Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950S

the lads wanted a real old knees-up when ’is first gran’child’s born. It’ll be the joke of all Poplar, it will. He’ll never live it down. They won’t let ’im.”
     
    She wrung her hands silently, then screamed at her daughter. “Oh, I wish you’d never been born, I do. I ’opes as how you dies now, you an’ that bastard inside yer an’ all, I ’opes.”
     
    Another contraction came on, and Bella screamed with pain. “Stop it. Don’t let it come. Stop it some’ow.”
     
    “I’ll give you ‘don’t let it come’,” screamed Flo. “I’ll kill you afore it comes, yer filthy bitch, you.”
     
    They were both screaming at each other. A terrified Tom appeared in the doorway. Flo turned on him, her face red with passion. “Get out of here,” she said. “Vis is no place for a man. Just get out. Go for a walk, or somefink. An don’t come back ’til termorrer mornin’.”
     
    Tom withdrew with speed. Men were accustomed to being ordered about in that way when it came to childbirth.
     
    His appearance must have made Flo think more clearly. She became practical. “We’ve gotta get rid of it,” she said. “No one mus’ know, least of all ’im. When it’s born I’ll take it away and put it in an institution. No one will know.”
     
    Bella grabbed her hand, her eyes alight. “Oh mum, will yer? Will yer do that fer me?”
     
    My head was spinning. Up to that moment I had been flattened morally and emotionally, by all the noise, and the high drama going on between mother and daughter. But this was a new turn of events.
     
    “You can’t possibly do that,” I said. “What are you going to tell Tom when he gets home tomorrow?”
     
    “We’ll tell ’im it’s dead,” said Flo confidently.
     
    “But you can’t do that in this day and age. You can’t spirit away a living baby and announce that it died. You would never get away with it. Tom thinks he’s the father. He would ask to see the baby. He would ask why it died.”
     
    “He can’t see ve baby,” said Flo with less confidence. ” He’s got to think it’s dead and buried.”
     
    “This is ridiculous,” I said. “We are not living in the 1850s. If I deliver a living baby, I have to make my report, and that has to go to the health authorities. The baby can’t just die or disappear. Someone will have to account for it.”
     
    Just then another contraction came on, and the dialogue had to be suspended. My head was racing. They were mad, both of them, beyond all reason.
     
    The contraction passed. Flo had also been thinking furiously and making her plans. “Well you go away, then. Say you ’ad to go to another patient, or summat. I can deliver the baby myself, an’ I don’t ’ave to make no bleedin’ report to no bleedin’ authority. I can just take the baby away when it’s born, an’ no one’ll know where it’s gorn to, they won’t. An’ Tom’ll never see it.”
     
    I reeled under the impact of this suggestion. “I can’t possibly do that. I’m a professional midwife, trained and registered. Bella is my patient. I can’t walk out on her in the first stage of labour, and leave her in the hands of an untrained woman. I still have to make my report. What am I to tell the Sisters? How am I to account for my actions?”
     
    Another contraction came on. Bella was screaming. “Oh, stop it. Don’ let it come. Let me die. What’ll ’e say? ’e’ll kill me!”
     
    Her mother, defiant, said, “Don’t you fret, my luvvy. He’ll never see it. Yer mum’ll get rid of it for yer.”
     
    “But you can’t,” I shouted. I felt myself getting hysterical, too. “If a living baby is born, it can’t just be ‘got rid of’. If you try anything like that, you will have the police after you. You will be committing a crime, and then your situation will be worse than ever.”
     
    Flo sobered up a bit. “It’ll have to be adopted, then.”
     
    “That’s more like it,” I said. “But even then the baby has to be registered, and adoption papers have to be drawn up and signed by both parents to give consent. Tom thinks it is his baby. You can’t hide it from him and then tell him he’s got to sign his baby away for adoption. He wouldn’t agree to that.”
     
    Bella started screaming again. Dear God, what’s her blood pressure doing, I thought. Maybe, with all this second stage trauma, the grandmother will get her way after all and the baby will die! I got out my foetal stethoscope to listen