The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (29 page)

This time Flo understood. She leaped away from her daughter, and stared at her in horror. “Black? Yer jokin’. Yer must be. You mean it’s not Tom’s baby?”

Bella nodded.

“You filthy slut, you. Is this what I brings you up for, is it? To disgrace me and yer dad!”

Her hand flew to her face, and she drew in breath with a horrified gasp.

“Oh my Gawd,” she whispered to herself. “They’ve got a big knees-up planned for yer dad at the Club, an’ they was keepin’ it a surprise. He’s President this year, an’ the lads wanted a real old knees-up when ’is first gran’child’s born. It’ll be the joke of all Poplar, it will. He’ll never live it down. They won’t let ’im.”

She wrung her hands silently, then screamed at her daughter. “Oh, I wish you’d never been born, I do. I ’opes as how you dies now, you an’ that bastard inside yer an’ all, I ’opes.”

Another contraction came on, and Bella screamed with pain. “Stop it. Don’t let it come. Stop it some’ow.”

“I’ll give you ‘don’t let it come’,” screamed Flo. “I’ll kill you afore it comes, yer filthy bitch, you.”

They were both screaming at each other. A terrified Tom appeared in the doorway. Flo turned on him, her face red with passion. “Get out of here,” she said. “Vis is no place for a man. Just get out. Go for a walk, or somefink. An don’t come back ’til termorrer mornin’.”

Tom withdrew with speed. Men were accustomed to being ordered about in that way when it came to childbirth.

His appearance must have made Flo think more clearly. She became practical. “We’ve gotta get rid of it,” she said. “No one mus’ know, least of all ’im. When it’s born I’ll take it away and put it in an institution. No one will know.”

Bella grabbed her hand, her eyes alight. “Oh mum, will yer? Will yer do that fer me?”

My head was spinning. Up to that moment I had been flattened morally and emotionally, by all the noise, and the high drama going on between mother and daughter. But this was a new turn of events.

“You can’t possibly do that,” I said. “What are you going to tell Tom when he gets home tomorrow?”

“We’ll tell ’im it’s dead,” said Flo confidently.

“But you can’t do that in this day and age. You can’t spirit away a living baby and announce that it died. You would never get away with it. Tom thinks he’s the father. He would ask to see the baby. He would ask why it died.”

“He can’t see ve baby,” said Flo with less confidence. ” He’s got to think it’s dead and buried.”

“This is ridiculous,” I said. “We are not living in the 1850s. If I deliver a living baby, I have to make my report, and that has to go to the health authorities. The baby can’t just die or disappear. Someone will have to account for it.”

Just then another contraction came on, and the dialogue had to be suspended. My head was racing. They were mad, both of them, beyond all reason.

The contraction passed. Flo had also been thinking furiously and making her plans. “Well you go away, then. Say you ’ad to go to another patient, or summat. I can deliver the baby myself, an’ I don’t ’ave to make no bleedin’ report to no bleedin’ authority. I can just take the baby away when it’s born, an’ no one’ll know where it’s gorn to, they won’t. An’ Tom’ll never see it.”

I reeled under the impact of this suggestion. “I can’t possibly do that. I’m a professional midwife, trained and registered. Bella is my patient. I can’t walk out on her in the first stage of labour, and leave her in the hands of an untrained woman. I still have to make my report. What am I to tell the Sisters? How am I to account for my actions?”

Another contraction came on. Bella was screaming. “Oh, stop it. Don’ let it come. Let me die. What’ll ’e say? ’e’ll kill me!”

Her mother, defiant, said, “Don’t you fret, my luvvy. He’ll never see it. Yer mum’ll get rid of it for yer.”

“But you can’t,” I shouted. I felt myself getting hysterical, too. “If a living baby is born, it can’t just be ‘got rid of’. If you try anything like that, you will have the police after you. You will be committing a crime, and then your situation will be worse than ever.”

Flo sobered up a bit. “It’ll have to be adopted, then.”

“That’s more like it,” I said. “But even then the baby has to be registered, and adoption papers have to be drawn up and signed by both parents to give consent. Tom thinks it is his baby. You can’t hide it from him and then tell him he’s got to sign his baby away for adoption. He wouldn’t agree to that.”

Bella started screaming again. Dear God, what’s her blood pressure doing, I thought. Maybe, with all this second stage trauma, the grandmother will get her way after all and the baby will die! I got out my foetal stethoscope to listen to the heartbeat. Bella must have read my thoughts. She pushed the stethoscope away.

“Leave it alone. I wants it to die, can’t you see that?”

“I must ring for the doctor,” I said. “Anything could happen, and I need help.”

“Don’t you dare,” Flo snarled at me. “No one mus’ know - no doctors. I’ve got to get rid of it somehow.”

“Don’t let’s start on that again,” I shouted. “I need a doctor, and I’m going to ring for one now.”

Quick as a flash, Flo was in front of me. She grabbed my surgical scissors from the delivery tray, rushed into the other room, and cut the wire of the telephone. She glared at me in triumph.

“There now. Yer can go down ve road an’ telephone ve doctor.”

I didn’t dare do such a thing. The second stage was imminent. The baby might be born in my absence, and I might return to find it had been “got rid of”.

There was another contraction. Bella seemed to be bearing down. She was still crying hysterically, but definitely giving a push. Flo started wailing.

“Shut up,” I said in a cold, hard voice. “Shut up, and get out of this room.”

She looked startled, but stopped her noise.

“Now, leave this room at once. I have a baby to deliver, and I cannot do it with you present. Go.”

She gasped, and opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it and left, shutting the door quietly behind her.

I turned to Bella. “Now roll over on to your left side, and do exactly as I tell you. This baby will be born within the next few minutes. I don’t want you to have a tear or a haemorrhage, so just do as I say.”

She was quiet and cooperative. It was a perfect delivery.

 

The baby was pure white and looked just like Tom. She was the apple of her father’s eye, and was doted upon by her proud grandfather. Her wise grandmother kept the secrets of the delivery room to herself.

I was the only person outside the family to know, and until this moment, I have never told a soul.

 

The Smiths were an average, respectable East End family, with a rub-along sort of marriage. Cyril was a skilled pilot in the docks, and Doris worked in a hairdressers, as her five children were now of school age. They were not hard up, but took their holidays in the hop-picking fields of Kent. Both Cyril and Doris had enjoyed such holidays all through their childhood. Their own children enjoyed the healthy country air, the camaraderie of the other children, the open spaces to run around in, and the chance to earn some pocket money if they filled their baskets with hops. The family met the same people, year after year, who came from other areas of London, and friendships were formed and renewed every year.

Each family had to take their own bedding, primus stove, and cooking equipment. They were allocated a space considered sufficient for the size of each family in sheds or barns, where they dwelt for a fortnight. Food was bought from the farm shop. Some took tents and camped. The adults worked all day in the fields, picking the hops for which they were paid, and most of the children joined in. In the 1950s, poverty was not as extreme as it had been for earlier generations, so the necessity to earn the pittance which was euphemistically called a wage had largely passed. In days gone by, children had had to work from morning to dusk to earn a few pennies which, added to their parents’ money, would help the family through the winter. The hop-picking holidays had also been lifesavers for many East End children, because they were exposed to the sunshine, which prevented rickets.

By the 1950s, the children were mostly free to play, and to join in the picking only if they wanted to. Many farms had a stream or river running through them, which was the centre of childhood fun. The evenings were a great time for the whole temporary community, as they would light fires in the open air, sing songs, flirt and tell stories, and generally make believe that they were country folk and not city-dwellers at all.

Before the war the annual hop-pickers consisted almost exclusively of East Enders, Romany gypsies, and tramps. After the war, with increased mobility of population worldwide, a more varied group of people turned up at the farms each year. (Mechanisation of hop-picking put an end to this annual activity for so many people.)

Doris and Cyril settled with their children in the shed, occupying the seven-foot square space that had been chalked on the floor for them. They were given a straw palliasse to sleep on, and with the primus stove and a hurricane lamp, it was all considered very comfortable. There were a lot of new people at the farm that year, and several families from the West Indies, which was quite a surprise. At first Doris was stand-offish. She had never met or spoken to a black person before, much less slept in the same barn as a group of them, but the children immediately made friends, as children always do. The women were laughing and friendly, and Doris quickly found her inhibitions breaking down.

In fact the holiday proved to be a real eye-opener for Doris and Cyril. They had never before realised that West Indian people could be so much fun. It is said that East Enders are good-humoured. Well, beside the West Indians, Cockneys look positively dour. Doris and Cyril laughed from morning to night, and the hard work of hop-picking was barely felt. Tired but elated in the evenings, Doris would leave the fields to prepare a meal for her family, and then join the groups sitting around the fires. The songs were new this year. She had never heard West Indian singing before, with its blend of beauty and tragedy, and it stirred deep and nameless longings in her heart. She joined in the choruses and the round songs with an ear for music that she never knew she possessed. Cyril didn’t think much of the music, and nothing on earth would have induced him to open his mouth and sing, so he joined one of the other groups around another fire where the blokes were more to his liking.

Time passes all too quickly when you are enjoying yourself, and no one wanted to leave at the end of the fortnight. But their time was up, and they all declared it was the best holiday of their life, and that they would meet again next year. The children cried at parting.

The humdrum life of work and school and neighbours and gossip started again, and gradually the memory of the Kentish holiday faded into a dream.

No one was surprised when Doris announced at the Christmas party that she was pregnant again. She was only thirty-eight, and five children was not considered to be a large family. Cyril was told that he “wasn’t ’alf a lad”, and they were both given everyone’s good wishes.

She went into labour early one morning. Cyril rang us on his way to work. Doris was able to get the children up and off to school, and a neighbour came in to be with her for a while. I arrived around 9.30 a.m. to find everything in good order. The house was clean and tidy. The baby things were ready and immaculate. All the requirements we asked for, such as hot water, soap, and so on, were ready. Doris was calm and cheerful. The neighbour left as I arrived, and said that she would pop in later. Labour was uneventful, and fairly quick.

At twelve noon she delivered a baby boy, who was quite obviously black.

I, of course, was the first to see him, and didn’t know what to say or do. After I had cut the cord, I wrapped him in a towel, and placed him in the cot whilst I attended to the third stage. This allowed me a little time to think: should I say something? If so, what? Or should I just hand her the baby, and let her see for herself? I decided upon the second course.

The third stage of labour usually takes at least fifteen to twenty minutes, so during that time I simply picked the baby up, and put him in Doris’s arms.

She was silent for a long time, and then said, “He’s beau’iful. He’s so lovely, ’e makes me wanna cry.”

Tears silently came to her eyes and coursed down her cheeks. She sobbed inwardly to herself as she clung to the baby.

“Oh he’s so beau’iful. I never meant to, but wha’ could I do? An’ now wha’ am I goin’ to do? He’s the lovelies’ baby I ever seed.”

She could speak no more for crying.

I was shaken by the unexpected turn of events, but had to attend to my job. I said, “Look, I think the placenta will come soon. Let me put the baby back in the cot, only for a few minutes, so that we can complete your delivery safely, and clean you up. We can talk after that.”

She allowed me to take the baby, and within ten minutes everything was complete.

I put the baby back in her arms, and silently attended to my clearing up. I felt it better not to initiate any conversation.

She held him quietly for a long time, kissing him, and rubbing her face against his. She held his hand, and flexed his arm, and said, “His fingernails is white, yer know.”

Was this a cry of hope? Then she continued, “Wha’ am I goin’ to do? Wha’ can I do, nurse?”

She sobbed in broken-hearted anguish, and clung to the baby with all the fervour and passion of a mother’s love. She couldn’t speak; she could only groan, and rock him in her arms.

I couldn’t reply to her question. What could I say?

I finished what I was doing, and checked the placenta, which was intact. Then I said, “I would like to bath the baby, and weigh him, is that all right?”

She gave the baby to me quietly, and watched every move as I bathed him, as though she was afraid that I might take him away. I think she knew in her heart what was going to happen.

I weighed and measured him. He was a big baby: 9lb 4oz, twenty two inches long, and perfect in every way. He certainly was beautiful; his skin was a dusky tawny colour, fine, dark curly hair already showed on his head. The slightly depressed bridge of his nose, and splayed nostrils accentuated his high, broad forehead. His skin was smooth and unwrinkled.

I gave him back to his mother, and said, “He is the loveliest baby I have ever seen in my life, Doris. You can be proud of him.”

She looked at me with bleak despair. “Wha’ am I goin’ to do?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. Your husband will be coming home from work this evening, thinking he is the father of a new baby. He will ask to see him, and you cannot hide him. I don’t think you should be alone when he comes home. Can your mother come round to be with you?”

“No. That would make fings worse. He hates my mum. Can you be ’ere wiv me, nurse? You’re right. I’m frightened of Cyril seeing ’im.”

And she clutched the baby to her, in a desperate gesture of protection.

“I’m not sure that I would be the right person”, I replied. “I’m a midwife. Perhaps you need a social worker to be here. I definitely think you need someone for your own protection, and that of the baby.”

I promised to look into it, and left.

I imagine she had one happy afternoon with her baby, dozing, cuddling, kissing him, forging with him that unbreakable bond that is a mother’s love for her baby, which is every baby’s birthright. Perhaps she knew what was coming, and tried to cram a lifetime of love into a few short hours. Perhaps she crooned to him the West Indian spirituals that she had learned around the camp fire.

I reported to Sister Julienne, and expressed my fears. She said, “You are right that someone must be there when her husband sees the baby. However, I think it would be better for a man to be present. All the social workers in this area are women. I will speak to the Rector.”

In the event, the Rector sent a young curate to be at the house from five o’clock onwards. He did not go himself, because he thought it would look too portentous if he arrived at the house.

The curate reported that events had transpired very much as I had expected. Cyril took one silent, horrified look at the baby, and made a great swipe at his wife with his fist. The blow was deflected by the curate. Then he made to grab the baby and hurl it against the wall, and was only prevented from doing so by the curate. He said to his wife, “If this bastard stays in the ’ouse one single night, I’ll kill ’im, an’ you an’ all.”

The savage gleam in his eye showed that he meant it. “You jest wait, yer bitch.”

An hour later the curate left carrying the baby in a small wicker basket, with a bundle of baby clothes in a paper bag. He brought the baby to Nonnatus House, and we cared for him overnight. He was received into a children’s home the next morning. His mother never saw him again.