by Doreen Bates
WEDNESDAY 3 SEPTEMBER
Hot, sunnier and hotter.
To continue – I liked the Doctor at Queen Charlotte’s, who examined me very thoroughly and said all was well. Later I saw him again and he said Dr Malleson was an old friend of his and he would admit me if he could, but the government limited the number of their inpatients and he couldn’t do anything now. He asked me my job and whether I was having the baby adopted. When I said, no, I wanted it, he said, ‘Oh, I see! Planned for, was it?’ The almoner phoned St Mary’s Paddington and arranged an appointment. I went next morning to see their almoner. I didn’t like the place – it was the old part and semi-basement, 1897! The almoner was younger and more business-like. Yes, they could take me, till in filling up the form she came to husband’s name. Then she said they were not admitting unmarried women apparently because they were officially limited to 16 maternity patients. She would put me in touch with someone who might advise.
This week I had a letter from someone at the Society for Moral Welfare. Margot said, ‘Don’t waste her time.’ (I was inclined to see what she would be like!) ‘It is a nasty job and she will be busy!’ Meantime Mary had phoned Suffolk House at Stanmore (which was given me by Queen Charlotte’s the first time) and found out they didn’t mind whether or not one was married so I went to see the matron yesterday. I liked the place. It is still recognisable as country till recently and is open. The roads have hedges. It is just over 10 miles out and will be better undoubtedly if blitz starts again, tho’ they had a lot of noise last autumn. The home is a large detached house with a lovely garden in a road of similar houses. I liked Ping the matron. She had nice eyes. She talked to me for an hour and I decided to go there and have the double room which is £5.5 per week. She told me all about costs in addition and gave me a list of things I should want. The main snag is distance but if I can go a week before and (say) stay with Ella at Pinner it is only 15 minutes in a car. So the confinement question looks like being solved. I have now only to fix on a doctor. The matron gave me the name of one at Edgware who is said to be good.
Robertson from Somerset House phoned to say that he had sent me instructions to go to City 10 for the 3 weeks and would I regard them as cancelled as they were leaving me at Marylebone. The explanation was that McCreath had been talking to White and said he intended me to work at home. White said he wouldn’t take responsibility for that but if McC wanted my spell at Marylebone extended – well and good. So I am to work at Kensington from Monday and McC will send me work which Mary is to collect and pass on to me. Really, McC is being exceedingly good and if this scheme works it will reduce my unpaid sick leave considerably.
Went home for the weekend as before. Rosa was better on the whole, tho’ she said some things that upset me. She is more inclined to talk a little less irrationally. M is a rock to lean on.
E came to dinner at Kensington this evening, which was lovely. So pleasant to talk to him quietly and privately. He is having a week’s leave from Saturday week and going either to the farm in Essex or to Gloucester.
THURSDAY 11 SEPTEMBER
This week it has been cooler. Elsie came to Kensington on Saturday afternoon, and came to Purley on Sunday morning. She brought 2 jumpers (30 shillings the two) which her friend, who used to design for Jaegers, was disposing of. One was green and pink and suits Margot beautifully. The other brown and pink not so good, which may suit me. She is very busy but hopes to get more money. It was interesting to see her and Mary together since they had not met since 1925. They each thought the other had improved enormously and they got on very well. Elsie thinks I am lucky to have Mary to keep an eye on me.
Margot called on Saturday afternoon but not for long as she had promised to pick blackberries with Rosa. I made the result into 2lbs of jelly on Sunday morning. I had a pleasant Saturday. E worked on Friday night and took the morning off. We went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. There was a children’s exhibition of mixed things. This week I have been working at home, going with Mary in the morning who called on McCreath for work which she handed over to me. I have missed a bit because Margot has been on a week’s leave and did not go away. On Monday we went to see the Soviet play Squaring the Circle. It was enjoyable and light but interesting. Interesting, too, to see a few threads connecting the old theatre with the new – the traditional dances, a certain echo of Chekhov, The Technique. We had a big tea afterwards as I had lunched with E at St Pancras at an ABC which appeared to ignore people in the hope that they would walk out unserved – two sets at our table did so; we managed to get sardines on toast and coffee! On Tuesday, apart from a more successful lunch at St Pancras station café, I worked hard. On Wednesday I caught the 12.20 to Ashtead and met Margot at Sutton. We had a picnic and watched mechanized harvesting. Afterwards we picked blackberries, sufficient with those Rosa and Margot picked the day before to make five and a half lbs of jelly. We couldn’t get a cup of tea so had a fizzy mineral to quench our thirst and then regretted it. Yesterday Rosa and Margot went to The Cherry Orchard while I worked all day and met them for tea. Today Margot lunched with E and me and I spent the afternoon with her. We sat in Lincoln’s Inn Fields admiring the dahlias for some time. We went to Pontings and bought towelling for nappies, had tea and came to the flat before Margot went to dinner with the Robertsons.
I am still well but the baby is getting very cumbrous. It is an effort to walk up the tube stairs. I bulge very obviously. Occasionally, usually in the morning, I have a very sore spot at the front of my waist. The baby is very lively at times. I rest a lot on my divan and get sleepy in the day, but Mary and I tend to talk a lot in the evening.
A Health Visitor called on Monday and handed over fifty clothing coupons for the baby, for which I had to sign a receipt. I rather like her. She chatted for twenty minutes and said possibly Kensington borough might have got me into Queen Charlotte’s as they have a few beds earmarked. However, it may turn out for the best.
TUESDAY 16 SEPTEMBER
After a dull and chilly few days this afternoon the sky cleared and the sun shone golden as it does in September. E has gone to Essex all this week and I lunched with Margot at Victoria today – rather hastily. Still working at Kensington. McCreath doesn’t send me enough to do a whole day’s work, and I rest quite a bit. I went home for the weekend and R was very sweet and more inclined, I thought, to talk rationally. M went out to tea on Sunday and R and I had a very amiable tête-à-tête. The weekends fly very quickly when I am home only from 8.30 Saturday to 9.30 Sunday. It is lovely to play the piano when all the notes sound (contrary to Mrs Hay’s), even if they are rather out of tune. The Rapers came to tea yesterday. They are pleasant children. I told them about the babe.
Mary told me last night that her stepmother (who is French) knows several Free French. Apparently there is almost a regular service from Brittany to mid-channel, of fishing boats bringing Bretons who are transferred to the British ships halfway. The German garrisons are almost reduced to middle-aged reservists. There was a small amount of gunfire on Friday night and I heard planes but no warning. On Sunday in daytime we heard some queer bangs too, but nothing much.
I bought some blue wool on Saturday and have now spent all but 20 of the babe’s coupons and 3 more of mine on it.
FRIDAY 19 SEPTEMBER
This week I have been suffering from a mild sense of grievance or self-pity about E. It does seem strange that just now he should go off for a week’s holiday with K without even giving me his address. I certainly had a short letter from him yesterday which (in my state of mind) I hardly expected. He has been lucky with the weather and is staying on a farm eating the fat of the land.
Mary’s cousin has recommended a doctor in Stanmore and I am going to see him tomorrow morning. Still quite fit, but I get very tired and am generally slothful.
Yesterday I lunched with Margot at Kennington and then met Rosa and took her to see Fantasia, the Disney film. It consists of six visual interpretations of music – most interesting technically, tho’ extrao
rdinarily unequal! The Bach, quite abstract, was the best in my opinion. It is a new art form embracing colour, form and movement and has immense possibilities. He certainly has genius, tho’ at present it shows itself more in the range of possibility of the form he has invented than in his actual achievements. R found it stimulating, as I guessed. We walked to Victoria through St James’s Park and had tea with Margot. A perfect golden September day.
The last 2 evenings I have been busy sewing with Mary. We have tackled an enormous roll of Turkish towelling and begun to convert it into nappies.
A restless night – I kept dreaming about the Russians. Nothing consecutive – the clearest memory was of strings of place names, but vaguely disturbing and anxious.
FRIDAY 26 SEPTEMBER
All this week it has been warm, either close and misty or golden sun. I have felt the heat with increasing force till today I wondered if I had a slight temperature. Have lunched every day with E and had tea with him on Monday, Tuesday and today and with Margot on Tuesday and yesterday. I was very depressed up to Monday but since then I have felt less so, and in a kind of coma of remoteness. Very lethargic and sleepy – living in a kind of dream. I haven’t done much work but HO has given me another 3 weeks at Marylebone. I went home for the weekend and Rosa seemed definitely better – more inclined to sensible discussion, tho’ the more she sympathizes with me the more bitter she is to E.
On Saturday morning I went to see Dr Byworth and liked him. He said ‘baby work’ was his favourite branch of his job. He knew the nursing home and appeared to be on friendly terms with Ping; examined me and said my measurements and the position of the baby were satisfactory and that the heart beat was good (only one, so it isn’t twins). I think I shall have confidence in him.
WEDNESDAY 1 OCTOBER
Met Ella on Saturday and we had lunch at Fullers; sat in the sun by the Round Pond for two and a half hours and then came here for tea. I shall probably go to her flat on the 16th but I shall have to go to the nursing home on 25th anyway as she is going away for a week and won’t leave me alone. She knows quite a lot about babies with 2 nephews and a niece.
The heatwave continued until midday on Sunday when we had a downpour of rain. I had to borrow shoes, mac and umbrella to get to the station, but I was glad it was cooler. I made another 2 lbs of blackberry jelly and Rosa made some crab apple and elderberry jam which is a success. She gambled with the sugar as it was quite an experiment. There are masses of elderberries in the garden and she was given the crab apples.
On Monday Mary invited me to use her electric kettle which is now working and E was not going home till the 7.40 so he came to tea here. He enjoyed my brown bread and butter and blackberry jelly. I met Margot tonight. We had tea at Victoria. Yesterday I had quite a lot of work, and it was probably due to the heavy case that I felt rather shaky at lunch, so that E was quite concerned and even suggested a taxi back!
FRIDAY 24 OCTOBER
The 3 weeks’ gap has been so full of new experiences that it is a hopeless job to try to note them.
On Friday 3rd October E went to Worcester to attend to his uncle who was said to have had a stroke. I met him at Paddington and he seemed a bit concerned at having to go, although I didn’t worry as the baby wasn’t due for 3 weeks. He had a rush and we had only about 20 minutes. It was a lovely day so I stopped to buy nappies at Derrys on the way back. The day after was wet and I caught the 6.51 to Purley in the evening.
For a day or two I had had a slight colourless vaginal discharge and I vaguely wondered what it was. On Sunday morning I felt quite fit, tho’ it continued and increased. I didn’t want my dinner, tho’ I enjoyed it when I had it, but the discharge had developed into a regular trickle and I began to wonder if it was the beginning of the waters breaking! We sent Rosa up to rest and Margot rang up the nursing home which was noncommittal, and the doctor, who said, ‘Lie down and see whether it stops.’ By 2.00 I had very slight pain like those one gets with a chill. I went up and lay on Margot’s bed and the trickle continued while the pains got more intense and recurred about every five minutes. We decided that I had better go to the nursing home. When Rosa had gone to church Margot would get an ambulance (I insisted on this for her sake as she was coming with me and the first aid men would relieve her of some responsibility). She tried Purley UDC, but their ambulances were reserved for AR casualties; the LCC, but they couldn’t do it as both Purley and Stanmore were out of their area; the Red Cross, but they hadn’t one free; St John’s, and they could do it. But when they arrived they had run out of petrol, tho’ they had coupons. The driver on the job before had used the spare can. There was 45 minutes’ delay till they interviewed a Brigadier-General and persuaded the army to let them have some to get to a garage. They carried me downstairs all dripping and still having spasms. I put a hankie over my face in the hope that the neighbours wouldn’t notice me and we set off. I had been sick 2 or 3 times and was sick again in the ambulance. The pains were more acute still and always seemed to coincide with our being held up by traffic lights. At 7.30 we got to Suffolk House. Margot paid the ambulance men and Sister Ping helped me to walk upstairs. By this time I was dripping not only water but also blood and was most concerned at the mess. I sat on the bed and with an effort took off my frock and smock and put on a nightie. I was sharing a room, and as the other occupant was expecting her husband to call, I went to the theatre.
They didn’t give me an enema or a hot bath as the pains were very frequent. I watched the clock above the bed and tried to relax between the pains and to push down when they began. Sister Ping said later that she expected a 5 or 6 lb baby and no difficulty at all. About 9.30 the pains decreased in intensity and frequency, tho’ she said the baby should be born by 10.0. She phoned for Dr Byworth, who appeared in a huge orange rubber apron. He gave me two tablets (bromide, I think). My back was aching all the time so I could only just distinguish it from the periodical pains and I had very little energy to push. The doctor said the baby’s head was only 1 and a half inches in and one or two ‘good strong’ pains would bring it far enough for them to give me chloroform before the actual delivery. But the whole thing slowed up and progress stopped. He put a dark cone over my face and there was a sickly sweet, overpowering smell, which was chloroform. I pushed it away with my hand, tho’ I had been longing for it. Dark clouds like smoke seemed to roll up and extinguish everything. At 1.0 am Sister Ping’s voice, urgent and summoning, came from an immense distance waking me up. I said, ‘Is the baby all right?’ and she said, ‘Yes, you’ve got twins! A boy and a girl.’ I couldn’t believe it. I learned later that Andrew (3 lbs 12 oz) was born at 11.30 and Margaret (6 lbs 4 oz) at 11.50; that no one knew there were two till Andrew had been born and they had thought what a fuss about nothing. Sister Ping put her hand on my tummy and said, ‘There’s another,’ and they gave me more chloroform. It was a forceps delivery and I was badly torn. The doctor was quite annoyed with the twins for catching him out. He hadn’t suspected them at all (and nor had Dr Malleson or the doctor at Queen Charlotte’s).
I wished I hadn’t been awakened as I found I had a violent headache and I didn’t sleep for the night. I was raging with thirst but wasn’t allowed to drink even water. All night Keats’s ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ went through my head, tho’ I never got it consecutive and completed. At 6.30 am I had a cup of tea and discovered the painfulness of the stitches. Five minutes later I was sick; I had some tea and a piece of toast for breakfast and was sick; a little fish for lunch and was sick. In the evening they just gave me carbonate of soda and glucose to drink. I did sleep a little on Monday night. On Tuesday I just managed to eat one third of the small amount of meals I was given and I kept dozing all day. Each time I awoke I was very sicky. On Wednesday I felt better and let them take away the bowl I had been sick into. From then I improved and my appetite came back. I got up for four minutes last Saturday and felt very feeble. On Tuesday I had an ordinary bath and, tho’ I have to stay another week (four altogether) it is
only because I haven’t got anywhere to go and Hobday* isn’t free till November.
SATURDAY 25 OCTOBER
The twins are quite different in looks and temperament and you could say which was the girl by looking at their faces.
I didn’t see much of Andrew the first week. He seemed pathetically tiny with a little pointed face and fine fair hair. He made the most extraordinary faces, wrinkling up his forehead (which was high) and his nose and mouth. He had a strangely sophisticated expression, as if he were weighing up all the facts and knew one could expect little in this world. His forehead, eyebrows, eyes were just like E’s only smaller. Margaret was darker but her skin was fair and her face was rounder with a pointed chin. She had beautifully shaped eyes and lids, and reminded me of Margot when she was a baby. She seemed less reflective than Andrew, readier to express her immediate feelings. Andrew looks now as if he will have red hair. They both appear to be developing grey or blue eyes and both have light skins. Neither is at all like me except that both have big toes with a gap between them and the other four toes. Margaret is a fierce little thing when she is hungry and reminds me of a lamb in her eagerness to suck. They both appear to smile (and this is the only expression in which they have any resemblance to each other), but nurse says it is wind! Nevertheless, when E saw Margaret’s smile he said it had haunted him till he saw her again. He said Andrew was like one of the heads on a capital at Wells and was perfectly sculpted. He had a shock when he saw Andrew as he hadn’t been told how tiny he was, and he was depressed after the first time thinking he wouldn’t survive. But he soon saw that he had a lot of vitality and called him a go-getter. Margaret crows with pleasure when she is fed, but Andrew just grumbles and talks to himself. He doesn’t sleep so much as Margaret and cries less.