Second opinion

WORLDLY fame is all too fleeting. A name which is a household word to one generation may produce merely the wrinkled brow of puzzlement in the next. Literary celebrity is perhaps the most evanescent of all — who, apart from second-hand book dealers, has now heard of E. Phillips Oppenheim, to cite but a single example of departed glory? — yet scientific fame is also short-lived.

Who now remembers Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist who charted the stages of a child's mental development? At one time not so very long ago he was all the rage. I don't know whether he is forgotten because his ideas were proved wrong, or because they are now regarded as so obviously true that they needed no originator; but I recall nonetheless that one of his books was about the child's concept of death.

No child, I think he said, understood the permanence of death before the comparatively late age of ten; but a gen- eration raised on junk food and parental neglect has turned out to be surprisingly precocious, in this as in other things. I suppose this proves the resilience of Man, and we should be thankful for it.

A patient last week mentioned to me that she was finding her children difficult to tolerate. Dixon was particularly unpleasant.

`He says the most horrible things to me, doctor.'

`Such as what?' I asked.

I'm going to stab you in the heart with a machete and then I'm going to cut your head off.'

`How old is Dixon?'

`Six, nearly seven.'

My guess is that Dixon understood the permanence of death only too well.

`And where do you think he gets his ideas from?' I asked.

`His dad, of course.'

Dad was no longer living at home, of course — round here, he very seldom is — but that didn't mean that he had abandoned altogether the beating up of the mother of his children. Only a few weeks ago he had arrived at her flat while another of their mutual children Duane — was having his birthday party. And while it is commonplace nowadays for effete middle-class parents to hire a magician to entertain children at birth- day parties, round here a fight or even a shooting is the preferred way of keeping their little minds occupied. Who says people don't make their own entertain- ment any more?

Dad grabbed Mum by the hair, pulled her to the ground and started to kick her, all in front of the children, including Dixon. Dad's language was not pleasant, I gather, and involved several threats to kill.

The beating over, and Dad having departed, Mum told the birthday guests to go home (did they all say, 'Thank you for having me' as they left, I wonder?), and then she called the police.

`And what did the police do?' I asked `They didn't do nothing,' she replied. `Why not?'

`They said they couldn't do nothing because he didn't break in, I opened the door to him myself.'

`But he assaulted you and threatened to kill you in front of lots of witnesses.'

`Yes, but they said they couldn't do nothing about it because I let him in myself.'

It's amazing what lies the police will tell to avoid having to fill in the forms after they make an arrest.

Theodore Dalrymple