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

she? An’ ve li’l one. ‘Ow’s ve li’l one?”
     
    I went directly into the house without even knocking, and Muriel’s mother immediately came forward, busy and smiling. These older generation mothers knew that they were absolutely indispensable at times like these, and it gave them a great sense of fulfilment, an ongoing purpose in life. She was all bustle and information. “She’s been asleep since you left. She’s been to the toilet and passed water. She’s had some tea and now I’m getting her a nice bit of fish. Baby’s been to the breast, I’ve seen to that, but she aint got no milk yet.”
     
    I thanked her and went up to the room. It looked clean, fresh and bright, with flowers on the chest of drawers. Compared to the filth and squalor of Molly’s flat, it looked like paradise.
     
    Muriel was awake but sleepy. Her first words to me were, “I don’t want no fish. Can’t you tell mum that? I don’t feel like it, but she won’t listen to me. She might listen to you.”
     
    Clearly there was a difference of opinion between mother and daughter. I did not want to be involved. I checked her pulse and blood pressure - normal. Her vaginal discharge was not excessive; the uterus felt normal too. I checked her breasts. A little colostrum was coming out but no milk, as her mother had said. I wanted to try to get the baby to feed, in fact that was the main purpose of my visit.
     
    In the cot the baby was sleeping soundly. Gone was the puckered appearance, the discoloration of the skin from the stress and trauma of birth, the cries of alarm and fear at entering this world. He was relaxed and warm and peaceful. Nearly everyone will say that seeing a newborn baby has an effect on them, ranging from awe to astonishment. The helplessness of the newborn human infant has always made an impression on me. All other mammals have a certain amount of autonomy at birth. Many animals, within an hour or two of birth, are up on their feet and running. Others, at the very least, can find the nipple and suck. But the human baby can’t even do that. If the nipple or teat is not actually placed in the baby’s mouth and sucking encouraged, the baby would die of starvation. I have a theory that all human babies are born prematurely. Given the human life span - three score years and ten - to be comparable with other animals of similar longevity, human gestation should be about two years. But the human head is so big by the age of two that no woman could deliver it. So our babies are born prematurely, in a state of utter helplessness.
     
    I lifted the tiny creature from his cot and brought him to Muriel. She knew what to do, and had started squeezing a little colostrum from the nipple. We tried brushing a little of this over the baby’s lips. He was not interested, only squirmed and turned his head away. We tried again, with the same reaction. It took at least a quarter of an hour of patiently trying to encourage the baby, but eventually, we persuaded him to open his mouth sufficiently to insert the nipple. He took about three sucks, and went off to sleep again. Sound asleep, as though exhausted from all his efforts. Muriel and I laughed.
     
    “You would think he’d been doing all the hard work,” she said, “not you and me, eh, nurse?”
     
    We agreed to leave it for the time being. I would be back again in the evening, and she could try again during the afternoon, if she wanted to.
     
    As I went downstairs, I smelt cooking. It may not have been to Muriel’s liking, but it certainly got my gastric juices going. I was starving, and a delicious lunch awaited me at Nonnatus House. I bade them goodbye, and made for my bicycle. Mrs Jenkins was standing over it, as though she were keeping guard. How am I going to get rid of her? I thought. I didn’t want to talk. I just wanted to get back to my lunch, but she was hanging on to the saddle. Clearly she was not going to let me go without some information.
     
    “’Ow is she? An’ ve li’l one. ‘Ow’s ve li’l one?” she hissed at me, her eyes unblinking.
     
    There is something about obsessive behaviour that is off-putting. Mrs Jenkins was more than that. She was repellent. About seventy, she was tiny and bent, and her black eyes penetrated me, shattering any pleasant thoughts of lunch. She was toothless and ugly, in my arrogant opinion, and her filthy claw-like hands were creeping down my sleeve, getting unpleasantly close to my wrists. I pulled myself to