Farewell To The East End

the abortion achieved with so much pain and suffering, not to mention expense, had been a failure. She was still pregnant.
    In a furious rage she took the bus to the Commercial Road and knocked on Mrs Prichard’s door. The house was the same, the plush interior the same, Mrs Prichard – overdressed and over-painted – was the same, but gone the welcoming smile, the sympathetic voice, the womanly understanding.
    ‘Well?’ she demanded.
    ‘You fraud. I’m still pregnant.’
    ‘If you are going to descend to calling names of me, I’ve nothing to say to you.’
    ‘Did you ’ear? I’m still pregnant.’
    ‘You never was pregnant when I saw you. You had stomach cramps, if you cast your mind back, and I treated you for stomach cramps, with my dear deceased mother’s secret remedies.’
    ‘You liar. You did an abortion on me.’
    ‘I did no such thing. And don’t you call me a liar, you dirty little rat-bag.’
    ‘You did, you stinking liar.’
    ‘If you use that word again, you can leave my house. I’m a herbalist. I practise ancient remedies, passed on to me by wise women.’
    ‘Then what did you do at my place, when you nearly killed me?’
    ‘I came to your stinking hovel out of the kindness of my heart, because you kept a-pesterin’ me with your stomach cramps. In the goodness of my nature, I do occasionally visit clients.’
    ‘You nearly killed me.’
    ‘Rubbish.’
    ‘You did. The pain nearly killed me.’
    ‘Well you look all right now.’
    ‘No thanks to you, you bloody butcher.’
    ‘Ooh, I can’t stand this foul language any longer. I must ask you to be a-leave-taking of.’
    ‘Not till I get my twenty guineas back.’
    ‘Twenty guineas! What twenty guineas? I never heard such fairy-tales in all my life. I charged you two guineas for the secret herbal potion as was passed on to me by my dear deceased mother for the efficacious treatment of stomach cramps, remedies as what is known only to the select few.’
    ‘Damn your dear deceased mother!’
    ‘Oh, my poor mother. She would turn in her grave.’
    Mrs Prichard took a lace handkerchief, and applied it to her mascara-ed eyes. Hilda was beside herself with rage.
    ‘Are you goin’ to give me back my twenty guineas what you took off me for a bungled abortion?’
    ‘Excuse I, but I did not take twenty guineas off of you.’
    Mrs Prichard walked swiftly to the door, her high-heeled shoes clicking as she walked.
    ‘Miriam, dear. Come here, will you?’
    Miriam entered, strong and silent, and stared hard at Hilda.
    ‘This, er – lady, shall we say – this lady, Miriam, says that I took twenty guineas off of her. I did not. Did you receive any money, Miriam?
    ‘No.’
    ‘There you are, you see. Neither of us took any money off of you. You are fabricating, I’m afraid. I’ve met the likes of you before.’
    ‘Then what did you do at my place, what nearly killed me?’
    ‘Don’t exaggerate. We gave you an enema for stomach cramps and left you well and comfortable.’
    ‘An enema?’
    ‘An herbal enema. That was all.’
    ‘But it nearly killed me. I bled like a pig.’
    ‘Piles, my dear. Piles. If you got piles what bleed in your – er – lower passage, you can hardly hold me responsible. Now, if you will excuse me, I have important work to do. I am expecting her ladyship, Lady Lucrecia, who won’t hear of going to no one else for her migraines and dizzy spells.
    ‘Damn you, d’you hear me, you painted ol’ sow.’
    ‘Oh, I have never been so insulted in all my life.’
    Mrs Prichard patted her hair, her crimson fingernails fluttering. A gold bangle flashed on her wrist. It was an action calculated to make Hilda feel shabby.
    Poor Hilda, clinically depressed, anaemic, weary, worn down by work and worry, still suffering from the pain inflicted by this woman, was sudderly made aware of her seven-year-old utility coat, her down-at-heel shoes, her straggly hair, her swollen hands and broken fingernails. The unspoken taunt drove her beyond the limits of self-control. She lunged out, trying to grab the blonde curls and pull them out by the roots, but Miriam stepped forward quickly and held her. Pinioned she screamed with frustration.
    ‘You painted bitch, you, with yer false bloody eyelashes, and yer blonde wig and yer la-di-da accent. Yer nuffink but a sly, filthy, thieving ol’ cow.’
    ‘Oh, this is too much. If my dear deceased husband could hear you, he would defend me.’
    ‘An’ damn your dear deceased