The Midwife

by Jennifer Worth

  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?”

  She took two steps, and cried out in pain. Obviously she had not been aware of her cut and bleeding feet. Thank God for Chummy, her size and strength. She picked Sister Monica Joan up in her arms as though she were a child, and carried her all the way back to Nonnatus House. A crowd of curious children followed.

  We alerted Mrs B., who was full of concern.

  “Oh, the poor lamb. Get her up to bed. She mus’ be froze, poor dear. She’ll catch ’er death o’ cold. I’ll get a couple of ’ot water bottles, and make her some porridge, an’ some ’ot chocolate. I knows as wha’ she likes.”

  We got her to bed and left her in Mrs B.’s capable hands. We both had a morning’s work to attend to, and had to go.

  I attended my morning visits as though in a dream. Now and then in life, love catches you unawares, illuminating the dark corners of your mind, and filling them with radiance. Once in a while you are faced with a beauty and a joy that takes your soul, all unprepared, by assault. As I cycled around that morning, I knew that I loved not only Sister Monica Joan, but all that she represented: her religion, her vocation, her monastic profession, the bells, the constant prayers within the convent, the quietness, and the selfless work in the service of God. Was it perhaps - and I nearly fell off my bike with shock - could it be the love of God?

  IN THE BEGINNING

  Sister Monica Joan developed pneumonia. She fell deeply asleep when Chummy, Mrs B. and I placed her into bed that cold morning, and remained apparently unconscious for the whole day. Her temperature was high, her pulse full and throbbing, and her breathing laboured. Nonnatus House was sad and subdued. The chapel bell, calling the Office of the day, sounded like the portent of a funeral bell. We all thought that she would die. However, we had not taken into account two significant factors: antibiotics, and her own phenomenal stamina.

  Today, antibiotics are as common as a cup of coffee. In the 1950s they were relatively new. Today, over-use has reduced their efficacy but in the 1950s they really were a miracle drug. Sister Monica Joan had never had penicillin before, and responded immediately. Within a couple of shots her temperature dropped, her pulse returned to normal, the murmur in her chest vanished, and she opened her eyes. She looked around. “I really don’t know why you are all standing there doing nothing. Haven’t you got any work to do? I suppose you think I am going to die. Well, you are wrong. I’m not. You can tell Mrs B. that I will have a boiled egg for breakfast.”

  Her stamina and physical strength became apparent during the next few weeks. Had she led a life of luxury and idleness, as her aristocratic birth would have allowed, I am quite sure that she would have died, in spite of the penicillin. However, a life of intense hard work had rendered her as tough as old boots. A mere touch of pneumonia could not kill her. She recovered quickly, and became very peevish about being kept in bed, which the doctor insisted upon. She thought she had a slight cold, and had no memory of the incident that had brought her to bed in the first place. She did not actually call the doctor a fool, but she looked at him in such a way that left no doubt in his, or anyone else’s mind.

  “I do not pretend to understand your superior wisdom, doctor, but we will go with God in all things. Am I to understand that I can have visitors?”

  Yes indeed, Sister Monica Joan could have visitors (as long as they did not tire her), whatever she wanted to read (provided it did not strain her eyes), and whatever she wanted to eat (provided it did not upset her digestion).

  Sister Monica Joan settled back on her pillows, contented. Books were provided and Mrs B. was instructed to attend to her every wish.

  A nun’s bedroom is properly called a cell and is small, bare, and plain, without comfort. However, since her retirement from active midwifery, Sister Monica Joan had managed to wangle things so that her cell was comparatively large, comfortably furnished, and pretty: an elegant bedsitting-room would be the more appropriate description. Lay people are not normally admitted to a nun’s cell, but Sister Monica Joan had just extracted the doctor’s assurance that she could have visitors, and thus began a very happy period of my life.

  Every day I visited her, and as I entered the room, an almost tangible feeling of peace and tranquillity surrounded me. She was always sitting up in bed, with no outward signs of illness or fatigue, her veil perfectly adjusted, her white nightie high in the neck, her soft skin opaque, and her large eyes clear and penetrating. Her bed was always covered in books, and she had a number of notebooks in which she wrote voluminously in a firm stylish hand.

  I discovered that she was a poet. I suppose it should not have surprised me, but it did. All her life she had written poetry, and had in her notebooks a collection of several hundred poems dating from the 1890s.

  I am no judge of poetry - I do not have an ear for it. But the consistency of her output impressed me and I asked if I might have a look. She shrugged negligently.

  “Take it. I have no secrets, my dear. I am but a spark in the divine fire.”

  Over many long eve
nings I studied these poems. I had expected them all to be religious poetry, having been written by a nun, but they were not. Many were love poems, many satirical, and many were humorous, as:

  One of the sweetest things in life to see

  Is a calm, settled fly,

  Cleansing its fastidious face

  On my chosen reading place;

  He twines his legs around his arse

  And takes his time,

  As Beauty with her glass.

  or:

  Lyric of an Obese Dachshund Bitch

  They are equally pretty,

  My toes or my tittie,

  To ramble or gallop upon;

  Whatever will happen

  When I must re-cap’em

  The days that my nipples wear out

  And are gone?

  This is my favourite:

  It’s OK to be tight on

  The seafront at Brighton

  But I say, by Jove

  Watch out if it’s Hove.

  It may not be great poetry, but I thought it had charm. Or perhaps it was the charm of Sister Monica Joan that coloured my assessment.

  I found a revealing poem about her father, which told a lot about her early life:

  Fretful, unloving, mannerless Papa,

  What a crustaceous old boy you are -

  How you do go it!

  Blowing your bugle, like a ham stage-star,

  How you do blow it!

  And where does it get you, Papa?

  Or is it wasted breath?

  “Leave everything to me”

  Vainly the old man saith.

  With an arrogant, domineering father her struggle to assert herself and to leave home must have been monumental. A weaker character would have been crushed.

  For a lovesick young girl, her love poems spoke to my heart, and brought tears to my eyes. As:

  To an Unknown God

  I sang to you

  In the day of my bliss

  And you were near

  I thought of you

  In my lover’s kiss

  And felt you there

  I turned to you

  When our love was too brief

  And found your strength.

  I needed you

  In the years of my grief

  And knew you, at length.

  “Our love was too brief.” Oh, I knew all about that. Does one have to suffer so dreadfully in order to know the unknown God? Who, when, what was the story of Sister Monica Joan’s lost love? I longed to know, but dared not ask. Did he die, or did her parents object? Why was he unobtainable? Was he already married, or did he just cease to care, and leave her? I longed to know, but could not ask. Any intrusive questions would deserve, and receive, a caustic comment from that barbed tongue.

  Her religious poetry was surprisingly slender, and as I was eager to know more about her religion, I asked her about this aspect of her poetry. She replied with these lines from Keats’ Ode to a Grecian Urn:

  “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” - that is all

  Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

  “Do not ask me to immortalise the great Mystery of Life. I am just a humble worker. For beauty, look to the Psalms, to Isaiah, to St John of the Cross. How could my poor pen scan such verse? For truth, look to the Gospels - four short accounts of God made Man. There is nothing more to say.”

  She looked unusually tired that day and, as she lay back on the pillows, the wintry light from the window accentuating her pale, aristocratic features, my heart filled with tenderness. I had come to a convent by mistake, an irreligious girl. I would not have described myself as a committed atheist for whom all spirituality was nonsense, but as an agnostic in whom large areas of doubt and uncertainty resided. I had never met nuns before, and regarded them at first as a bit of a joke; later, with astonishment bordering on incredulity. Finally this was replaced by respect, and then deep love.

  What had impelled Sister Monica Joan to abandon a privileged life for one of hardship, working in the slums of London’s Docklands? “Was it love of people?” I asked her.

  “Of course not,” she snapped sharply. “How can you love ignorant, brutish people whom you don’t even know? Can anyone love filth and squalor? Or lice and rats? Who can love aching weariness, and carry on working, in spite of it? One cannot love these things. One can only love God, and through His grace come to love His people.”

  I asked her how she had heard her calling, and come to be professed. She quoted lines from The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson.

  I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

  I fled Him down the arches of the years;

  I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways

  Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears

  I hid from Him.

  I asked her what was meant by “I fled Him”, and she became cross.

  “Questions, questions - you wear me out with your questions, child. Find out for yourself - we all have to in the end. No one can give you faith. It is a gift from God alone. Seek and ye shall find. Read the Gospels. There is no other way. Do not pester me with your everlasting questions. Go with God, child; just go with God.”

  She was obviously tired. I kissed her and slipped away.

  Her constant phrase, “Go with God”, had puzzled me a good deal. Suddenly it became clear. It was a revelation - acceptance. It filled me with joy. Accept life, the world, Spirit, God, call it what you will, and all else will follow. I had been groping for years to understand, or at least to come to terms with the meaning of life. These three small words, “Go with God”, were for me the beginning of faith.

  That evening, I started to read the Gospels.

  APPENDIX

  On the difficulties of writing the Cockney dialect

  London Cockney is as distinct and as clearly defined a dialect as Scottish or Yorkshire or any other. Its origins can be traced back to Kentish, East Anglian, Mercian and Saxon speech forms. Certain idioms of colloquial Cockney language appear in Chaucer.

  I have never understood why Cockney speech is said to be lazy English. It is the opposite. Cockneys love language, and use it continually, with a rich mixture of puns, slang, spoonerisms and rhymes. They carry a verbal library of anecdotes, ditties and yarns in their heads, which can be improvised to suit any occasion. They love long, colourful words. They can throw in description and simile with lightning speed, with a sure instinct for effect. Rhythm is important, and the compelling rhythm of a cockney dialogue is equal to that of a Mozart opera. Cockneys have a verbal mastery second to none in my opinion. The only trouble is, it is so fast and so idiomatic that it goes straight over the heads of most people.

  To listen to a group of Cockneys talking together, when they do not suspect they are being overheard, is like listening to another language. Most people will only be able to understand the odd word here and there. The speed of speech goes like an express train. Half a dozen words are slurred, condensed, abbreviated, swallowed whole, and the end result is one word, understandable to another Cockney, but to nobody else, for example Wachoofinkovisen? (What do you think of this, then?)

  To achieve this rapid delivery of speech, an essential device has been developed to a high degree of perfection - the glottal stop. This is a consonant sound, easier to execute than to explain. Most consonants are produced by the tongue, teeth and hard palette. The glottal stop is produced by rapid opening and shutting of the glottis (the entrance to the windpipe). It is a conscious action, but with continued use becomes unconscious. Cockney babies, in my experience, used to produce this sound before they could speak.

  Singers use the glottal stop to prefix a vowel. It is used a great deal in the German language. In English it is used to separate two vowels in words like ‘pre-empt’, ‘re-enforce’, ‘co-opt’, ‘re-enter’, and a few others. Most people saying these words will place a glottal stop between the vowels, and the movement can be felt in the throat.

  Cockneys use the glottal stop
to replace ‘t’ and several short words. Phonetically, the glottal stop is represented by two dots ‘:’ like a colon. The words ‘water’ or ‘little’, written with a glottal stop, become wa:er, li:le. Thousands of English words contain ‘t’ and to replace them all with a glottal stop sign makes the written word look ridiculous. Consider: ‘eedin:aw::oo ’ave ’i:i: (he didn’t ought to have hit it.)

  This rapid succession of vowels would be unintelligible in speech without the use of the glottal stop.

  ‘t’ can come in for other changes. Sometimes it becomes a ‘d’, e.g. bidda budder (bit of butter), arkadim (hark at him), all ober da place (all over the place).

  ‘t’ followed by ‘r’ becomes ‘ch’, e.g. chrees (trees), chrains (trains).

  ‘t’ followed by another word beginning with a vowel again becomes ‘ch’, e.g. whachouadoin’ov? (what are you doing?), doncha loike i:? (don’t you like it?).

  Sometimes ‘t’ is heavily emphasised, becoming ‘ter’, e.g. gichaw coa-ter, we’re goin’ah-ter (get your coat, we’re going out).

  ‘th’ is nearly always replaced by ‘f’ or ‘v,’ e.g. vis, va’, vese and vose (this, that, these and those); and fink, fings, fanks, frough (think, things, thanks, through).

  ‘f’ and ‘v’ were so common in the 1950s and the sound was so impressed into my aural memory that I have found it very difficult to write the Cockney speech without using them. Ve baby, ve midwife, and so on, came more naturally than Standard English. The widespread use of ‘f’ and ‘v’ may have arisen early in the twentieth century because practically all men, and not a few women, usually had a limp, wet Woodbine hanging off the lower lip. The articulation of an ‘f’ or ‘v’ would leave the soggy appendage undisturbed, but the fricative ‘th’ might result in it being spat out!