Call The Midwife: A True Story Of The East End In The 1950S

THE LUNCHEON PARTY

“No Jimmy, not this time. You and Mike are not camping out in the boiler room at Nonnatus House. I may have deceived the Home Sister at the Hospital, but I am not going to deceive Sister Julienne. Besides, I don’t trust you. I don’t believe for a moment that there is another emergency. I think you just want to be able to boast to the boys that you have slept in a convent!”

Jimmy and Mike looked a trifle crestfallen. They had been plying me with beer and soft talk, in the confident expectation that I would swallow a load of rubbish about them being down on their luck and out of their digs, and would I smuggle them in the back door of Nonnatus House? The male of the species is sweetly naive.

The evening had been fun - a change and relaxation from the rigours of daily work. The beer had been pleasant, and the conversation exuberant, but it was time to go. It was a long way back to the East End, buses were not plentiful after 11 p.m., and I would have to be up at 6.30 a.m. the next morning for a full day’s work. I stood up. An idea had come to mind. It seemed a pity to disappoint them altogether.

“But how would you like to come to lunch one Sunday?”

Their enthusiastic agreement was immediate.

“OK. I will ask Sister Julienne, and will ring you to fix a date. I must be off now.”

I spoke to Sister Julienne next day. She had heard about Jimmy before, on the occasion when I had taken a 3 a.m. swim in the sea at Brighton and arrived for work at ten in the morning. She agreed at once to a luncheon party for the boys.

“It would be delightful. We usually entertain retired missionaries, or visiting preachers. A couple of lively young men would be a pleasure for us all.”

She fixed a date for three weeks ahead, when there were no other guests for Sunday lunch, and I telephoned Jimmy to firm up the arrangements.

“Do you think the nuns could run to three of us for lunch? Alan wants to come. He thinks he might get a story.”

Alan was a reporter, scraping a modest living on his first job in Fleet Street. I thought it highly likely that Sister Julienne could find one more chair at the refectory table, but was not at all sure that Alan would get much of a story out of the lunch. However, hope always runs high in a young reporter’s heart - until the iron enters his soul, that is.

The girls were in a flutter of excitement about three young men coming to Sunday lunch. We were all single nurses with a seemingly endless working week and were often hard put to meet eligible young men. Expectations ran high.

I wondered, with a good deal of amusement, how the meal would go. What would the boys make of us? How would they react to the nuns, particularly to Sister Monica Joan? And it would be interesting to see Alan’s “story”.

The day arrived, warm and bright, and none of our patients was expected to go into labour, which would have disrupted the luncheon party. Everyone was in a flurry of excitement. Had the boys known the flutter they were causing in so many female hearts, they would have been deeply flattered. Or perhaps not. Perhaps they would have regarded it as no more than their devastating charms were due.

They arrived at about 12.30 p.m., just after the Sisters had entered chapel for Tierce, the midday Office.

I opened the door. They certainly looked very spruce, in grey suits, newly washed shirts, and highly polished shoes. I had never before seen them look like that on a Sunday morning. Obviously lunch in a convent was a novel experience for such dedicated young men-about-town. They looked a little unsure of themselves, though.

We kissed, but slightly more formally than usual - no hugs, no laughter, no badinage about nothing much - just a formal kiss, a polite “How are you?”, and “Did you have a good journey?”

I felt a trifle uncomfortable, having never found conversation easy. We all know people in a certain context, and outside the familiar, often find them to be completely different. I had known Jimmy since childhood, but normally met up with the others in London pubs. I didn’t know what to say, and just stood around looking awkward, thinking the whole thing was not such a good idea after all. The boys could find nothing to say either.

Cynthia saved the day. She always did, without knowing how or what she had done. She stepped forward, her soft smile dispelling the tension and filling the rather strained atmosphere with warmth. When she spoke, the slow sexy voice just knocked them over. All she said was: “You must be Jimmy and Mike and Alan. How lovely - we’ve been looking forward to this. Now which of you is which?”

Was it the way she said it, or the wide smiling eyes, or the unaffected warmth of her welcome? The boys must have met scores of girls who were more beautiful, with more self-conscious allure, but they could seldom, if ever, have met a girl with a voice quite like that. They were absolutely bowled over and all three stepped forward at the same time, crashing into each other. She laughed. The ice was broken.

“The Sisters will be here soon, but come into the kitchen and have a coffee, and we can have a chat.”

Coffee, nectar, ambrosia? They followed eagerly; anything with this glorious girl would be heaven. I, thankfully, was forgotten and I breathed a sigh of relief. The luncheon would be a success.

Mrs B. had neither sex appeal nor an alluring voice, “Now don’ you make a mess in ’ere. I’ve got lunch to serve.”

Jimmy smiled confidently at her. “Don’t you worry, madam; we won’t mess up this beautiful kitchen, will we boys? What a magnificent kitchen, and what glorious smells! All your own home cooking, I take it, madam?”

Mrs B. sniffed, and eyed him suspiciously. She had grown-up sons of her own, and was not susceptible to their particular charms. “You jes’ watch it, tha’s all I’m sayin’.”

“Oh, watch it we certainly will,” said Mike, whose eyes had not left Cynthia as she filled the kettle. The water pipes all around the kitchen rattled and shook as she opened the tap. She laughed and said, “That’s just our plumbing system. You’ll get used to it.”

“Oh, I’d like to get used to it”, said Mike with enthusiasm.

Cynthia laughed and blushed a little, brushing back the hair that had fallen over her face.

“Allow me,” said Mike gallantly, taking the kettle from her and carrying it over to the gas stove.

Chummy appeared in the doorway, her head buried in The Times.

“I say, gels, did you know that Binkie Bingham-Binghouse is getting spliced at last? Jolly good show, what? Actually, her Mater will be frightfully chuffed, don’t you know. They thought she was on the shelf. Good old Binkie, haw haw!”

She looked up and saw the boys. At once she went red, and jerked the arm holding the newspaper. It crashed into the dresser, setting the cups rattling and shaking. The paper caught behind a couple of plates and sent them crashing to the floor, smashing them into a dozen pieces.

Mrs B. rushed forward, snarling:

“You clumsy great ... you - you - jest get out o’ my kitchen, you clumsy ... you!”

Poor Chummy! It always happened that way. Social situations were a nightmare for her, particularly when men were around. She just didn’t know what to say to a man, nor how to behave.

Cynthia again saved the day. She grabbed a dustpan and brush, saying, “Never mind, Mrs B. Luckily it was the plate with the crack in it. It needed throwing out, anyway.”

Deftly she swept up the bits, Mike appreciatively studying her neat little bottom as she bent down.

Chummy stood in the doorway, abashed and tongue-tied. I tried to get her to come over and join us for a cup of coffee, but she flushed scarlet and muttered something about going upstairs to wash her hands before lunch.

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.

“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.’”