The boys looked at each other in wonder. Lunch in a convent was an unknown, but a female giant hurling plates around was the last thing they had expected. Alan took out his notebook and started scribbling furiously.
We heard the bell sound from the chapel and a little later the Sisters’ footsteps. Sister Julienne walked briskly into the kitchen, small, plump, and motherly. She looked at the boys with true affection, and held out both hands.
“I’ve heard so much about you, and this is a real treat for us all to have you here. Mrs B. has prepared roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, followed by apple pie. Will you like that, do you think?”
Three cool, sophisticated young men responded like three small boys taking sweets from a favourite auntie.
We entered the refectory. After grace, during which the boys eyed each other with amusement, and muttered a self-conscious “Amen”, we sat at the large square table and Mrs B. brought in the luncheon trolley. Sister Julienne served as usual, and Trixie took around the plates.
Alan was outrageously handsome. He had perfect, regular features, clear skin, dark curly hair, and soft dark eyes fringed with eyelashes that any girl would kill for. I had met him a couple of times, and when the girls flocked around him in droves, trying to win a glance from his bright eyes, I had noticed that he treated them as pleasing but inconsequential toys. He regarded himself as a “leader of opinion”. With a degree in philosophy from Cambridge University, he had already formed conclusions about life which he had picked up secondhand, without having lived much of it himself. The troubles and turmoils that befall most of us had yet to disturb his assumption of superiority. He had a huge regard for his own intelligence which, I had concluded, was adequate but not outstanding. He placed his notebook and pencil beside him on the dining table, which was rude, but Alan was not troubled by propriety; he was on a job, not a guest at a luncheon party.
He had been placed next to Sister Monica Joan and was slightly annoyed about this, probably regarding her as being too old to be of interest to his readership. He had wanted to sit next to Sister Bernadette and talk about the impact of the new National Health Service upon the older style of medicine. However, he was not one to be deflected from his purpose and called across the table to Sister Bernadette.
“As nuns are the servants of God, and the State has now taken over your midwifery service, do you now see your role as servants of the State?”
He had planned this carefully, as he wanted to portray the futility of religion in his story. This would appeal to his editor.
Sister Bernadette was contemplating her Yorkshire pudding with pleasure, and was unprepared such a question. In the ten seconds that it took for her to think of a suitable reply, Sister Monica Joan addressed him.
“In the puny compass of our wit the Silver Cord is loosed. The State is the servant of the Orb. The servant is wiser than the organic process of growth differentiated by truth at the fountain head. Do you see your role as one of the forty-two Assessors of the Dead?”
“What?”
Alan stopped eating, mouth open, fork raised.
“Eh, that is ... I mean ... pardon?”
“Kindly don’t wave your fork at me like that, young man. Put it down,” said Sister Monica Joan sharply. She eyed him imperiously. “We were discussing the role of the free spirit, released by the confluence of the several centres, until you so rudely poked your fork in my ear. But what is that to me? Let us go with God, and accept the unacceptable. It is a lonely walk into the mind’s retreat. Is there another roast potato? A soft one, and a little more onion gravy, if you please.”
She passed her plate, and looked sideways at Alan, with a certain amount of distaste. But she was prepared to continue the conversation.
“Do you regard your role as a new form of sanctity without precedent, or an equivalent revelation of the universe, also without precedent?” she enquired politely.
The whole table was looking at Alan as he struggled for words. I was quietly killing myself. This was better than expected.
“I really don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Oh, come now. A young man of your genius must surely consider the impact of your thought as the exertion of energy released by the activities of your several centres. Your thought is the vibration of the horizontal, the centralisation of the polarities of positive and negative. I cannot believe that you have not thought about your thought. It is the duty of every great man to reflect upon the excellence of the intellect or, to put it more simply, the auditory impact of the divine consciousness, within the limits of fragmentation. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Mike spluttered, and Cynthia quietly nudged him. Trixie nearly choked, and sent a shower of peas across the table. Jimmy and I looked at each other with secret delight. Poor Alan, aware that all eyes were upon him, had the grace to blush.
Sister Monica Joan murmured, as though to herself, but loud enough to be heard by all, “How sweet. Old enough to know it all, and young enough to blush. Perfectly charming.”
Having neatly disposed of Alan, she turned her attention to the roast potato.
Sister Julienne looked brightly round the table. “Who would like some more roast beef? And I’m sure Mrs B. has another Yorkshire pudding in the oven. Mike, you look like a good carver. How about you carving for those who want seconds?”
Mike took up the carving knife, sharpened it with a flourish, and sliced generous helpings. Mrs B. came in with another Yorkshire pudding, piping hot. The boys had brought wine with them, and glasses were found. We were not accustomed to wine with lunch at Nonnatus House, but Sister Julienne said that on such a special occasion, all rules would be waived. The nuns giggled like school-girls drinking their wine, murmuring “Ooh, what a treat - delicious - you must come again”.
Jimmy and Mike were in sparkling form. It had to be owned that they had great charm and savoir faire and the luncheon was a huge success. Even Sister Evangelina was relaxed and laughing with Jimmy; but then it’s not hard to laugh with dear Jimmy, I reflected. Only Chummy was quiet. She didn’t look unhappy, just cautious, aware that at any moment she might knock over a glass of wine, or send a tureen flying. She did not dare to join in the fun. But she smiled all the while, and seemed to enjoy herself in her own way.
The only person who did not look happy was Alan. In fact he looked downright furious. Sister Julienne tried several times to draw him into the conversation, but he would have none of it. He had been made to look a fool by a nun of ninety, and he wasn’t going to forgive her, or any of them for that matter. He never did produce his story, I was told.
To my great alarm Mike told the story of when they had lived in the drying room of the nurses’ home for three months, and how they had climbed that treacherous fire escape twice a day, in the dark of winter. I had long since left the hospital involved, so could not be sacked, but I felt alarmed about what the Sisters would think of my sins. One glance at Sister Julienne’s face, a little flushed with wine, reassured me. She looked towards me and laughed.
“You were taking a chance. I remember when a young man was caught in a nurse’s bedroom at St. Thomas’s. The girl was immediately dismissed. She was a good nurse, too. It was a pity. However, a few months later, four young men were found in the broom cupboard - or was it the laundry room, I forget - and no one ever discovered who was responsible. It’s just as well, because goodness knows how many nurses would have been lost to the profession if they had been found out. That was just before the war, when we needed all the trained nurses we could get.”
Puddings arrived, and Sister Julienne rose to serve them. A strange noise from across the table caught my attention, and I looked in that direction. To my astonishment, it was Sister Evangelina, laughing! In fact she was laughing so much, she was spluttering into her napkin. Her neighbour Jimmy, kind and gentlemanly, patted her on the back and handed her a glass of water. She gulped it down, and sat, dabbing her eyes and nose, muttering through chokes and giggles.
&nb
sp; “Oh dear. This is too much for me ... it takes me back to the time when ... oh, I shall never forget ... ”
Jimmy set to work seriously slapping her back, which seemed to help, but it caused her veil to slip sideways.
We were all determined to get to the bottom of this. Never before had Sister Evangelina been seen laughing convulsively in the Convent, and it obviously had something to do with young men in nurses’ bedrooms.
“What happened? Tell us.”
“Come on, now. Be a sport.”
Sister Julienne paused, serving spoon in hand.
“Oh come on, Sister. You can’t leave us in suspense like this. What’s the story? Jimmy, give her another glass of wine.”
But Sister Evangelina couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell. She blew her nose, and wiped her eyes. She spluttered and gurgled and coughed. But she wouldn’t say any more. She just grinned mischievously at everyone. A grin from Sister Evangelina was unheard of, never mind a mischievous one!
Sister Monica Joan had been watching this little exhibition with half-closed eyes, and a tiny smile playing round her lips. I wondered what she was thinking. Sister Evangelina certainly looked a mess, with her veil askew, her face bright red, moisture seeping from every orifice. I feared an icy comment and so, I think, did Sister Evangelina, for she looked at her tormentor with apprehension. But we were both wrong.
Sister Monica Joan waited until the laughter had subsided, and with the timing of an instinctive actress recited slowly and dramatically, ” ‘Oh - I shall remember the hours that we spent, In age I’ll remember, and not to repent.’ ”
She paused for effect, then leaned across the table towards Sister Evangelina, and winked. In a stage whisper that could be heard by all, she said confidentially, “Don’t say another word, my dear, not another word. The nosy lot. They clamour and clatter. They chatter and natter. Don’t feed their idle expectations, my dear, ’twill only debase your memories!”
She looked Sister Evangelina straight in the eyes, and winked again, with warmth and understanding. Was it possible? Did I imagine it? Was it a trick of the light? Did Sister Evangelina, or did she not, wink back?
Sister Evangelina never told. I daresay she went to her grave with the story locked in her heart.
The puddings were a masterpiece of Mrs B.’s creative skills. Sister Monica Joan had two helpings of ice cream with chocolate fudge sauce and a little apple pie. She was in brilliant form.
“I remember a young man shut in a wardrobe at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital,” she recalled. “He was locked in for three hours. It would have been perfectly all right, and no one would have found out, but the foolish fellow had borrowed his father’s horse, and tied it to the hospital railings. Now you can hide a young man in a wardrobe or under a bed. But how, I ask, can you hide a horse?”
With a gasp I realised that these memories dated back to the 1890s! What happened? But she wouldn’t remember.
“I only remember the horse tied to the railings.”
What a pity! Life is so fleeting, and the past so rich. I wanted to hear more. Her mind was perfectly clear at that moment, and knowing how it could cloud over, I asked if she had not found the discipline and petty restrictions of nursing to be intolerable.
“Not a bit of it. After the confinement and restraints of family life, nursing was freedom and adventure. We did not have the licence you young people enjoy today. It was the same for all of us. I recall my cousin Barney. His mother, my aunt, had a French maid. One day - in the middle of the day, my dears - she, my aunt, stepped out on to the terrace to find the French maid seated on a chair, and Barney on his knees placing the shoe on to the foot of the gel. The shoe.”
She paused and looked around her.
“Not the petticoat, or anything like that. Just the shoe. My aunt screamed and fainted, I was told. The maid was immediately dismissed, and the family was so scandalised that Barney was given a ten pound note, and a one-way ticket to Canada. He was never seen or heard of again.”
Mike speculated that being sent off to Canada was probably the best thing that could have happened to him. Sister Monica Joan looked very thoughtful before replying, “I would like to think that. But it is just as likely that poor Barney died of hunger or disease in the Canadian winter.”
It was a sobering thought. I asked for more stories. She smiled at me indulgently.
“I am not here for your entertainment, my dear. I am here by the grace of God. Four score years and ten, it has been. A score too long ... too long.”
She fell silent for a minute, and no one dared speak. She had seen so much, done so much in life - fighting for independence in her youth; entering a religious order in middle age, wartime nursing and midwifery in the London Docks when she was nearly eighty years old. Who could match such experience?
With a slightly amused, slightly quizzical expression in her fine eyes, she looked around at us, so young, so frivolous, so superficial. Her elbow was resting on the table, her slender fingers supporting her chin. We were spellbound by her presence.
“You are all so young,” she mused reflectively. “Youth is the first fair flower of spring.”
Lifting her head, she spread out her eloquent hands towards us. Her face was radiant, her eyes shining, her voice joyful and triumphant.
“Therefore ... ‘Sing, my darlings, sing, Before your petals fade, To feed the flowers of another spring.’”
SMOG
Conchita Warren was expecting her twenty-fifth baby. I had seen quite a lot of the family during the past year because Liz Warren was the dressmaker of my dreams. She was the oldest daughter, twenty-two years old, and had been making clothes since she first had a doll. It was all she had ever wanted to do, she told me. On leaving school at fourteen, she went straight into an apprenticeship with a firm of high-class dressmakers, with whom she still worked. She did not usually take private clients at home because she said the mess was such that she couldn’t ask ladies to come to the house for fittings. However, as I was accustomed to the house, it did not bother either of us. She was an expert in her trade, and enjoyed making garments for me over many years.
I had always loved clothes, and took a good deal of time and trouble over them. My clothes were specially made for me, and I turned my nose up at ready-to-wear stuff. Today this would be unusual and terribly expensive, but it was not the case in the 1950s. In fact it was cheaper. Really good quality clothes could be made for a fraction of what they cost in the best shops. Beautiful materials could be found in the street markets, going for a song. I usually designed my own things, or adapted styles. When I lived in Paris, I would attend the catwalk shows of the great French couturiers - Dior, Chanel, Schiaparelli. The opening of the season was, of course, reserved for the press and the very rich, but after about two or three weeks, when the excitement had settled down, the fashion shows continued, perhaps twice weekly, and anyone could attend. I loved them, and made careful notes and sketches of what I knew would suit me, in order to have them made for me later.
The only trouble was finding a dressmaker skilled enough to make her own paper patterns. Liz was perfection. She not only made up her own patterns, but she had a real stylish flair, and often suggested or adapted things to suit the cloth or the cut. We were about the same age, and it was a happy collaboration.
During one of these visits Liz told me, with a wry smile, that her mother was expecting again. Together we speculated on how many more Conchita was likely to have. Her precise age was not known, but she was probably about forty-two, so she could have another six to eight babies. Going on past form, we put our money on a total of thirty babies.
Conchita booked again with the Sisters for another home confinement, and requested antenatal visits at home. For continuity’s sake, I was asked to take the case. She was in perfect condition again. She looked radiant, and did not really look pregnant until about twenty-four weeks, although once again her dates were uncertain. The youngest little girl was one year old. Len was all excitement a
nd anticipation, as though this were only his second or third baby.
It was winter, and very cold and icy. Heavy snow clouds hung over the city, trapping the smoke fumes from all the coal fires, steam trains, and steam engines, the profuse smoke from the ocean-going vessels, and above all the factories, which were largely fuelled by coal. A thick London smog developed. One can have no conception these days of what they were like. The air would be heavy, foul-smelling, and a thick yellowish-grey colour. It was impossible to see more than a yard ahead, even at midday. Traffic was virtually at a standstill. The only way a vehicle could move would be for a man to walk ahead of it, carrying two bright lights - one to shine ahead of him, so that he could find his way, and the other shining behind him for the vehicle to follow. These smogs were a feature of many winters in London at the time, and lasted until the atmospheric pressure lifted, allowing the trapped fumes to escape.
Conchita must have gone into the backyard for something. She either slipped on the ice, or tripped over something she could not see. She must have fallen heavily and lay partly concussed on the freezing concrete for some time. The only children in the house were the little ones under five. She was found by the other children when they came home from school. Apparently she was sufficiently conscious to crawl and with the help of her children, all under eleven, she got back into the house. There was evidence that she had tried to do so before but, being unable to see through the smog, had actually crawled away from the house. It is a miracle that she did not die of exposure. She was in a bad way. A small child went to get a neighbour, who wrapped her in blankets and gave her hot brandy and water. Older children began returning home after 4 p.m. and learned of their mother’s accident. Len and the oldest boys were last to return, because they had been on a job in Knightsbridge and the journey home had taken two and a half hours.
That night Conchita went into labour.
The Midwife Page 30