If symptoms persist. . .

I WAS CALLED to the casualty depart- ment last week. A 15-year-old boy had taken an overdose and was being obstreperous — from habit, I hasten to add, not from the toxic effects of the drug he had taken. Clearly, something in his life was unsatisfactory, and I resolved to find out what it was. I adopted my very best compassionate tone of voice.

Tuck off,' said the little bastard (and he was a bastard too, as are most of the children round here).

Choking down my anger, I thought what to do next. The obvious thing was to telephone his mother. I could hear a medley of reggae music and screaming baby in the background when the receiv- er was lifted.

`Hello. My name is Dr Dalrymple and I'm calling from the general hospital. Could I speak to Mrs R—, please.'

`Yes.'

There was a prolonged pause.

'Is Mrs R— there?' I asked.

'I'm Mrs R—,' replied the same voice. `Could you tell me a little about Dar- ren?' I asked.

She certainly could. All children called Darren, Wayne, Jason, Tracy, Kirsty or Kylie are destined for misery and several unsuccessful attempts at suicide. `Where shall I begin? He was expelled from school when he was seven.'

`What did he do?' I asked.

'He beat up the teacher.'

I know that children mature early these days, but even so, this seemed an astonishingly precocious feat.

`What happened then?' I asked.

`He was put in a special school,' she said.

`What kind of special school?'

`You know, where all the kids had something wrong with them, like asthma or brittle bones.'

That sounded like social services all right: brittle bones and uncontrollable violence in the same institution. Any- thing less would be unwarranted discrim- ination.

The special school failed to make much of an impact on Darren, either educationally or behaviourally. He con- tinued to beat people up from time to time; as his mother put it, 'He's always been awkward, like, but he's never com- mitted a crime.'

His father, separated from his mother when he was born, would have nothing to do with him: 'His father don't want to know. He had him for a week once and that was enough.'

His mother's present lover, Angel, had tried a few times to discipline him.

`But that child is not a small child, he's a good-sized boy,' his mother said. 'He really deserves a good backsiding, though. Once he was mouthing me off and I cut his arm with a broken bottle to relieve the tension out of my head. His stepdad slapped him one and Darren said, "I can have you up for assault."' It seemed to me that we couldn't sort things out over the telephone. The first thing to do was to change his name from Darren to Clive. I asked the mother to come to the hospital. Meanwhile, Darren had a well-earned sleep.

His mother arrived. It was clear she had been about 16 when Darren was born. 'I just can't handle him no more,' she said.

I shook Darren awake.

`Darren,' I said. 'Your mother's here.' `Fuck off,' he said.

Theodore Dalrymple