be pleasant', and when I regained my breath I put an arm around him. He twisted to look up at me, looking as anxious as Jack ever manages to get. The fact he had sought me out in itself said a lot: Jack's head is mostly filled with a long list of things to do, and people have been known to struggle to make it onto that list at all.

"He was only mad about Mr Kopek shouting. He didn't mean it."

"I know he didn't." I squeezed the arm around Jack's shoulders. "But that doesn't make it all right to be rude."

Jack didn't answer that, but he didn't move away either. I heard rather more hesitant footsteps across the grass and held out my free arm to Tobe who slotted against my other side, a good deal smaller and considerably more forlorn.

"It was me who dared Jack to go all the way round the house," he said after a moment's clear effort to summon up the courage. "But he meant to be quick and he stayed near the house."

I ruffled his hair, sitting down on the steps to see both boys' faces.

"You didn't do anything wrong. I asked you to stay out of Mr Kopek's sight and it's better if you do, but going round the house isn't playing near his wall."

"We didn't mean to get Dan into trouble." Jack said unhappily.

"You didn't." I said reassuringly to them both. "It's what Dan said that I'm not happy with. He was right to come and help you; it's the way he chose to do it that was wrong. That wasn't your fault."

Neither Jack nor Tobe looked effectively reassured.

"Are you going to spank Dan?" Tobe asked anxiously. I didn't answer that.

"You two go and play. Stay in the back garden for now until I can talk to Mr Kopek."

"Ok Daddy."

"Yes sir."

It didn't look to me like either of them felt up to doing anything noisy at the moment anyway. I left them sitting on the steps, both thoroughly dejected, and made my way upstairs to deal with my third son.

*

Dan was sitting on the side of Anna's and my bed, and the glare I got was frankly challenging. I knew Dan well in this mood, although I hadn't seen it quite this belligerent in a while, and I knew from experience that he was braced for and looking forward to an argument. Dan could talk a professional barrister round in circles. I took no notice of the glare, went to the wardrobe and took the switch down from where it was kept on the top shelf.

"Stand up Dan, take your pants down and put your hands on the bed."

That was a short way to end the argument without even beginning it. The glare melted away like snow off a hot brick, and Dan looked up at me in shock.

It had been quite a while since I last gave him a proper spanking. Dan doesn't so much mind bending over for the one or two warning swats on the clothed rear end that is mostly all he ever needs these days, but he loathes getting a proper spanking. The others hate being spanked because, as they have clarified in detail, the switch stings formidably on bare skin. To my extremely dignified Dan, the actual act of having to co operate, bare himself and bend over is the worst part. That galls him severely, and there are times when I reach the wry decision that that is no bad thing. Submitting himself to anything doesn't come easily to Dan, who is at the teenaged stage of knowing everything, being entirely too mature for this kind of treatment, and finding everyone else frustratingly slow. That is not a point of view I subscribe to at all.

He took a breath, I saw him do it. Steeling himself. Then he took off his glasses, folded them neatly and put them in his breast pocket with the accuracy of a scientist, and got up, turning around to unbutton his jeans. He did his best to do it with a martyred dispassion that indicated he was quite unmoved. It wasn't convincing. I was still aware of the distinctly adolescent redness of his face and the fingers that fumbled slightly and the reluctance in every move. He eased his jeans down, and like all the boys save Jack, who sees no point in messing around with anything, he made the deliberate and rather pointless effort to lower them without disturbing his underwear. It didn't help. Once his jeans reached his knees there was still nothing left for him to do but take the elastic of his briefs and push them downwards too.

There isn't much of Dan other than yards of leg at the moment, there really isn't. He hesitated a little, the hem of his t shirt half obscuring his behind, and then he bent over and put his hands on the bed. His t shirt rode up to the small of his back even though he had bent himself as little as he possibly could to put his palms in contact with the quilt. I laid the end of the switch across his bottom and saw a very definite flinch away from it, a momentary and give away clench that again belied his self possession.

"What's this for, Dan?"

He didn't answer for a moment. When he did I could hear the tightness of his lips and the acid in his tone.

"For embarrassing you in public."

Ok, he was obviously determined it was going to be one of those conversations. I flicked the switch briskly and firmly down across both bare cheeks and Dan jerked, clenching his behind tightly.

"I don't think so. Want to try again?"

"No?" Dan said with studied and patently false courtesy. I made no comment but flicked the switch down again just as soundly across the lower slopes of his behind. Dan's jerk was sharper this time and I heard the stifled hiss of response.

"OW-"

"Dan?" I invited after a moment in which he squirmed a little and I waited. Dan took a breath.

"For telling Mr Kopek what I thought of him. Although he was rude to us first and he's miserable beneath all contempt-"

"Is anyone beneath contempt?" I asked, keeping the switch down since that was Dan's first real attempt so far to talk to me. We could deal with the tone of voice later.

"He deserved it, I didn't say anything that wasn't absolutely true," Dan protested.

"And it's your job to make judgements?" I demanded. "You've got that authority and knowledge have you? That makes it all right to carry out character assasinations on the spot when someone annoys you? You can justify it all day Dan, words can justify pretty much anything, but do you really think that 'beneath contempt' is an acceptable way to think and talk about people? Especially people who are as elderly as Mr Kopek is?"

Dan didn't give me an answer. I wasn't about to coax for one either. I swatted his behind sharply again with the switch and Dan jumped but he kept his head ducked and his mouth tightly closed.

"I don't think you believe that." I told him calmly, taking no notice of the paddy which he had been just as good at as a very small boy. Save in those days he had folded his arms, stamped and glared instead of resorting to superior silences. "I don't think you believe that about anyone at all, never mind a lonely and widowed old man."

Silence. I waited a moment, not for a reply but to give Dan some thinking time before I gave him another sound swat across the bottom. That one produced an odd sound from him, something between a stifled yelp and a sob, and while he didn't move, he did turn his hips a little to one side, an almost instinctive attempt to move his reddening behind away. It must have been giving him a sharp incentive by now to start listening. I didn't say anything else, just waited. Dan controlled how long this went on for: I wasn't being held hostage to sulking or temper no matter how refined or subtle it was, and Dan knew it.

At the next swat he rose up on his toes and while he didn't move his hands, he dropped his head through his arms and I saw his shoulders begin to shake.

"I don't." he said after a moment, very unsteadily. "I don't think it's ok. I shouldn't have told him off and I didn't really care what I said or if it was true or not, I just wanted to hurt him as much as I could. I got fed up with him shouting at Jack and I lost my temper, and I knew I could upset him–" he paused, gulping slightly. "I am sorry."

There was no sign of petulance in his voice now.

"Thank you, I'm glad you see it yourself." I told him quietly. "Are you ready to tell me what this is for?"

"For arguing and being snotty about it," Dan said at once, "And for losing my temper with Mr K, insulting him. Trying to hurt him back."

Thank goodness. On the home stretch and glad for it, I stepped back, keeping my voice calm.

"All right Dan. For that, you've got three swats to come."

I didn't need to add that if he hadn't argued with me and kept up the temper those three would have been all he'd got and it would be long finished by now: I was regretful about that myself but the point needed making. No one in this house had any illusions about temper or attitude working as a means to get their own way, and it certainly didn't get you out of any deserved discipline. Dan dropped his head and I heard the tears start very quietly, but he didn't move. There were five reddened lines clear across his behind, although nothing more than redness.

I wanted this over with probably just as badly as Dan did, but I still believe in giving time to think between swats. The whole point whenever I set out to do this is making a change in how the boys feel and what they're thinking. I therefore waited between each stroke, applied each one soundly, and by the time I placed the third, Dan was crying softly but steadily. I put a hand on his back to let him know we were done, put the switch away and came to sit down on the bed beside him. Dan had straightened up and hurriedly fumbled his pants back into place, and he was wiping his face with the back of his hands, choking down both tears and gulps. When he was little I used to just lift him into my lap at this point. Now it's a little trickier. I put a hand out to take his and pulled him to sit down on the bed beside me, putting my arm over his shoulders. He leaned his elbows on his knees and pushed his face into his steepled hands for a moment, still gulping. I rubbed his back in steady, comforting circles, giving him time to find the words he wanted.

"I am sorry." He said eventually into his hands. "I'll apologise to Mr Kopek."

"That's a good idea."

"I didn't mean to embarrass you and mum."

"That isn't the issue-" I began firmly, but Dan straightened up, white faced now, blotchy and red eyed, but determined.

"It is to me. You didn't teach us to yell at people, I don't want anyone to think you did. And I might as well have sworn at him. That was more or less what I intended to do, it was an attack, and the intent's the same as the action isn't it? It was what I was feeling."

I understood what he meant.

"Suppose you leave me to sort out the Mr Kopek and Jack situation?" I said mildly, "I'll handle it. If you see that kind of problem coming up again you might want to pull Jack out of it until your mother or I, or Mark are home."

"I thought I could handle it." Dan said despondently, but without bitterness.

"When you can do it while keeping your temper." I pulled his head against mine and dropped a kiss into his dark hair, very like Anna's. "You want some time to get yourself together?"

Dan nodded, still red eyed but breathing quietly, and he turned against me and slid his arms around my waist, ducking his head against my chest. I hugged him tightly, holding him, and he sat with me like that for a while in silence until I felt him draw back of his own accord and run a hand over his eyes again. I dropped a hand on his shoulder and got up.

"Come down when you're ready."

I left him sitting on my bed and closed the door quietly. It's the one room in the house that none of the boys go without permission and no one would bother him there.

*

Anna was extremely tight lipped when I told her, and it was quite clear to me that she was struggling not to express at least some sympathy for Dan's actions. It wasn't as if I had none myself: I fully appreciated why Dan had gone to his brother's rescue. It was simply that a fourteen year old could not reasonably inform our elderly neighbours that they were senile dementing, pedophobic bullies. I reminded Anna of that and she winced and got up from the kitchen table where I had seated her in an effort to calm her down.

"I know. You're quite right, that isn't on. But really-"

"I'll speak to Mr Kopek." I promised her. "And I'll go and do that now."

"I'm very sorry for the man." Anna gave a boding look towards the garden wall and tucked a stray strand of dark hair back behind her ear. Her long fingers were still paint stained from work. "I really am. But he can't hang over that wall shouting at the little ones every time they set foot in the garden, Josh. Children play. And it isn't acceptable to frighten-"

"Hey." I turned her around and pulled her into my arms. As narrow as Dan although still just about taller. She unfolded her arms with some effort and hugged me back.

"All right, I won't go and shout over the wall either. But this can't be a straight apology job, Josh. We and the children have done our best to accommodate him, and nothing is ever enough. I'm all for live and let live, but he has to do his share of the letting."

"I'll talk to him." I held on to her hand as she let go, keeping her facing me. "Do you want to come too? The full united front?"

"I want to go and see how upset Jack and Tobe are." Anna said darkly. She led the way into the garden, and Tobe ran across the lawn at the sight of her. I watched her kneel down to hug him, calling across to Jack who true to form had found a football to keep himself occupied. Stifling the impulse to go and join them, I headed for Mr Kopek's gate.

His back door was open, which was unusual: I knew he was anxious about intruders. I tapped on the door and called, starting to be concerned, and when there was no answer I gently pushed the door wider. Mr Kopek was seated at his kitchen table, which was clean and sparse like his kitchen was. His head was down on his arms, and he was sobbing. He clearly had not heard me enter.

I went back into his garden and raised my voice, calling across to Anna, who had joined Tobe and Jack in the football game. She looked around, saw my expression and I saw her speak to the boys, who stood where they were as she ran across the lawn to me. She climbed the wall rather than waste time going around to the gate and went ahead of me in to Mr Kopek's kitchen. I don't know what she expected to see; I didn't take the time to explain, but she didn't hesitate. She moved directly around the table, drew out the chair next to Mr Kopek's and sat down beside him, putting her arms around his shoulders. It said a lot to me that instead of withdrawing or flinching, the man's sobbing promptly deepened. Anna gave me a painful look over the old man's head, murmuring to him as she spoke to one of the boys when they were distraught. I took the message and went out, softly closing the kitchen door behind me.

*

It is for me one of the most peaceful moments of the day, when we sit down together for dinner. I watched the boys join hands around the table for me to say grace, Dan and Jose putting their hands into mine, Tobe slipping his hand into Anna's and with rather a wide eyed look at her for help, tentatively offering his other hand to Mr Kopek who was seated on his other side. Mr Kopek accepted it with a deliberate care that suggested he wasn't used to touching small and fragile hands. He had accepted Anna's warm invitation to dinner gruffly but as thankfully as he had accepted Anna's arms around him. It was the first sign of graciousness we'd ever seen from him. Dan, on his other side, hesitated longer, the circle around the table broken between them. Both he and Mr Kopek were still slightly red eyed and subdued and while Dan had apologised sincerely, I wasn't sure how well Mr Kopek had been able to appreciate the gesture. They were still avoiding each other's eye. I would have prompted Dan now, but Mr Kopek abruptly opened his other hand and laid it on the table, offering it palm up to Dan, and Dan accepted it, holding it gently in his.