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

Evangelina any match for the quicksilver mind of Sister Monica Joan. She thought slowly and pedantically, entirely concerned with practical matters. She was a careful, hardworking midwife, and an honest and devout nun; I doubt if she had ever had an original idea in her life. Sister Monica Joan’s flashing wit and wisdom, her mental gymnastics, leaping from Christianity to cosmology, to astrology, to mythology, all of them thrown together in poetry and prose, and muddled in a mind on the verge of decay, was too much for Sister Evangelina. She just stood with her mouth open, looking stupid, or snorted her incomprehension and stomped off out of the room.
     
    There was no doubt that Sister Evangelina had her cross to bear, and perched on the top was Sister Monica Joan, giggling and winking, kicking her heels in delight as she made such catty remarks as, “I think there’s thunder coming - oh no, it’s only you, dear. The weather is a little unsettled, isn’t it, dear?”
     
    Sister Evangelina could only grind her teeth and plod on. She never got the better of these altercations, try as she might. Had she possessed a sense of humour, she could have defused the situation with laughter - but I never saw Sister Evangelina laugh spontaneously, whatever fun was going on in the house. She would watch other people, to make sure it was funny, and then laugh when others did. Sister Monica Joan would mock this also, “The tinkling bells chime, and the stars laugh with joy. The little cherubs clap their wings and laugh with heavenly harmony. Sister Evangelina is a little cherub, and the tinkling sounds of her laughter ring the changing universe into eternal changelessness. Don’t they, dear?”
     
    Poor Sister Evangelina could only say, with solemn emphasis, “I don’t know what you mean.”
     
    “Ah, so far, so far, the never star, the fruition of Joy, the husk of Despair.”
     
    Sister Julienne tried her best to keep the peace between the two Sisters, but not very successfully. How can you reprimand a nonagenarian whose mind is wandering? And would it do any good? I am sure she wondered, as I did, how much of it was due to senility, and how much was calculated mischief-making; but she could never be sure, and in any case Sister Monica Joan’s wit had always flashed and gone before she could do anything about it. So Sister Evangelina’s suffering continued.
     
    The monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience are hard, very hard. But harder still is the task of living, day in, day out, with your Sisters in God.
     

MARY
     
     
     
    She must have planned it, and picked me out as I got off the bus at the Blackwall Tunnel. It was about 10.30 p.m. and I had been to the newly opened Festival Hall. Perhaps I looked smarter than most of the other travellers that night, which she assumed meant more affluent. She came up to me, and said quietly, in a lilting Irish voice: “Could you change a five pound note for me?”
     
    I was staggered. Change for five pounds! I doubt if I had three shillings to last the rest of the week. It would be like someone stopping you in the street today and asking if you had change for a five hundred-pound note.
     
    “No, I haven’t,” I said brusquely. My head was full of music, I was replaying the performance over and over again in my mind. I didn’t want to be bothered with total strangers asking silly questions.
     
    It was something about her despairing sigh that made me look at her again. She was very small and thin, with a perfect oval face, rather like a pre-Raphaelite painting. She could have been anywhere between fourteen and twenty years of age. She wore no coat, only a thin jacket that was quite inadequate for the cold evening. She had no stockings or gloves, and her hands trembled. She looked a very poor, ill-nourished girl - yet she obviously had five pounds.
     
    “Why don’t you go into that café and change it?”
     
    She looked furtive, “I dare not. Someone would see me and tell. Then they would bash me up, or kill me.”
     
    It occurred to me that she had probably stolen the money. Stolen goods are of no value unless you can get rid of them. Sterling can usually be passed on without much trouble, but this girl was obviously too afraid to attempt it. Something made me say: “Are you hungry?”
     
    “I haven’t eaten today, nor yesterday.”
     
    No food for forty-eight hours, and five pounds in her pocket. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said to the