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

the gold and silver room where she had spent the night with Zakir, to the top of the house. In the attic were about twenty girls, lying on the floor or on bunk beds. Most were asleep.
     
    Gloria said, “You stop here. We’ll want you later.”
     
    Mary sat down on the floor in a corner. She had known nothing but poverty all her life, and, since her Dublin days, had slept only in makeshift slum dwellings or outdoors, so she was not surprised or dismayed. It was hot in the attic, and she soon fell asleep.
     
    She was woken at about 2 p.m. by movement. Most of the girls were going out. She stood up, but was told to stay where she was. She remained in the hot attic all afternoon accompanied by the heavy snores of the girl she had seen dancing on the table. She had had no food or drink, and spent the afternoon dreaming of Zakir.
     
    In the early evening, the girl woke up. She was called Dolores, and was about twenty; a cheerful buxom wench who had been a prostitute since childhood. She knew no other life, and could not imagine any other way of earning a living. She sat up sleepily, and saw Mary, “You new?” she enquired.
     
    Mary nodded.
     
    “Poor little thing,” she said. “Never mind, you’ll get used to the game. It’s all right when you get used to it. What you need is a gimmick, like me. I’m a stripper. But not one of your regular strippers. I’m an artiste .” She said the word artiste with great pride.
     
    “Come on, we’d better go down to the café before Gloria comes up. You need a clean blouse, here, have one of mine. And you need a bit of make up. I’ll do it for you.”
     
    She chatted all the time as she dressed, doing her hair and Mary’s, and making them both up. Mary liked her. Her buoyant cheerfulness was infectious.
     
    “There now, you look lovely.”
     
    In fact, Mary looked grotesque, but she couldn’t see it. The sight of her painted face in the mirror thrilled her.
     
    “Will Zakir be there tonight?” she said.
     
    “Yes, you’ll be seeing him, don’t worry.”
     
    Mary was overjoyed, and followed Dolores into the café for the evening’s entertainment.
     
    They went to the large table, where a number of girls already sat. Zakir was at the corner table, and Mary’s heart leapt. She took a step towards him, but he waved her away without speaking, and she sat down sadly with the other girls. They were not talking much, and they all stared at her. One or two gave a thin smile, others openly scowled. One rough, dirty-looking girl said, “Look at her. Zakir’s latest. Who does she think she is. We’ll soon cut her down. You’ll see, Mary, Mary, quite contrary.”
     
    Mary told me that she hadn’t really liked it, and wanted to leave.
     
    “Well, why didn’t you?” I asked.
     
    “Because Zakir was sitting in the corner, and nothing in the world could have dragged me away from him.”
     
    I supposed that was how he got and kept most of his girls.
     
    I said, “If you had known what kind of life he was dragging you into, would you have left?”
     
    She thought, and said: “I don’t think so, at first. It was not until I saw him bring in several other young girls, and sit at the corner table with them, that I began to understand what he meant when he said he was ‘the meat buyer’. I wanted to run over to the girl and warn her, but I couldn’t, and anyway, it would have done no good.”
     
    That night Mary had her first clients. She was auctioned as a virgin, and the highest bidder got her first, with eight others following after. The next day Zakir put his arm around her, and told her that he was very pleased with her. He flashed his smile at her and her heart melted.
     
    She lived off this smile, and the others he condescended to give her, for months.
     
    For the first week, the clients were arranged for her from the men who came to the café, and they paid Uncle. She hated it, and found the men revolting, but as Dolores and many of the others said, “You get used to it.”
     
    When she was pushed out on to the street, and told to find her own clients, the real horror began.
     
    “I had to bring back one pound each day,” she said. “If I didn’t, Uncle would hit me in the face, or knock me down and kick me. At first I asked for two shillings [10p] but there were so many other girls on the game, asking sixpence or one shilling, that I had to cut my price too. Sometimes I would bring the men back to the café, but sometimes we just