The Midwife Trilogy (23 page)

I know this to be true from my own experience. From the age of about seventeen, I had hitch-hiked all over England and Wales, always thumbing down long distance lorries and reaching my destination safely. I was always alone. I knew it was said that lorry drivers pick up girls for one purpose only, but this had not been my experience. All the lorry drivers I met were sober, hardworking men, who knew the road, had a load to deliver, and had a schedule to fulfil. Furthermore they were in a named company lorry, and any complaint would identify them immediately, not only to the boss, but also to the wife back home!

Mary found her lorry driver, and told me, “He was such a nice man. It was a long journey and we talked all the way. I sang him songs me dad taught me when I was a child, and he said I had a pretty voice. In some ways he was like me dad. You know, he even took me into a transport café and bought me a meal, and he wouldn’t take anything for it. He said ‘you keep that, lassie, because I think you are going to need it.’ I thought to myself, I’m going to like it in England if all the Englishmen are like this”. She paused, and looked down at her plate. Her voice was barely audible when she said, “He was the last good man I have met in this country.”

There was silence between us for quite some moments. I did not want to force her confidence, and in any case I am not by nature nosy about other people’s affairs, so I said, “How about another ice cream? I’m sure you could manage it. And I wouldn’t mind another coffee, if you think you can afford it.”

She laughed, and said, “I can afford a hundred cups of coffee.”

The proprietor brought our order, and said it was 11.15 and he was closing his till, so could we pay now. But we were welcome to sit at the table until midnight.

The bill was two shillings and ninepence, including coffee. That is equivalent to about twelve pence today. I drew myself to my full height, and with a grand gesture drew out the five pound note.

He jumped and spluttered, “Look ’ere, ain’t you got nuffink smaller’n that? How do you expect me to change five pounds?”

I said coldly and firmly, “I’m sorry, but I have nothing smaller. If I had, I would have given it to you. My friend has no money on her at all. If you can’t change the note, I am afraid we cannot pay for this meal.”

I folded the note and put it back into my handbag. That did it. He said, “All right, all right, Miss Toffee-nose. You win.”

He went and scratched through the till, then had to go out to the back to unlock the safe. He came back to the table, muttering and grumbling, and counted out four pounds, seventeen shillings and three pence change, whereupon I handed over the five pound note.

Mary was giggling like a schoolgirl at all this. I winked at her, and put the change into my bag. She remained just as trusting, because I could have got up and walked out with all her money.

It was getting late. Although it was my night off, I had had a very busy day, and I was on duty at 8 a.m. the next morning, with the likelihood of another busy day ahead. I was tempted to say, “Look I must get off now” but something drew me to this lonely girl, and I said, “Have you any plans for the baby?”

She shook her head.

“When is it due?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who are you booked with for confinement?”

She said nothing, so I repeated the question.

“I’m not booked with anyone,” she said.

I was concerned. She looked about six months’ pregnant, but if she had been half starved it might be a small baby, in which case she could be nearer to full term. I said: “Look Mary, you must be booked for a confinement. Who is your doctor?”

“I haven’t got one.”

“Where do you live?”

She didn’t answer, so I asked again, still no answer. She looked angry, and a hard suspicious tone came into her voice:

“It’s none of your business,” she said. I think if I hadn’t had her four pounds, seventeen shillings and three pence in my handbag, she would have got up and walked out.

“Mary, you might as well tell me, because you need a doctor, and antenatal care for your baby. I am a midwife and can probably arrange it for you.”

She bit her lip, and picked her fingernails, then said, “I’ve been living at the Full Moon Café in Cable Street. But I can’t go back there any more.”

“Why not?” I said. “Is it because you stole five pounds from the till?”

She nodded.

“They’ll kill me if they find me. And they
will
find me, somehow, I’m sure of that. Then they will kill me.”

She said these last words in a flat matter of fact voice, as though she had faced and accepted the inevitable.

It was my turn to be silent. I knew that the East End was a violent place. The midwives did not see it because we were deeply respected, and on the whole only dealt with the respectable families. But this girl could easily have been in potentially violent company and if she had stolen from them that undercurrent of violence could erupt into reality. Her life might well be in danger. I had not yet heard about the notorious cafés of Cable Street.

I said, “Have you got anywhere to sleep tonight?”

She shook her head.

I sighed. The responsibility was beginning to dawn on me.

“Let’s go and see if the YWCA is open. It’s very late, and I am not sure what time they close, but it’s worth a try.”

We thanked the proprietor, and left. In the street I gave Mary her money, and we walked the mile to the YWCA. It had closed at 10 p.m.

I was weary and tired. My stiletto heels were killing me. I had another mile to walk back to Nonnatus House, and a heavy day’s work to come. I cursed myself for getting involved at all. I could so easily have said at the bus stop, “No, I do not have change for five pounds”, and walked away.

But I looked at Mary standing outside the closed door. She looked so small and vulnerable, and somehow utterly docile in my hands. How could I leave her in the street with, possibly, men looking for her who might kill her? Who would notice if she disappeared? I thought, There, but for the grace of God, go I, and that solemn thought was truer than you might suppose.

She shivered in the cold night air, and pulled her thin jacket around her neck. I was wearing a warm camel hair coat with a beautiful fur collar of which I was very proud. The collar was detachable, so I took it off and put it round her thin little neck. She gave a sigh of joy and snuggled into the warm fur.

“Ooh! that’s lovely,” she said, smiling.

“Come on,” I said. “You had better come back with me.”

ZAKIR

The mile walk from the YWCA to Nonnatus House seemed endless. I was too tired to want to talk any more, so we walked in silence. At first all I could think about was my feet and those infernal shoes, designed for elegance, not for hiking. Suddenly the bright idea came to me to take the damned things off! So I did, and my stockings too. The cold pavement felt lovely, and cheered me up.

What was I going to do with Mary? There were only ten bedrooms at Nonnatus House, all of which were occupied. I decided to put her in the staff sitting room, and to find some blankets from the general storeroom. I knew I would have to be up before 5.30 a.m. to tell Sister Julienne as she came out of chapel. I could not risk anyone finding the girl without my first having informed the Sister-in-Charge. The nuns did not and could not take in every down-and-out who turned up at their door. If they did, they would be inundated, and the ten bedrooms would soon have ten sleeping in every bed! The nuns had a specific job to do - district nursing and midwifery - and their calling had to be directed to this end.

As I trudged along in my bare feet, I pondered Mary’s words about the lorry driver, “He was the last good man I have met in this country.” How tragic. There are millions of good men - the vast majority, in fact. How was it that she, a sweet and pretty girl, had never met them? How had she come to this destitute state? Was it all, perhaps, due to love? Or the absence of love? Would I have been in Mary’s position, had it not been for love? My thoughts went, as they always did, to the man I loved. We had met when I was only fifteen. He could quite easily have used and abused me, but he didn’t, he respected me. He loved me to distraction, and wanted only my ultimate good. He had educated me, protected me, guided my teenage years. Had I met the wrong man at the age of fifteen, I reflected, I would probably be in the same position as Mary now.

We trudged on in silence. I didn’t know what Mary was thinking about, but my soul was longing for the sight, the sound and the touch of the man I loved so much. Poor little thing. What sort of touch had she known if the lorry driver was the only good man she had met?

We arrived at Nonnatus House. It was getting on for 2 a.m. I fixed Mary up in the sitting room with some blankets, and said, “The lavatory is down the end of this corridor, dear. Sleep well, and I will see you in the morning.”

I went wearily to bed, and set my alarm for 5.15 a.m.

The Sisters were surprised to see me as they came out of chapel. It was still the time of the Greater Silence of their monastic vows, so there was no speech. I went up to Sister Julienne and told her exactly what had happened. She did not speak, but her eyes spoke their understanding. The nuns passed me in silent procession, and I went back to bed, resetting my alarm for 7.30 a.m.

At 8 a.m. I went to Sister Julienne’s office.

“I have spoken to Father Joe at Church House, Wellclose Square,” she said. “They can take the girl, and will look after her. I have peeped into the sitting room. She is sound asleep, and will probably sleep until midday. We will bring her some breakfast when she wakes up, and then take her along to Church House. You go and have your breakfast now, and then start your morning’s work.”

Her eyes smiled at me, and she added: “You could not have done otherwise my dear.”

Once again, I was struck by the kindness and flexibility of the Sisters, compared with the rigid inflexibility of the hospital systems under which I had worked. Had I taken anyone into a nurses’ home without permission for a night, there would have been hell to pay, simply because it was against the rules.

Mary did not wake up until four o’clock in the afternoon. It was our teatime, just before we started the evening work, so I did not have long to see her before I had to go out. Sister Julienne had taken her some tea and bread and butter, which she was eating when I went into the sitting room. Sister was explaining to Mary that she could not stay at Nonnatus House, but could go to a house where she would be welcome to stay. Antenatal care would be provided, and arrangements made for delivery. Mary looked at me with big solemn eyes, and I nodded and said that I would come to see her.

And that is how I got into the world of pimps and prostitutes, the foul brothels, masquerading as all-night cafés, that lined Cable Street and the surrounding area of Stepney. It is a hidden world. The same goes on in every town and city the world over, and always has done, but few people know anything about the business, nor indeed do they want to.

There are two sorts of prostitutes: the high class ones, and the rest. The French courtesans were probably the top of the market, and we read about their salons, their lavish entertainments, their artistic and political influence with amazement.

In London, the smart West End call girls today normally work within a very expensive establishment with a few select clients, and can command enormous fees. These are usually very intelligent women who have worked it all out, planned it, studied it, and entered prostitution with a true professionalism. One such girl said to me: “You have to go into it at the top. This is not a job where you start at the bottom and work your way up. If you start at the bottom, you just sink lower.”

The vast majority of prostitutes start at the bottom, and their life is pitiable. Historically, prostitution has been the only means of earning a living for a woman who is destitute, particularly if she has children to feed. What woman worthy of the name Mother would stand on a high moral platform about selling her body if her child were dying of hunger and exposure? Not I.

Today - and indeed in the 1950s - such starvation is not seen in Western societies, but there is a different type of hunger which feeds the prostitution trade. It is starvation of love. Thousands run away from desperate circumstances, and find themselves alone and friendless in a big city. They are craving affection, and will attach themselves to anyone who appears to offer it. This is where the pimps and madams score. They offer the child food and lodgings and apparent kindness, and within days, prostitution is forced upon them. The only difference between the twenty-first century and the 1950s is that back then, the children procured for soliciting were around fourteen years of age. Today the age has dropped to as low as ten.

Mary’s lorry driver was heading for the Royal Albert Docks, and so he had dropped her off in Commercial Road. She told me, “I felt so terribly alone, more alone than I had ever felt before. In Ireland, when I was making my plans to come to London, I was all excited. The journey was thrilling, because I was going to the beautiful city of London, and I didn’t feel alone, because my thoughts were full of dreams. But when I got here I didn’t know what I was going to do.”

Who was it that said “’Tis better to travel hopefully than to arrive?” I daresay we have all experienced this in one way or another.

Mary went into a confectioner tobacconist, bought a bar of chocolate, and ate it as she wandered down the busy road. At the time, Commercial Road and East India Dock Road were said to be the busiest roads in Europe, because the Port of London was the busiest port in Europe. The continuous stream of lorries bewildered and frightened her. By contrast, Dublin had been as quiet as a country village. The shrill blast of a siren nearly gave her a heart attack, and then she saw thousands of men pouring out of the dock gates. She flattened herself against a doorway as they passed, chatting, laughing, squabbling, shouting and talking to each other. But not one of them spoke to the shy, small figure in the doorway. In fact it is doubtful if any of them even noticed her. She said, “I nearly cried with loneliness. I wanted to shout out ‘I’m here, just beside you. Come and say hello to me. I’ve come a long way just to be here.’”