Farewell To The East End

THE ANGELS

While she could vividly remember things from long past, Sister Monica Joan’s short-term memory seemed to be getting shorter and shorter. She appeared to have forgotten completely the unpalatable fact that she had been before the Court of the London Quarter Sessions on a charge of larceny only a few months previously. The prosecution had alleged that she had stolen jewels from Hatton Garden and initially all the evidence had pointed to her guilt. But a surprise witness proved her innocence. The trial had been a shock, to say the very least, for the convent, but for Sister Monica Joan it was as though it had never happened. She was her old self, delightful and entertaining, in her conversation, but in her behaviour she was becoming increasingly eccentric and unpredictable.

Sister had a niece, more accurately a great great niece, living in Sonning, Berkshire. They had not met or communicated for many years. One day Sister decided to visit her niece, and what is more she determined that a pair of fine Chippendale chairs which she had in her room should be presented to the woman as a gift. Accordingly, she left Nonnatus House early one morning while the Sisters were at prayer, and before Mrs B the cook or Fred the boiler man arrived. How she carried two chairs downstairs is impossible to conjecture, but she did.

Out in the street, she carried one chair to the corner and then came back for the other. She proceeded in this fashion to the East India Dock Road, where a policeman approached and asked her if he could help. Sister Monica Joan did not like policemen. She exclaimed, ‘Tush, out of my way, fellow,’ and rammed the chair leg into his stomach. The policeman decided to let her get on with it.

Sister reached the bus stop and sat down to regain her breath. A bus came, and the conductor, being a kindly soul, helped her on with her two chairs and put them in the luggage hold. When they reached Aldgate, he helped her off and pointed to where she could catch a bus to Euston, where she would have to change onto another for Paddington Station.

It was approaching rush hour when the bus trundled into Paddington. The bus stop was some distance from the railway station, so Sister left one of the chairs (Chippendale, of enormous value) at the bus stop whilst she carried the other to the station. Then she left that one in the station forecourt, and returned for the second. Once in the station things became easier for Sister Monica Joan, because she found a porter who loaded the chairs onto his trolley and took them to the train bound for Reading, were she would have to change onto a branch line for Sonning.

Meanwhile at Nonnatus House the alarm was raised. Sister Monica Joan was missing, and no one had a clue where she had got to. Mrs B was in tears. The police were informed but could offer no help. At lunchtime a phone call was received stating that a policeman had reported seeing a nun at six o’clock in the morning in the East India Dock Road, and that she had rammed a chair leg into his stomach.

‘A chair leg!’ cried Sister Julienne incredulously. ‘What was she doing with a chair leg?’

‘She was carrying a chair,’ replied the duty policeman.

‘But that’s impossible. She is ninety, and it was in the East India Dock Road, you tell me.’

‘I’m only telling you what the constable reported, ma’am. I’m not making anything up. Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do. We’ll keep an eye open for this missing nun, and if we have any more reports of her activities, you will be informed. Good day to you, ma’am.’

Sister went hastily to Sister Monica Joan’s room and observed that not only one chair was missing, but two! Lunchtime conversation around the big dining table focused on nothing else, and prayers were said for Sister Monica Joan’s safety.

The train reached Sonning station at about midday, and Sister Monica Joan telephoned her niece. There was no reply. So she decided to go with God and sat down on one of the chairs to have a little doze. A kindly porteress gave her a cup of tea. At about four o’clock she telephoned again, and this time she was lucky. Her niece was at home. Her astonishment at hearing from her great aunt after so many years, especially as she was waiting at the station with two chairs, can only be imagined. The niece came in her car to collect her aunt. Only one chair could be fitted into the boot, so the other had to be left on the pavement outside the station. It was still there when she returned a couple of hours later.

They telephoned the convent at about five o’clock. The niece said her aunt was tired but happy, and was welcome to stay for a few days if she wanted to. She added that she had received no warning of the intended visit, and that it was only by chance that she was at home at all, as her work often took her away for several days at a time. What would have happened to her aunt had she been away, she could not imagine. The telephone was passed to Sister Monica Joan, who in reply to Sister Julienne’s anxious enquiries said, ‘Of course I’m all right. Don’t fuss so. Why should I not be all right? The angels look after me.’

The angels certainly had a heavy responsibility looking after Sister Monica Joan, and they could never relax their vigilance for a moment. Take the occasion when she nearly set fire to herself, for example. She had complained that the light in her room was insufficient, and that she could not see to read in bed; it was not good enough, something must be done. Obligingly, Fred, our odd-job man, ran a small cable up the wall and fixed a light just above her head. It was nothing fancy – just a bulb over which a small, fringed shade was placed. Sister Monica Joan was delighted. So simple; dear Fred – she could always rely on him, and now she could read in bed all night, if she wanted to.

She did want to, with alarming consequences. Since her bout of pneumonia, caused by wandering down the East India Dock Road in her nightie on a cold November morning, Sister Monica Joan had been favoured by being allowed to have her breakfast in bed. Mrs B usually took it up around 9 a.m., after we midwives and nurses had gone out on our morning visits. But the angels must have seen to it that Mrs B needed to be at the market by 9 a.m. that particular morning, and so she took Sister’s breakfast up at 8 a.m. We were all in the kitchen having our breakfast, and the nuns were still in chapel. The house was quiet, except for the scratch-scratch of Fred raking out the boiler. A piercing scream, followed by louder repeated screams, shattered the calm. We girls and Fred rushed into the hallway, all shouting, ‘What is it, where did it come from?’ The chapel door opened, and the nuns ran out. (Nuns have been known to run, when the occasion demands!) The screams had stopped, but we could hear someone rushing about on the first floor. ‘Stay where you are,’ ordered Sister Julienne. ‘Fred, come with me.’ Disappointed at missing the drama, I waited with the others in the hallway. A smell of burning now filled the air. More running feet, more muffled voices, and smoke billowed along the corridor. Someone went to the bathroom, taps were turned on, windows were closed, banging and stamping was heard, and then Sister Julienne’s calm voice: ‘I think we have got it under control now. Thank God you came up when you did, Mrs B, otherwise I tremble to think of the outcome.’

Sister Monica Joan, protesting about being disturbed, was led out of her room and away from the smoke to the safety of the ground floor. Mrs B was in a very much worse state. She was pale and shaking, and needed several cups of strong tea fortified with whisky before she could tell us what had happened. Sister had had her new light on, with the pillows arranged so that she could sit up. The topmost pillow was touching the light bulb, and she must have fallen asleep. As Mrs B entered the room, a tiny flicker of flame no more than an inch high had leaped from the pillow. Mrs B screamed and dragged it from under the sleeping head. The open door and the movement had caused the pillow, which must have been smouldering for some time, to burst into flames. Her repeated screams brought help, and a rug thrown over the burning pillow and heavy stamping had controlled the fire. But the smoke was terrible, and they were lucky not to have been overcome by fumes. In the meantime Sister Monica Joan had sat on the bed saying, ‘Gracious heaven! What are you doing?’

No one was hurt. The hem of Sister Julienne’s habit was badly scorched, but she was not burned. They were all black with smoke and soot. But Sister Monica Joan was the least troubled of anyone. Either she genuinely forgot about it or decided that it would be expedient to do so (I could never be quite sure), but she did not refer to the incident again. When the light was removed from above her bed she said nothing, but she put on her hard-done-by look.

Then there was the occasion when Sister Monica Joan got stuck in the bath.

We girls first became aware that something was amiss when we heard movements and voices from the Sisters’ floor during the period of the Greater Silence. This is the time after Compline, the last office of the day, and before Mass, the first of the new day, during which hours complete silence is normally observed in the monastic tradition. But on this occasion the Sisters were by no means observing the rule. First we heard one or two whispered words, then more, then a gaggle of anxious voices all talking at once, accompanied by banging on a door, and calls of ‘Sister, can you hear us? Open the door.’

What was going on? We looked enquiringly at each other. Novice Ruth came running downstairs.

‘Is Fred still here? Has he gone yet?’ she called as she ran towards the kitchen. We didn’t know, but then heard ‘Fred, thank goodness you are still here. Come quickly to the second floor. We think you’ll have to break down a door.’

Mysterious! Exciting! Thrilling! We girls looked at each other expecting more.

We heard more voices upstairs but didn’t know what was going on. Fred came back down and passed us as we stood expectantly on the landing.

‘What is it, Fred? What’s up?’

‘I’m goin’ outside to see if ve winder’s open.’

‘The window? We thought it was a door.’

‘It’ll be easier.’

‘Than what?’

‘Than breaking ve door.’

And off he ran.

At this point Sister Julienne came downstairs and met Fred coming in.

‘Yes, Sister. Winder’s open. I reckons as ’ow I can do it.’

‘Oh, Fred, you’re wonderful. But do be careful.’

Fred assumed an heroic air.

‘Don’ choo worry ’bout me, Sister. I’m OK. We gotter ge’ the ’ol lady safe, like. I’ll get ve ladders.’

And off he ran.

Cynthia spoke. ‘Sister, please tell us what is going on.’

‘Well, the bathroom door is locked. It seems that Sister Monica Joan is in the bath and can’t get out, but no one can get in to help her.’

Eager to get a slice of the action, I said, ‘Fred’s getting on a bit. I’m more agile than he is. Couldn’t I go up the ladder?’

Sister looked at me knowingly.

‘I have no doubt that you are more agile. But if you suggested to Fred that he was getting on and was no longer capable of going up a ladder he would be highly offended. We’ll leave it to him.’

Twenty minutes later Fred came downstairs looking, unusually for him, abashed. The fag that normally hung from his lower lip was not there. He looked different without it.

‘What happened, Fred?’ we chorused.

Knowing that we were agog with anticipation and that he was the only source of information, just to tease us he took out a battered tobacco tin from his pocket and started rolling another thin fag.

‘Oh, Fred. Don’t provoke. Tell us what happened.’

He lit his fag, scratched his head and looked at us with his south-west eye, before saying, ‘Well, I reckon as ’ow I must be ve only bloke in England wot’s seen a nun stark naked.’

‘Oooh!’

He was warmed to his story by our reaction.

‘Well, I gets up ve ladder to ve winder, like, an’ pokes me ’ead in. “Be off with you, fellow,” she calls out. ‘I gotta ge’ in, Sister,’ I says. “Come back another day, if you must; it’s not convenient at the moment.” And she splashes water in me face. Well, I wasn’t expectin’ it, an’ I nearly lost me balance.’

‘Oooh, Fred. Poor Fred.’

He was really enjoying himself.

‘But I grabs ve sides of ve winder an’ hangs on, and says, “I’m sorry, Sister, but I gotta get in. You can’t stay in ’ere all night. You’ll catch yer death o’ cold.” Nah, tricky bit is ve bath’s under the winder, so I ’as ter get in an’ over the bath, wiv ’er in it an’ not fall in meself.’

‘How did you manage that, Fred?’

‘Wiv difficulty ’an injinuity. Jest bein’ smart, like.’

‘Fred, you are so clever.’

‘Nah, nah, jest smart like,’ he said modestly. ‘Worse fing was I drops me fag some’ow, an it floats around ve ole lady. Then I unlocks ve door, and Sisters come in, an’ now I’m goin’ a put me ladders away.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea before you go, Fred?’

‘Well now, vat’s an invitation I can’t resist, if you girls will ’ave one wiv me.’

Of course we would. We would like nothing better. So we all sat down in the big kitchen for a cup of tea and some of Mrs B’s cake and a good old natter.

Upstairs we heard further sounds of movement and voices, then splashing of water and the gurgling of a waste pipe. Then no more. The Greater Silence had begun.

Sister Monica Joan was found in the bicycle shed one winter’s night by Chummy who had been called out at about two o’clock. Again, the angels must have arranged it. If Sister had remained in the shed until morning she would probably have died of hypothermia; she was very thin, having no protective reserves of fat to cover her old bones. Chummy was getting her bicycle out when she heard a movement in the corner of the shed and thought it was a rat – we were all nervous of rats in dark places. She shone her torch over the area and was horrified, and indeed terrified, to see an arm move. Then an imperious voice, accustomed to being obeyed, ordered, ‘Don’t shine the light in my eyes like that! Fetch me a pillow if you want to be useful, but turn the light off.’

Sister Monica Joan was curled up in some old camping equipment, probably dating back to someone’s Girl Guide endeavours. She was very cold and very sleepy, which is a dangerous combination. She resented being disturbed and tried to push Chummy away. ‘Go away with your nasty lights and bothersome noise. Why can’t I be left in peace?’ Chummy carried her into the house and alerted the Sisters as she had to go out to a labouring mother. The Sisters covered the old lady with warm blankets and hot-water bottles and gave her hot drinks. Astonishingly she came to no harm, not even a cold in the nose.

I was in her room a few days later and referred to the night’s adventure. She dismissed it as ‘a lot of fuss about nothing’.

‘Well,’ I remarked, ‘you were lucky that there was some old camping equipment in the shed to cover you, or you might have died of cold.’

‘Camping,’ she said, ‘such fun! We used to love it.’ Her eyes were alight and her voice animated.

‘Camping, Sister?’ I exclaimed. ‘You can’t be serious. You’ve been camping?’

She was offended.

‘Certainly, my dear. You don’t imagine I have done nothing in my life, do you? We used to go camping often, my brothers and sisters, and some friends, with the maid and the manservant. It was wonderful.’

‘A maid and manservant? Camping?’

‘It was perfectly proper – a husband and wife in our service.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of the propriety of the arrangements But servants! Camping ...’ My voice failed me.

‘We needed them, my dear. We needed the man to put up the tents and fetch the water and light the fires and things like that, and we needed the maid to do the cooking.’

‘Well, if you put it like that, Sister, I suppose you did.’

I chuckled quietly, but I don’t think she saw the joke.

One memorable Sunday afternoon Cynthia and I took Sister Monica Joan for a walk. The weather was beautiful, and we decided to take her up to Victoria Park, where there is a lovely lake, and where East Enders would gather with their children in sunny weather. But when the bus arrived it was full, so on the spur of the moment we changed our plan and took the next bus, which was going to Limehouse, and past the canal known as the Cuts. We thought we could have a walk along the towpath. The canal was dug in the nineteenth century to connect the River Lea to the Limehouse Reach of the Thames and was much used by commercial barges until the closure of the Docks in the 1970s. It was always a pleasant area for walking.

When we got there Sister said unexpectedly, ‘I don’t like the Cuts.’

‘Why not, Sister?’

‘A grim place. Bad associations.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The place of suicides. In the old days, the bad old days, when there was no money, no work for the men, no food for the children, every week a cry would be heard: “Body in the Cuts, body in the Cuts,” and always it was a woman. A poor, ragged, half-starved woman, driven to the limits of despair. Once a woman with a baby strapped to her body was dragged out, I was told.’

‘Sister, how terrible. Shall we go away?’

‘No. I want to go and see it for myself. I haven’t been here for forty years, since Beryl died.’

Cynthia and I glanced at each other. We both wanted to hear the story, but didn’t want to disturb her thoughts, in case they flitted off onto something quite unconnected, and the story was lost. But the dark water, barely moving, seemed to focus her attention, and she continued.

‘They told me she jumped off Stinkhouse Bridge one night, and her body was dragged out the next day. I wasn’t surprised. No one was. She had a brute of a husband, seven children, another expected, no money, and a hovel to live in – the usual story. It is only surprising more women didn’t do it. Every child’s fear, you know, was that one day things would get so bad that mother would jump into the Cuts.’

She raised her hand, took hold of the cross that hung around her neck and held it up over the canal. She called out, ‘Be sanctified, you black and wicked waters. Rest in peace, Beryl, unloved wife, weeping mother. May the lamentations of your children sanctify these turgid deeps.’

What the people around thought of this little exhibition I cannot say, but several of them gave her rather funny looks.

Sister was in good form and continued, ‘Do you know what that brute of a husband said when the vicar informed him that his wife was dead, and how she had died?’

‘No. What?’ we chorused.

‘He said, my dears – the vicar himself told us – the husband said, “Spiteful cat. Spiteful to the last. She knowed as ’ow today’s Newmarket day, and she knowed as ’ow I’m a delicate feelin’ sort o’ chap, so she goes an’ kills ’erself jest to put me out of sorts for the races. I knows ’er nasty ways. Spite it was; pure spite.” Then he walked out. The vicar was left alone in the derelict kitchen, with seven dirty, hungry children around him, for whom he would have to make some sort of provision, if the father wouldn’t. Then the man returned. But he had no thoughts for his children. He walked jauntily up to the vicar, tapped him on the chest and said, “Now you listen ’ere, mate. I wont ’ave no funerals on Friday. Vat’s Epsom day, see? No funerals. I wont ’ave ’er laughin’ twice.”

‘That was the last the vicar saw of him. He didn’t turn up for the funeral, which was on a Tuesday, and he simply abandoned his children. All of them ended up in the Workhouse.’

Sister Monica Joan said no more, and we continued walking. The sun was pleasant, and the ghosts of the past seemed long since asleep. Cynthia and I talked of our plans for the future. She was hoping to test her vocation in the religious life. I knew it was a huge step to take, requiring much thought and prayer, but I had always regarded Cynthia as a saint (or very nearly) and was not surprised. We came to a wooden seat and sat down, and she asked Sister’s opinion.

‘Do you think I am called to be a nun, Sister?’

‘Only God knows. Many are called but few are chosen, my child.’

‘What brought you to the religious life?’

‘The conflict between good and evil. The eternal battle between God and the devil. I tried to resist the call, but it was too strong.’

The nun sat looking at the water. I ventured the question, ‘Was there no other way?’

‘For me, no. For others it is different. You do not have to be a nun to be at war with the devil. To be in the fight, on the side of the angels, is all that matters.’

‘Do you believe in the devil?’ I asked provocatively.

‘Stupid, thoughtless child, of course I do. You only have to look at the record of the Nazis during the war to see the work of the devil.’ The atrocities of the war were vivid in the minds of everyone.

She turned her head away from me scornfully. I had offended her, and she muttered, ‘Thoughtless, empty questions,’ but then said more gently to Cynthia, ‘Test your vocation, my child. Become a Postulant, then a Novice. Time will reveal if you are truly called. It is a hard life, and doubts will always plague you. Just go with God.’

Mention of the Nazis brought to mind what Sister Julienne had told me some time earlier; that there was in Germany a community of Lutheran nuns, started in 1945 or 1946, just after the war, whose vocation was contemplative prayer and repentance for the sins of their fellow countrymen. The women lived a life of extreme privation, as near to concentration camp life as they could get: minimal food (the nuns were all close to starvation), scant clothing, no shoes, no heating in winter, and no beds, just a straw mattress and a thin blanket. And this life they lived in atonement for the sins of others. I had found this story deeply impressive, though I could not really understand the spiritual side of the vocation. I was grappling in my mind with the problems of sin, guilt, atonement, redemption, religious vocation and many unfathomable subjects, when abruptly Sister Monica Joan stood up.

‘The water is not very deep,’ she announced, ‘I don’t see how anyone could drown in it.’

‘It is in the middle,’ I pointed out. ‘It takes cargo barges.’

‘But you can see the bottom. Look, you can see the stones.’

‘That’s only at the edges. Anyway, the water level is low at the moment. I assure you it is deep in the middle.’

‘I don’t believe it. We shall see.’

Before we could stop her, and she was surprisingly nimble, Sister Monica Joan had crossed the few steps to the canal and now stood ankle deep at the water’s edge.

‘There, I told you,’ she cried triumphantly, ‘the stories about people drowning in the Cuts are just fancy.’ And she took another step towards the centre.

‘Come back’ screamed Cynthia and I in alarm. We leaped into the water beside her, but Sister was too quick for us.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she called out, taking another step forward. But the Cuts was cut away, and instantly she fell forward into deep water.

Cynthia and I were not the only ones to hurl ourselves in after her. As many as a dozen East Enders dived, fully clothed, into the canal that Sunday afternoon. None of us need have bothered. It was immediately obvious that Sister Monica Joan could swim. Her habit did not absorb the water at once, and it floated around her like the wings of a huge black water-fowl. Her head was held high, and her white veil floated behind her like exotic plumage.

All might have been well, and Sister might have swum back to us, had it not been for the enthusiasm of three local lads who dived in from the other bank. They grabbed hold of her and began swimming back whence they had come.

‘No, not that side!’ I screamed. ‘Come back – this side!’ Everyone around, including those in the water, was screaming instructions. We all knew that if the boys landed Sister on the opposite bank there was no towpath exit to the bridge. But the lads did not or could not understand in all the confusion. They had pulled Sister to the middle of the canal and saw themselves as heroes. A powerful man, with muscles of oak and the speed of an Olympic swimmer, reached them first. He clouted one lad around the ear, pushed the other boy under, took hold of the protesting nun and swam back with her to our side.

Do not ask me how we got Sister Monica Joan to the convent. The whole process was too complicated and confusing. My memories are hazy: getting her clothes off with modesty and decorum; dozens of wet people offering advice; wondering what on earth to put on her; someone donating a raincoat, a cardigan, a baby’s shawl; trying to find her shoes. The swimmer and another man got her to the Commercial Road by giving her a chair-lift. She sat regally on their crossed hands, holding their arms with perfect composure, as though a ducking in the Cuts were a regular experience. Someone must have stopped a lorry in the Commercial Road, because I remember the two men lifting Sister up into the lorry and settling her comfortably. She thanked them with queenly grace, and two tough, strong dockers blushed with pleasure. ‘No trouble at all, ma’am,’ they said. ‘Any time. Good day, ma’am.’

Back at the Convent she was put to bed with hot-water bottles and hot drinks. She slept for twenty-four hours, and when she awoke, she appeared to have no memory at all of what had happened. She suffered no ill. It must have been the angels again.