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

comfortable.
     
    Satisfied, the cellist smiled confidently at his audience and raised his bow.
     
    “It’s no good. I can’t sit like this. I shall have to have a cushion at my back.”
     
    The cellist let his arm fall. The Rector gazed helplessly at his curates. A lady from the back came forward. She had providently brought a cushion for herself, and Sister Monica Joan was welcome to use it.
     
    “How very kind. It is greatly appreciated. So kind.”
     
    Her regal graciousness could have out-queened the Queen Mother. She felt the cushion, and decided she would sit on the cushion and have the cloth at her back. Cynthia and the Rector adjusted all this, whilst the cellist and pianist sat quietly looking at their instruments. I was squirming, trying in vain not to be noticed.
     
    The recital started and Sister Monica Joan, comfortable at last, took out her knitting.
     
    Knitting during a recital is not common. In fact I have never seen anyone do it. But Sister Monica Joan was not concerned with what other people did or did not do. She always did exactly as she chose. Nor is knitting generally considered to be a noisy occupation. I had frequently seen Sister Monica Joan knitting in absolute serenity and silence. But not on this occasion. The knitting was of a lacy pattern, requiring three needles, and this produced absolute mayhem.
     
    She dropped the needles repeatedly. They were steel knitting needles, and each time they fell they clattered on to the wooden floor. Cynthia or I had to retrieve them, depending on which side the needle had dropped. The ball of wool fell and rolled under several chairs. Someone about four chairs down kicked it back towards her, but the trailing piece of wool caught around the leg of a chair and pulled tight, thus pulling several stitches off the work in Sister Monica Joan’s hands. “Be careful,” she hissed at us as the cellist approached a particularly difficult cadenza, his eyes closed in rapture. He opened his eyes sharply, and an unexpected bum note sounded from the strings. Seeing Sister Monica Joan fumbling after the wool, the cellist, with true professionalism, launched into his cadenza. He finished the movement in masterly fashion.
     
    The slow movement started very quietly and peacefully, but the ball of wool was not so easily dealt with. The person four chairs down tried to retrieve it and push it back the way it had come, without success. The ball rolled backwards, and got tangled around the feet of someone sitting behind, who picked it up, causing the trailing end to pull tight again, pulling several more stitches off Sister Monica Joan’s needle.
     
    “You are ruining it,” she spat out to the man behind.
     
    The pianist was playing a hauntingly tender passage. She turned from the piano and looked daggers at the first row.
     
    As the final cadence approached another needle dropped to the floor with a resounding clatter, destroying the plaintive cry of the cello in the dying fall of the movement.
     
    The Rector, with a desperate look on his face, came forward and whispered to Sister Monica Joan to be quiet. “What did you say, Rector?” she said loudly, as though she were deaf - which she wasn’t. He backed off in alarm, fearing that he might make things worse.
     
    The third movement was an allegro con fuoco , and the duo played it faster and with more fire than I have ever heard.
     
    Cynthia and I, who were just about dying with mortification, were counting the minutes until the interval when we could take Sister home. I was grinding my teeth in fury, and plotting murder in my heart. Cynthia, who has a sweeter nature than mine, was patient and understanding. But worse was to come.
     
    The musicians brought the third movement to a triumphant close. With a magnificent gesture the cellist swept the bow upwards, and raised his arm aloft, smiling confidently at the audience.
     
    Only a few seconds were to elapse before the applause began, but it was time enough for Sister Monica Joan to make her exit. She stood up abruptly.
     
    “This is too painful. I cannot put up with this a moment longer. I must go.”
     
    With knitting needles dropping all around her she passed the musicians and, in full view of the entire audience, swept down the central aisle towards the door.
     
    Tumultuous applause broke out from the Poplar audience. Stamping, cheering, whistling - no musicians could have asked for a greater ovation. But they knew, and we knew, and they