Jennifer Worth - Call The Midwife - A True Story Of The East End In The 1950S

I don’t think Flo understood what she had said. So uncommon were black people in the East End at that time that her daughter’s words didn’t make any sense to her.

Bella was still screaming. Then she swore at her mother and yelled at her, “Can’ chew understand, you silly ol’ cow. Ve baby’s goin’ ter be black!”

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.