smallhobbit

Title: Unwelcome
Fandom: Call the Midwife
Rating: PG
Length: 448
Summary: The mother Nurse Anderson has come to see is no longer at that address
Warning: 1960s typical racism
 

Lucille Anderson knocked on the door of the small terraced house.  A woman in an apron answered it, cigarette in her mouth. 

“What do you want?” she demanded.

“I’m the midwife, here to see Mrs Wallace and her baby,” Lucille explained.

“Nobody here of that name.”

“She was here yesterday; I came to see her.  Her baby’s ten days old.”  Lucille spoke firmly.

“Yeah, well, she was here yesterday, but she ain’t here today.”

“Why not?  Where’s she gone?”

“Because we don’t want her sort – your sort – here.  And I don’t know, and I don’t care.”  The woman slammed the door shut.

For a couple of minutes Lucille stood on the pavement, trying to compose herself.  She wanted to cry at the casual cruelty of the woman, in turning a new mother and her baby out on the street, and she wanted to shout at her for her rudeness and appalling treatment.  But then her professional nature took over.  Her first priority had to be to find the mother and she cycled back to Nonnatus House as fast as she could.

As she came through the front door, she was greeted by Trixie who said, “Lucille, whatever’s the matter?”

“It’s Mrs Wallace.  She’s been turned out of her accommodation because she’s West Indian.”  Lucille wiped away the tears she could no longer prevent.  “I don’t know where she’s gone, but we need to find her.”

Sister Julienne came out of her office, having heard what had happened.  “I shall telephone the police and ask them to keep an eye out for her, and then I’ll contact Dr Turner in case they hear any word at the surgery.  Nurse Franklin, could you take Nurse Anderson to the kitchen and make her a cup of tea.”

Lucille was drinking her tea when Sister Julienne came into the kitchen.  “Mrs Wallace has been found.  The police were called to Grant’s Packaging this morning because they had a vagrant on their premises.  The constable said she’d have to be charged and took her to the police station.”

“What?”  Trixie looked horrified.

“It’s all right.  Sergeant Woolf called Dr Turner and he’s admitted her to the maternity unit.”

“Thank goodness,” Lucille said.  “What will happen to her now?”

“Mrs Turner is in the process of sorting out some temporary accommodation for Mrs Wallace and the baby.  She will need to stay on the unit for twenty-four hours for observation after which hopefully she will have somewhere more welcoming to go to.  I am sorry, Nurse Anderson, that we continue to treat people according to the colour of their skin, rather than believing that each one of us is as important as the other.”