Second opinion

I ONCE lived next door to a man whose wife was a terrific drinker. Dominating their sitting-room was the largest bottle of Scotch (or of anything else) I have ever seen. Approximately the size of a man, the level in it was perceptibly lower each day. One day, thieves broke into the house while the memsahib was enjoying her drunken siesta and stole her very valu- able sapphire ring. When her husband returned home and discovered the rob- bery, his first words were, 'I wish they'd taken my wife and left the ring.' There is little doubt, I'm afraid, that alcohol taken in excess can sour the sweetest of relationships. Explaining what impelled him to twist his girl- friend's arm behind her back and bash her head against the kitchen shelf, one patient — who felt such deep remorse for his actions that he pretended to have taken an overdose — said, 'It went mad, doctor, it went completely over the top.'

`What did?' I asked.

`The drinking.' `Are you quite sure you don't mean "I drank far too much"?'

`Fair point, doctor. It was right out of order.'

Not that it requires alcohol for people to get on badly and hate one another far from it. All it requires, in many cases, is proximity. A patient of mine described how his liaison had broken up. Both he and she had taken lovers while they lived together. `Then it blew up in my face, doctor.' `What did?'

`The relationship.'

`Any children?'

`A daughter.'

`Do you see her still?'

`No.'

`Why not?' `She says I'm just the biological dad, not the real dad, so there's no need for me to see her.'

`You're only a baby-father, then.' `Yes, that's right.' In my long-distant childhood, we played at mothers and fathers. Now ado- lescents play at baby-mothers and baby- fathers.

`Since we've split up, my daughter's had four daddies. She's only known the latest one for a week and she's already calling him Dad. I don't want that, doctor.'

`It's a bit late now,' I said.

`I know, but it's no good for her, living with a slag like her.' :So you don't have any more contact with either your daughter or her moth- er?' `No, doctor, because it's a war zone.' `What is?'

`The relationship. There's a war between us, and that's no good for the babby, so I don't see neither of them.'

My next patient had tried to kill him- self with pills.

`Why?' I asked.

`I'm tired of fighting.'

`Fighting whom?'

`Everybody. The world, society.'

Far be it from me to decry deep con- cern for the deplorable state of the world; however, long experience has taught me that few people are willing to die for it.

`You couldn't be a little more specific, could you?' I asked.

He could and he was. His baby-moth- er never wanted to see him again after he stabbed her five fingers with a screw- driver. Worse still, the Child Support Agency was after him for the mainte- nance of two children of his, aged six and eight, by a previous baby-mother.

`They are still your children,' I said mildly.

`Yeah, but that was a long time ago.'

A week is a long time in modern fami- ly life.

Theodore Dalrymple

Mass Listeria by Theodore Dalrymple can be ordered for £8.99 post-free in the UK through The Spectator Bookshop. Please ring 0541 557288 and quote ref. SP020.