Farewell To The East End

THE ABORTIONIST

Hilda sat at the wooden table and lit another fag. She was stunned. Foremost in her mind was the suspicion that had been nagging at her for three weeks. What a blessing she hadn’t told Bill! Only yesterday she thought she would have to, and then go to the doctor. Not now, no siree, no bleeding doctors. She’d see Mrs Prichard, who was well thought of in the area. She’d enquire in the corner shop. Someone would know how to find her. Hilda got the children up and packed them off to school, paying little heed to their demands and squabbles. Her mind was planning what she would have to do – the sooner the better, every day would count.

Discreet enquiries led her to Mrs Prichard. She had to be very careful. Back-street abortions were quite common in those days, but the practice was illegal, and both the client and the abortionist could be prosecuted if caught and would face a prison sentence if convicted. Every precaution was necessary.

Mrs Prichard and her daughter lived in a better class of house on the Commercial Road. To the police, local doctors, church and social workers, she was a herbalist, specialising in potions, known only to the mystics, for the cure of hay-fever, gout, arthritic knees and so on. Her front room was filled with bottles and phials. Her premises had been inspected several times by the public health authorities, who had found her remedies and treatments to be harmless, if ineffectual. Evidence of the more lucrative side of her business was nowhere to be seen. She had learned her trade from her mother, who had been an abortionist since the 1880s, and when the old lady died Mrs Prichard had inherited the equipment which had been stolen from a hospital about fifty years earlier.

Mrs Prichard was a well-upholstered lady. She wore smart suits and several gold chains over her ample bosom. Her face was heavily made up, and her eyebrows, plucked until nothing was left, were replaced by a thin pencil arc, reaching high into her forehead. Her hair was a colour that no woman of her age could hope to retain and was elaborately coiffed and curled. She greeted Hilda with a smile, and listened to her story sympathetically. When she spoke her voice was falsely genteel, an accent beloved by character actresses.

‘Oh, my dear, what you got is stomach cramps. I sees a lot of it these days. The doctors don’t know what to do with it. Don’t know nothing, they don’t. I can’t think why they have all that training – they don’t seem to learn nothing. Can’t even treat a simple case of stomach cramps. Inflammation of the intestines, I calls it, dear. Going up or going down, it makes no difference, the intestines has a lot of work to do, and they get inflammation. Now what you need is some of my special stomach cramps mixture, dear. My own remedy, known only to myself. My dear deceased mother, who was a wise woman as ever there was one, passed the secret on to me on her death-bed. “Don’t let anyone get it off of you,” she says as she was dyin’ like. “It’s more precious than gold,” she says. “Them doctors don’t know nothing about it,” she says, and then she expired, leaving me with the secret.’

Mrs Prichard wiped her eye and sniffed sadly as she went over to a counter. She took several bottles off the shelves, and with a measuring glass and a great deal of care, and with one eye shut, squinting against the light, she filled a bottle. Hilda was most impressed.

‘That will be two guineas, dear, and worth ten of anyone’s money, I can tell you. Now take a tablespoonful night and morning for five days. It will make the stomach cramps worse at first, but that is a sign that the potion is working, so don’t stop taking it, will you, dear? It’s got to get worse afore it gets better. If you don’t get any bleeding, come back to me next week. My dear mother left me on her death-bed with other secret remedies for stomach cramps, known only to myself.’

Mrs Prichard pocketed the two guineas. Smiling and solicitous, she showed Hilda to the door.

‘Now remember, dear, this is for stomach cramps. Mrs Prichard treats all sorts: headaches, migraines, ingrown toenails, flatulence, tennis elbow and stomach cramps. If anyone asks you, this potion is for them stomach cramps, which you ’ave been suffering of.’

Hilda took the potion as directed for five days. The taste was so revolting that it made her retch with each dose, and the pain in her stomach was intense. The third day she developed violent diarrhoea and vomiting, and spent most of the night in the outside lavatory. She sat curled up with pain on the rough wooden seat, trying not to cry out as the fluid poured from her. This’ll get rid of it, she thought, and good riddance. In the morning she looked hopefully for signs of blood – but there were none. For three more days she put up with the pain and nausea and diarrhoea, trying to pretend to Bill and the children that nothing was wrong, but by the sixth day she was forced to admit that it had all been to no avail. She had lost no blood. She was still pregnant.

Hilda felt weak and shaky when she returned to Mrs Prichard, who in contrast looked splendid. Her hair had been newly dyed and was piled up on her head in layers of curled sausages. Her make-up was even thicker than before, and her lips and fingernails were a vivid red.

‘Oh, my dear. These naughty cramps. Sometimes they really have to be swept away with a new broom. My dear mother always used to say that, if the cramps don’t go with the old trusty broom, you’ve got to get out the new. Now it’s up to you, dear. Do you want me to get out my new broom to sweep them clean away? I will have to come to your place, of course. Can’t be done here. I ain’t got the premises. And my daughter will have to come with me. I need her as my trusty assistant, you understand. And there must be no one around, no children nor husbands nor nothing like that, you understand? The decision is yours, dear.’

Hilda gulped, and felt sick.

‘Will it hurt?’ she murmured.

‘Hardly a prick, my dear. I will give you a potion, my mother’s secret mixture what she gave me when she was a-dying. It numbs the senses.’

‘Is there no other way?’

‘If the potion for cramps don’t work, my dear, it means it’s a real sticking, stubborn sort of cramp, and the only way is a new broom.’

‘All right. When can you do it?’

‘Wednesday morning. And it’ll be twenty guineas. Ten guineas now, and ten when I’ve done. You won’t regret a penny, my dear.’

Hilda went to the post office and drew out twenty guineas from the War Time Savings Account she had guarded so carefully to buy new furniture when she and Bill got their new place. She returned to Mrs Prichard, who took the money with ‘You won’t regret a penny, my dear. Till Wednesday.’

Hilda spent the next few days in an agony of doubt and indecision. Had she done wrong? Should she go through with it? She could cancel the whole thing and just have the baby. But the thought of a seventh baby in that horrible flat filled her with such dismay that she thought anything would be better. Should she tell Bill? She didn’t know. Men are so squeamish, perhaps he’d rather not know. Then again he might start blabbing to his mates at work, and then, who knows where it might get to. Next thing they’d have the Law knocking on their door. She decided not to tell him.

On Wednesday, Mrs Hatterton opposite agreed to have the two little ones for the day, and the older children had all been sent to school with instructions to have school dinners and not to come back until four o’clock. Hilda waited with pounding heart. She had carried up several buckets of water, laid out clean towels and sheets and provided a few rolls of cotton wool. She didn’t know what else to do. The waiting’s the worst, she thought. There was a knock on the door at nine thirty, and she nearly jumped out of her skin, though she had been expecting it.

Mrs Prichard and her daughter entered. The two women were soberly, even drably, dressed in brown mackintoshes. They both had their hair wound up in curlers with a headscarf tied over the top, which was a common sight amongst East End women. They carried wicker shopping baskets from which protruded cabbages, leeks, turnip tops and brussel tops. They looked exactly like a couple of housewives coming back from market. It was a disguise to fool the police.

‘Now, dear, the sooner we get on with this, the sooner it’s over. Let me see your premises.’

Mrs Prichard mounted the rickety staircase going up from the foul-smelling hallway and wrinkled her sensitive nose in disgust.

‘I’m not surprised, dear, that you wants to get rid of these stomach cramps.’

She looked round Hilda’s rooms with a professional eye.

‘Can’t use the bedroom. We’ll have to do it on the kitchen table. I will need some hot water. Where’s the gas-stove? On the landing! That won’t do. The hot water must be ready and in here. Now, can we lock the door? No? Why not? The door must be locked from the inside. Find the key. Ah, is that it? Good. Now clear the table. Draw those curtains; we don’t want any prying eyes, do we, dear? Now dear, drink this. It’s my mother’s potion to numb the senses – and climb up on that table. Miriam, put that bucket there, and that bowl there, put those towels here, and get those sheets under her buttocks. I wants you to hold the knees against the chest, and to keep them there whatever happens.’

Miriam was a large, silent female, and she grunted her acquiescence.

Trembling, Hilda drank the potion as instructed and shakily climbed onto the table. She lay down in what is known medically as the ‘lithotomy position’, with her buttocks at the edge of the table, her legs drawn upwards and spread apart. Her head was spinning. A silky voice penetrated her hazy mind.

‘Have you got the other ten guineas, dear? A professional person can’t be expected to carry out professional duties without due payment.’

‘On the shelf, in the brown pot,’ Hilda answered thickly. Miriam went to the pot and took the money.

Mrs Prichard delved amongst the leeks and brussel tops and produced her instruments. They were exceedingly old and made of rough, unpolished steel, virtually impossible to sterilise – if, indeed, Mrs Prichard ever made any attempts at sterilisation. They consisted of a few ancient surgical instruments, such as forceps, dilators, curettes and a Higginson’s syringe.

‘Just a little prick, dear, you’ll hardly feel a thing,’ Mrs Prichard cooed, as she inserted her fingers into the vagina. Hilda felt no discomfort. This is going to be all right, she thought. The drug she had taken made her feel light-headed and sleepy.

Mrs Prichard glanced at her and muttered to her daughter, ‘Keep her firmly in that position and have the towels ready.’ She felt with her fingers until she thought she had located the cervix. She hissed, ‘Keep her still now,’ and with the forceps she grabbed the cervix and pulled it towards her. Hilda felt a pain like a knife stabbing her body, but she managed to suppress a scream. Holding the cervix quite firmly Mrs Prichard took one of the dilators and attempted to force it through the closed cervix, with no success. ‘Too big,’ muttered the abortionist and reached for a smaller dilator, which she pushed hard against the cervical orifice. Edna felt pain like burning knives tearing her body apart. She opened her mouth to scream, but a towel was thrust in, pushing her tongue backwards and nearly choking her.

Miriam’s weight held her legs fast against her body so that she could not move.

Mrs Prichard had a curette at her disposal. So she poked with it in a blind attempt to force entry through the cervix into the uterus. When she thought she had succeeded she started scraping around and continued scraping until blood began to flow. The pain was so intense that Hilda passed out, and when she regained consciousness she was vomiting, but the towel that had been thrust into her mouth was still there so she started choking. ‘Pull that towel away; we don’t want her to choke on us,’ muttered Mrs Prichard.

The fresh blood flowed freely, but Hilda was unaware of it. She was conscious only of the vomit that was rising in her throat and of the towel being snatched away just in time, before she inhaled her own vomit, which would probably have killed her. She was aware of a silky voice saying, ‘There now. A nice flow of blood. That’s all you needed, dear. A nice new broom to sweep away them stomach cramps. You’ll be all right now, dear. You might feel shaky for a day or two, but it’ll soon pass, and you’ll be fine. Now get up, dear. Yes, you can get up all right and go and lie on the bed for an hour or two. We’ll do the clearing up. It’s all part of the service. I pride myself on never leaving a mess behind.’

Hilda staggered to her feet and with the help of Miriam went to the bedroom. As she passed the end of the table she saw a bowl full of blood and blood dripping off the table onto the floor. Has that all come from me, she thought and clung to the towel the women had put between her legs. She vomited again. ‘Have some more potion, dear,’ said Mrs Prichard smoothly. ‘It will ease the stomach and help you sleep. These cramps can be real nasty, can’t they, dear?’ Hilda drank the potion, and lay down on the bed. She drifted again into unconsciousness, a state that kept coming and going for the rest of the day.

The two women cleared up, after a fashion, Mrs Prichard muttering ‘If she expects us to clean this hovel, she’s got another think coming,’ then left Hilda bleeding, shocked and semi-conscious.

Mrs Hatterton brought the toddlers back at three o’clock. She saw the state that Hilda was in and put two and two together. ‘You poor soul,’ she murmured. She took the children back to her place and returned with clean towels and sheets and carried fresh water up, because Hilda was raging with thirst. She took away the bloodied linen and packed the clean around the injured woman. Later she took the older children to her place too, and fed them, returning to Hilda several times to change the linen and to give her a drink. When she saw Bill returning at six o’clock, she stopped him in the street and told him his wife was ill. Nothing more. She told him that she would keep the children till her old man came back, but then they would have to return home. Bill just assumed that his wife had ’flu – ‘She’s bin a bit off colour lately.’ He had no idea, and was aghast when he saw Hilda, deathly white, scarce able to move or speak. ‘I’ll get a doctor,’ he said. ‘No, no, don’t, you mustn’t,’ was the woman’s anguished reply. She had to tell him, but he did not comprehend. ‘Women’s troubles,’ was his reaction. No man had anything to do with women’s troubles. He made his tea and went out. Mrs Hatterton brought the six children back at seven thirty and put them to bed, two in the cupboard and the others on the sofa or in the cot which she pulled into the main room. She gave Hilda some more water and changed her linen again. ‘You’ll have to manage,’ she said. She did not suggest getting a doctor. She knew, as Hilda did, that a doctor would probably mean police involvement and prosecution. These things had to be kept quiet. ‘I’ll be in tomorrow,’ she said as she left.

Bill returned at ten thirty. He had been drinking, but was not drunk. Hilda looked no better. ‘You sure you don’t want no doctor?’ he asked, concerned. She had to explain to him that a doctor was legally bound to inform the police of a criminal abortion. He didn’t really understand, but the mention of police kept him silent. Seeing Hilda so pale and weak stirred his old tenderness for her. ‘How about a nice cup o’ tea, eh, duck?’ he said kindly, ‘do you good.’ Hilda forced a smile, ‘A cup o’ tea would be nice. And Bill, thanks. Thanks for everything.’ The children slept on.

It took about three weeks for Hilda to recover her strength. The bleeding stopped within a few days, but the shock, the pain and the general weakness kept her in bed for most of that time. Mrs Hatterton was good to her. She came in daily and saw the bigger children off to school. She cared for the toddlers, and did the washing, shopping, cooking and carrying of water up and down stairs. Mrs Prichard was not seen again. Her professional services did not include post-operative care.