Farewell To The East End

you.’
    Trixie was too tired to be patient. She turned to Mave.
    ‘And how frequent are the contractions?’
    Meg answered regardless: ‘All ve time. Can’choo see? She’s sufferin’.’
    Trixie’s slender reserves of patience snapped.
    ‘Will you shut up and get out of here? Either you go or I will go. I’m not prepared to carry on like this.’
    Trixie was taking a risk and she knew it. If she deserted a woman in labour the consequences would be severe. But the gamble paid off. Meg left.
    Trixie could now devote her attention to Mave. She was puzzled because, although she had been observing Mave for at least twenty minutes, and although Mave looked and sounded as if she were in advanced labour, there appeared to be no contractions.
    ‘When did this start?’
    ‘About ten o’clock,’ Mave groaned.
    ‘And how frequent were the contractions? Did you time them?’
    Mave looked pained.
    ‘They was all ve time. Never stoppin’. Meg says Dr Smellie says …’
    ‘Never mind what Dr Smellie says. Contractions don’t just start and never stop. It’s not possible.’
    Mave assumed her martyr’s expression.
    ‘You don’t understand. I’m dyin’. You don’t care.’
    She hung onto her belly and rolled onto her side.
    ‘Stop all this fuss,’ barked Trixie. ‘You are no more dying than I am. I haven’t seen a contraction since I came into this house.’
    ‘That’s ’cause you don’t know nuffink. Meg, she says …’
    ‘I won’t hear any more about Meg. Now tell me, when did you last open your bowels?’
    ‘What?’ Mave jerked round to face Trixie.
    ‘You heard. When?’
    ‘I’m not sure. Couple of weeks ago, p’raps.’
    ‘You are constipated. And what did you have for supper?’
    ‘Gooseberry pie and custard.’
    ‘Green gooseberries?’
    ‘Yes. Two ’elpin’s.’
    ‘Well, that’s the trouble, then. You’ve got gut ache. You’re not in labour at all, you old fraud. Getting me out of bed for a stomach ache!’ Trixie was furious. ‘Do you realise I have been working for forty hours with no sleep, and you wake me up for nothing. I will give you some castor oil and an enema, and then I am going back to my bed and leaving you to get on with it.’

    That was the first of many false labours. During the next four weeks, twice a week, Meg called us out. Several times she sent Sid, their husband, with a message of impending disaster. Poor man! He stood cap in hand, his sheep eyes watering with embarrassment, muttering something quite unintelligible. Wearily we had to attend the call to assess the situation, but we knew that we were being led up the garden path. Meg was never grateful, nor even polite. She continued to tell us that we didn’t know our job, and we should read some of the books she had been readin’, an’ Mave should be confined in a darkened room, with a binding on her belly, an’ ’ad we got ve muvver’s caudle an’ ve birfin’ stool, an’ smellin’ salts an’ salt candle, an’ she ’ad jest got a book by Dr Jacob Rueff which was written in Latin in 1554, but she’d got an English translation, called The Expert Midwife , which says that ve baby’s cord must be cut with a special knife which was blessed by the Bishop an’ if it’s a baby boy ve cord must be cut long, because as ’e grew up it would make ’is penis long, see, an’ did we know all vis, wha’ she knewed? It was difficult to answer without giggling, and what with Doctors Smellie, Rueff and Coffin, the whole saga became an on-going joke around the big dining table each lunchtime, when we were all assembled together.
    However, quite inadvertently, Meg did us a service, and I, for one, learned a great deal about the horrifying conditions in which women had given birth in previous centuries.

    Sid stood at the convent door again. The market had just closed, and he was in his workman’s clothes. He was too conscious of his appearance to step into the hallway. Meekly he handed Trixie a note and muttered, ‘Meg, she says …’ He shook his head sorrowfully, raised his eyes appealingly and left.
    It was just after lunch, morning visits were done, the practice was reasonably quiet, and we had settled down in our sitting room for a nice, peaceful afternoon. Trixie burst in, note in hand.
    ‘I won’t go. It’s that infernal woman again.’
    Cynthia looked up from her book.
    ‘Try telling that to Sister Julienne.’
    ‘But it will be another false labour.’
    ‘Very probably. But you are