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

The recital started and Sister Monica Joan, comfortable at last, took out her knitting.

Knitting during a recital is not common. In fact I have never seen anyone do it. But Sister Monica Joan was not concerned with what other people did or did not do. She always did exactly as she chose. Nor is knitting generally considered to be a noisy occupation. I had frequently seen Sister Monica Joan knitting in absolute serenity and silence. But not on this occasion. The knitting was of a lacy pattern, requiring three needles, and this produced absolute mayhem.

She dropped the needles repeatedly. They were steel knitting needles, and each time they fell they clattered on to the wooden floor. Cynthia or I had to retrieve them, depending on which side the needle had dropped. The ball of wool fell and rolled under several chairs. Someone about four chairs down kicked it back towards her, but the trailing piece of wool caught around the leg of a chair and pulled tight, thus pulling several stitches off the work in Sister Monica Joan’s hands. “Be careful,” she hissed at us as the cellist approached a particularly difficult cadenza, his eyes closed in rapture. He opened his eyes sharply, and an unexpected bum note sounded from the strings. Seeing Sister Monica Joan fumbling after the wool, the cellist, with true professionalism, launched into his cadenza. He finished the movement in masterly fashion.

The slow movement started very quietly and peacefully, but the ball of wool was not so easily dealt with. The person four chairs down tried to retrieve it and push it back the way it had come, without success. The ball rolled backwards, and got tangled around the feet of someone sitting behind, who picked it up, causing the trailing end to pull tight again, pulling several more stitches off Sister Monica Joan’s needle.

“You are ruining it,” she spat out to the man behind.

The pianist was playing a hauntingly tender passage. She turned from the piano and looked daggers at the first row.

As the final cadence approached another needle dropped to the floor with a resounding clatter, destroying the plaintive cry of the cello in the dying fall of the movement.

The Rector, with a desperate look on his face, came forward and whispered to Sister Monica Joan to be quiet. “What did you say, Rector?” she said loudly, as though she were deaf - which she wasn’t. He backed off in alarm, fearing that he might make things worse.

The third movement was an allegro con fuoco , and the duo played it faster and with more fire than I have ever heard.

Cynthia and I, who were just about dying with mortification, were counting the minutes until the interval when we could take Sister home. I was grinding my teeth in fury, and plotting murder in my heart. Cynthia, who has a sweeter nature than mine, was patient and understanding. But worse was to come.

The musicians brought the third movement to a triumphant close. With a magnificent gesture the cellist swept the bow upwards, and raised his arm aloft, smiling confidently at the audience.

Only a few seconds were to elapse before the applause began, but it was time enough for Sister Monica Joan to make her exit. She stood up abruptly.

“This is too painful. I cannot put up with this a moment longer. I must go.”

With knitting needles dropping all around her she passed the musicians and, in full view of the entire audience, swept down the central aisle towards the door.

Tumultuous applause broke out from the Poplar audience. Stamping, cheering, whistling - no musicians could have asked for a greater ovation. But they knew, and we knew, and they knew that we knew, that the applause was not for them or their music. They bowed stiffly, faces set in a grim smile, and left the platform.

Black fury took possession of me. I greatly respect musicians, knowing their years of intensive training, and I could not excuse this last gratuitous insult, which I saw as deliberate. I could have hit Sister Monica Joan, hard, in front of a couple of hundred people. I must have been shaking with rage, because Cynthia looked at me in alarm.

“I’ll take her home. You stay and find a chair at the back somewhere, and enjoy the second half.”

“I can’t enjoy anything after that,” I hissed through clenched teeth; my voice must have sounded strange.

She laughed her soft, warm laugh. “Of course you can. Get yourself a cup of coffee. They are playing the Brahms Cello Sonata next.”

She gathered up the knitting needles, extricated the wool from around the chair legs, put it all into the knitting bag, blew a kiss with a whispered “cheerio”, and ran off after Sister Monica Joan.

For many days, or perhaps it was weeks, I could not bring myself to speak to Sister Monica Joan. I was convinced that she had deliberately set out to wreck the recital, and to humiliate the musicians. I remembered her petulance when she did not get her own way, her sulks when she was thwarted, and above all her relentless torment of Sister Evangelina. I made up my mind that the apparent senility was no more than an elaborate game she was playing for her own amusement. I decided that I wanted nothing more to do with her. I could be as haughty as Sister Monica Joan if I chose to be, and whenever we met, I turned my head away and said not one word.

But later an incident occurred that left me in no doubt at all about the reality of her mental condition.

It was about 8.30 in the morning. The Sisters and other staff had all left for their morning visits. Chummy and I were the last to leave, and were just stepping out when the telephone rang.

“Is that Nonnatus ’ouse? Sid ve Fish ’ere. I thought you ought’a know Sister Monica Joan has jus’ gone past me shop in ’er nightie. I’ve sent ve lad after ’er, so she won’t come to no ’arm.”

I gasped in horror, and quickly told Chummy. We dropped our midwifery bags, grabbed a Sister’s cloak from the hall-stand, and sprinted down towards Sid’s fish shop. Sure enough, weaving a zig-zag line down the East India Dock Road, the fish boy a couple of paces behind, was Sister Monica Joan. She was wearing only a long white nightie with long sleeves. Her bony shoulders and elbows stuck out under the thin cloth. You could have counted every vertebra in her spine. She wore no dressing gown, no slippers, no veil, and the wind blew thin white strands of hair upwards from a head that was nearly bald. It was a cold morning, and her feet and ankles were blue-black with cold and bleeding. From behind I saw these sad old feet, like skeleton’s bones, clad only in mottled blue skin, doggedly, determinedly trudging on to a destination known only to her clouded mind.

Without her veil and habit she was almost unrecognisable, and looked vaguely grotesque. Her rheumy, red-rimmed eyes were watering. Her nose was bright red, and a dew-drop hung on the tip. My heart gave a lurch, and I realised how much I loved her.

We caught up and spoke to her. She looked at us as though we were strangers, and tried to push us aside.

“Mind, out of my way. I must get to them. The waters have broken. That brute will kill the baby. He killed the last one, I swear it. I must get there. Out of my way.”

She took another few steps on bleeding feet. Chummy threw the warm woollen cloak around her shoulders, and I took off my cap and put it on her head. The sudden warmth seemed to bring her to her senses. Her eyes focused, and she looked at us in recognition. I leaned towards her and said slowly, “Sister Monica Joan, it’s breakfast time. Mrs B. has made some nice hot porridge for you, with honey in it. It will be getting cold if you don’t come now.”

She looked at me eagerly and said, “Porridge! With honey! Ooh, lovely. Come along, then. What are you standing there for? Did you say porridge? With honey?”