Farewell To The East End

hour ago.’
    ‘You mean it’s just been born?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘At ’ome.’
    ‘Who was with her?’
    ‘I was.’ He drew deeply on his fag and spat on the pavement. He seemed ill at ease and would not look at her. Ena was growing increasingly alarmed. A baby born before arrival (a BBA we used to call it) happened occasionally, but usually the midwife had been called in advance and literally could not get there in time.
    ‘Did you call anyone?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘Why not?’
    He drew on his fag again and chewed his bloodied fingernails. Ena was putting two and two together.
    ‘Did you deliver the baby?’ she enquired, incredulous.
    ‘S’posin’ I did?’ he said defensively.
    ‘Nothing. It’s just unusual, that’s all.’
    He blew smoke into the air, still not looking at her.
    ‘It just come. Quick like.’
    ‘Well, I had better come if a baby has just been born. Your wife and baby will need attention. Do you think she was booked with us? If so, I’ll get the antenatal notes.’
    ‘Like I says, I dunno.’
    Ena decided that looking for notes that might not exist would only be a waste of time. She went quickly to fetch her delivery bag. Many thoughts were racing through her mind: a baby just born would need attention, almost certainly the cord would not have been cut; the third stage of labour would have to be dealt with; perhaps the woman was bleeding. She returned. The man was still standing at the door. He had lit another fag.
    ‘Where do you live?’
    ‘Round ve corner.’ He pointed to a near-derelict road where 90 per cent of the houses had been destroyed by the bombing, or had been boarded up as structurally unsafe.
    ‘I thought no one lived in that road,’ she said.
    ‘We do, worse luck.’
    ‘We’d better get to your wife and baby, then. Come on.’
    Ena walked quickly down the road. He followed a step or two behind, dragging his feet.
    ‘Which house?’
    ‘Over the road. The one with the windows.’
    She crossed the road and approached the front door. It was locked.
    ‘Have you got a key?’
    ‘Reckon so. Somewhere.’ He fumbled in his pockets, seeming unable to find it.
    ‘Oh, do hurry. You must have the key. You only left the house a few minutes ago.’
    He grunted and continued fumbling. Eventually he produced it and opened the door.
    Ena entered a foul-smelling hallway, and for the first time since the man had approached her, it occurred to her that this might be a trap. She felt a sharp stab of fear. Everything about the man was so strange. He had seemed ill at ease, or even shifty, since the beginning of the interview. She stifled a moment of panic when it occurred to her that perhaps the blood around his fingernails was not from the birth of a baby, but from something much more sinister. A derelict house in a bomb-destroyed street was not the sort of place in which a baby would be born. Yet the man had specifically asked for a midwife. If he had had any ulterior motive, he would have been more likely to ask for a nurse. His next words were reassuring. ‘My wife’s upstairs. You’ll have to come up. Mind that broken step. Don’t hurt yourself.’ She controlled her fears and followed the man. He opened a door.
    A woman was lying on the bed, staring vacantly at the ceiling. She did not speak, and neither did the man. ‘Where is the baby?’ asked the midwife. No one answered. ‘Where is it?’ she asked a second time. Panic was beginning to take hold of her once more. There was something menacing in the silence of the man and the woman. She looked from one to the other, but they both avoided meeting her eye. ‘Where is the baby?’ she demanded a third time, more emphatically. ‘There,’ said the woman, pointing to the floor.
    Ena looked down and saw a chamber pot, overflowing with a gory, bloody mess, and two little white legs hanging over the side. She ran over to the pot. The mess she had seen was the placenta; the baby was head down in the chamber pot, covered by the placenta. Ena grabbed its legs and pulled the baby out. It was a little boy, quite limp and lifeless, suffocated by his own placenta.
    Shock, horror and panic made her unable to speak. She was only young, scarcely more than twenty, and had seen nothing like this before. She wrapped the little body in a towel and tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation; she tried milking the cord towards the body in a vain attempt to introduce new blood; she tried heart massage. All to no avail. The baby