The Midwife Trilogy (21 page)

“I’ll be glad when we gets this baby out. She’s getting tired. I won’t go to work no more, the lads can do the job. I’ll stop here, and look after Con and the kids.”

This he did, to my amazement. In those days no self-respecting East Ender would demean himself by doing what he would call “womens’ work”. Most men would not lift a dirty plate or mug from the table, nor even pick their dirty socks up off the floor. But Len did everything. Conchita lay in bed late in the mornings, or sat in a comfortable chair in the kitchen. Sometimes she played with the little ones, but Len was always watching, and if they got too boisterous, he firmly took them away and amused them elsewhere. Sally, the girl of fifteen, who had left school but not yet gone out to work, was there to help him. Nonetheless, Len could do everything - change nappies, feed toddlers, clear up messes, shopping, cooking, and the endless washing and ironing. And all this was accompanied by singing or whistling and unfailing good humour. Incidentally, he was the only man I have ever met who could roll a fag with one hand and feed a baby with the other.

Conchita’s twenty-fourth baby was born at night. A phone call came through at about 11 p.m. that the waters had broken. As fast as I could I pedalled along to Limehouse, because I guessed it would be a quick labour. I was not wrong.

I found everything in perfect readiness. Conchita was lying on clean sheets, with the brown paper and a rubber sheet under her. The room was warm, but not too hot. The baby’s crib and baby clothes were all waiting. Hot water was boiling in the kitchen. Len was sitting beside her, massaging her stomach, her thighs, her back, and her breasts. He had a cold flannel with which to wipe her face and neck, and with every contraction he took her in his arms and held her tight. He murmured encouraging noises. “That’s my girl. That’s my lass. Won’t be long now. I’ve gocher. Jus’ hold on to me.”

I was startled to see him there. I had expected to see a neighbour, or his mother, or an elder daughter. I had never seen a man at a delivery before, apart from a doctor. But in this, as in everything else, Len was exceptional.

A glance told me Conchita was very near the second stage. I gowned up quickly, and laid out my tray. The foetal heart was steady, and the head barely palpable. It must have been already down on the pelvic floor. As the waters had broken, I did not do a vaginal examination, because any such intrusion could risk infection, and, unless absolutely essential, should be avoided. The contractions were coming about every three minutes.

Conchita was sweating, and moaning slightly, but not excessively. She smiled at her husband between each contraction, and relaxed completely in his arms. She had had no sedation.

We did not have long to wait. A change came over her facial expression, that of intense concentration. She gave a grunt of effort and with the next push, the whole baby slid out at once. It was a small baby, and delivery was so quick I had no time to do anything more than catch the child. The little thing was just lying there on the sheet with no help from me. I cleared the airway, and Len handed me the cord clamps and the scissors. He knew exactly what to do. He could have delivered the baby himself, I thought. The placenta came out fairly quickly also, and there was no excessive bleeding.

Len wrapped the baby tenderly in warm towels, and placed her in the crib. He called downstairs for hot water, and gave the message that a little girl had been born. Then he washed his wife all over, and deftly changed the sheets. He brushed her black hair, and put a white hair band on her, to match her white nightie. He called her his pet, his love, his treasure. She smiled dreamily at him.

He called downstairs for one of his children, “Here, Liz, you take these bloody sheets, and put them in the boiler, will yer, love. Then we might think about a nice cup of tea, eh?”

Then he turned back to his wife, and took the baby from the cradle, and handed it to her. She smiled contentedly, touching the baby’s little head, and kissing its wee face. She didn’t say anything, just chuckled with contentment.

Len was ecstatic, and started talking non-stop again. During Conchita’s labour he had hardly said a thing. It was the only time I had ever known him to be silent for so long. But now nothing could stop him.

“Oh, look at her. Jes look at ’er, nurse. Isn’ she beau’iful? Look at ’er li’l hands. See, she’s got fingernails. Oh, she’s openin’ her li’l mouth. Oh, you li’l swee’heart, you. See, she’s got long eyelashes, like ’er mum. She’s jes perfick.”

He was as excited as a young father with his first baby.

He called all the other children up, and they all sat round their mother, talking in a mixture of Spanish and English. Only the toddlers were asleep. The rest of the house was awake and excited.

I packed up my equipment and slipped silently out of the room, feeling that the unity and happiness of the family would be all the greater if I was not there. Len saw me leave and courteously came out with me. As we left, I noticed that the conversation behind us slipped into Spanish.

He thanked me for all I had done, although I had done virtually nothing. As he carried my bag downstairs, he said: “Let’s have a nice cup o’ tea together, shall us nurse?”.

He chatted happily all the time we had our tea. I told him how much I liked and admired his family. He was a proud father. I told him how impressed I was that they all spoke Spanish so fluently.

“They’re a clever lot, my kids, they are. Cleverer than their old dad. I never could pick up the lingo, meself.”

Quite suddenly, with blinding insight, the secret of their blissful marriage was revealed to me. She couldn’t speak a word of English, and he couldn’t speak a word of Spanish.

SISTER MONICA JOAN

“Light is the higher plane - life is the lower - light becomes Life. There is a fiery flash, a vision granted, a golden moment of offering.”

I could listen to her all day - the beautiful modulated voice, the moving hands, the hooded eyes, the arch of her haughty eyebrows, the drape of her veil as she turned her long neck. She was over ninety, and her mind was going, but I was utterly captivated.

“Shining questions, infinite response, the astro-mental plane of man lies in the etheric. The outer darkness is a monstrous dragon, with its tail in its mouth. Did you know?”

I sat at her feet, bewitched, and shook my head, not daring to speak in case I broke the spell.

“This is the cosmic body, the critical point, the translation of parallelisms running to the neutral centre of the disappearing point. Have you seen the clouds pass and float and roll as planets do? And so we see Him come, pierced. I am the thorn that pierced His brow. Can you smell burning, my dear?”

“No. Can you?”

“I think that Mrs B.’s ahrimatic unconsciousness has prompted her to make a cake. Let us go with God in all things. I think we should investigate, don’t you?”

I would rather have continued listening to her talk, but I knew that once the spell had been broken, there would be no going back - for the time being - and the smell of cake for Sister Monica Joan was irresistible. She smiled appreciatively. “That smells like one of Mrs B.’s honey cakes. Come on, get a move on, don’t just sit there.”

She jumped up, and with quick, light steps, head held high, back straight, she sped towards the kitchen.

Mrs B. turned as she entered. “Hello, Sister Monica Joan, you’re a bit early. They’re not done yet. But I’ve kept the bowl for you to scrape, if you wants to.”

Sister Monica Joan pounced on the bowl as though she had not eaten for a fortnight, scraping with the big wooden spoon, and licking both sides with murmurs of delight.

Mrs B. went over to the sink and took a wet cloth. “Nah ven, Sister, you got it all over your habit, an’ a bit on your veil, an’ all. Wipe your fingers, there’s a good girl. You can’t go to Tierce like that, can you? And the bell will go any minute.”

The bell sounded. Sister Monica Joan looked round quickly, and winked.

“I must go. You can wash the bowl now. Oh the delight in Heaven as the spheres move, and the tiny grains of sand touch the stars. The Phoenix rises from the living flame, and Ceres cries ... don’t forget to keep the crispy ones for me.”

She tripped out of the kitchen as Mrs B. fondly opened the door for her.

“She’s a caution, she is. You wouldn’t fink she’d been in the Docks all through two world wars, and the Depression, would you? She’s delivered thousands of our children. In the Blitz she wouldn’t leave. She delivered babies in air-raid shelters and church crypts, an’ once in what was left of a bombed house. Bless ’er. If she wants the crispy ones, she can ’ave ’em.”

I had heard stories like that so often, from so many people - her years of selfless work, her dedication, her commitment. Sister Monica Joan was known and loved throughout Poplar. I had heard that she was the daughter of a very aristocratic English family who were scandalised when she announced in the 1890s that she was going to be a nurse. Wasn’t her sister a Countess, and her mother a Lady in her own right? How could she disgrace them so? Ten years later, when she qualified as one of the first midwives in the country, they remained silent in their displeasure. But they cut her off altogether when she joined a religious order and went to work in the East End of London.

Lunch was the one occasion during the day when we all met together. Most monastic orders take their meals in silence, but talking was permitted at Nonnatus House. We stood until Sister Julienne came in and said grace, after which we all sat. Mrs B. would bring in the trolley and usually Sister Julienne would serve, with one other person carrying the plates around. Conversation that day was general: Sister Bernadette’s mother’s health; the two guests due to arrive at teatime.

Sister Monica Joan was peevish. She couldn’t eat a chop, due to her teeth, and she didn’t like the mince. Cabbage she could never abide. She would wait for the pudding.

“Do have a little mashed potato, dear, with some onion gravy. You know how you like Mrs B.’s onion gravy. You need the protein, you know.”

Sister Monica Joan sighed, as though all the injustice of the world had been heaped upon her,

“‘Stop and consider! Life is but a day - A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way.’”

“Yes dear, I know, but a little mashed potato wouldn’t go amiss.”

Sister Evangelina paused, fork in hand, and snorted, “What’s that about a dew drop?”

Sister Monica Joan lost her peevishness, and said, sharply, “Keats, my dear, John Keats. Our greatest poet, though perhaps you don’t know. Uh-oh, I shouldn’t have said anything about dew-drops. It was a slip of the tongue.”

She took out a fine lawn handkerchief, and held it delicately to her nose. Sister Evangelina was beginning to turn red around the neck.

“Your tongue slips a great deal too often, if you ask me, dear.”

“No one was asking you, dear,” Sister Monica Joan addressed the wall, very, very quietly.

Sister Julienne intervened. “I’ve put a few fresh carrots on your plate also. I know you like carrots. Did you know that the Rector has seventy-two young people from the youth club in his confirmation class this year? Just imagine! That, on top of all their other work, will keep the curates busy.”

Everyone murmured interest and approval of the size of the confirmation class, and I watched Sister Monica Joan push the carrots around her plate with her forefinger. Such compelling hands, all bones and veins covered with transparent skin. Her nails were usually long, because she couldn’t be bothered to cut them, and resisted anyone else doing so. The forefingers on both hands were astonishing. She could bend the first joint, keeping the rest of the finger quite straight. I sat quietly watching, and tried to do it myself, but couldn’t. She got some gravy on her fingertip, and licked it off. She seemed to like it and brightened a little. She dipped her finger again. Meanwhile, conversation had turned to the forthcoming jumble sale.

Sister Monica Joan took up her fork, and ate all the potato and gravy, but not the carrots, then pushed her plate away from her with a hard-done-by sigh. She had obviously been thinking. She turned to Sister Evangelina and said loudly, but in the sweetest tone, “Keats may not be your cup of tea, but do you admire Lear, dear?”

Sister Evangelina looked at her with justifiable suspicion. Instinct told her there was a trap, but she had neither verbal skill nor wit, only a heavy, ponderous sort of honesty. She walked straight into the trap. “Who?”

It was the worst thing she could have said.

“Edward Lear, dear, one of our greatest comic poets, ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’, you know. I thought perhaps you might particularly admire ‘the Dong with the Luminous Nose’, dear.”

There was a gasp around the table at this piece of effrontery. Sister Evangelina’s face turned red all over, and the moisture began to glisten. Someone said “Pass the salt, please”, and Sister Julienne asked quickly if anyone would like another chop. Sister Monica Joan looked archly at Sister Evangelina, and murmured to herself, “Oh dear, now we are back to Keats and dewdrops.” She took out her handkerchief and started to sing “Ding Dong Bell, Pussy’s in the Well”, as though to herself.

Sister Evangelina nearly exploded with impotent rage, and scraped back her chair. “I think I can hear the telephone; I will go and answer it,” she said, and left the refectory.

The atmosphere was tense. I glanced sideways at Sister Julienne, wondering what she would do. She looked exceedingly cross, but could say nothing to Sister Monica Joan in front of us all. The other Sisters looked down at their plates, discomfited. Sister Monica Joan sat erect and haughty, her hooded eyes closed. Not a muscle moved.

I had often wondered about her. Her mind was obviously going, but how much was senility, and how much downright naughtiness? This gratuitous, unprovoked attack on Sister Evangelina was a piece of premeditated malice. Why did she do it? Her history of selfless dedication in over fifty years of nursing the poorest of the poor would imply saintliness. Yet here she was, deliberately humiliating her Sister in God in front of the entire staff, including Mrs B., who had just brought in the pudding.