If symptoms

persist. . .

TO HAVE one jealous boyfriend may be regarded as a misfortune; to have two looks like foolishness.

I am not talking now of two such boyfriends in swift succession, a pattern I encounter so frequently that I should not bother to remark upon it in public; no, I am talking now about two such boyfriends at the same time. No juggler has ever had a task to equal my patient's difficulties in keeping them in ignorance of one another's existence.

Both of the patients were aware, of course, that my patient was no vestal vir- gin. She had three children, by different fathers, to prove it. When she reached the age of 21, however, she had decided to end her reproductive career: 'They cut my tubes, doctor.'

The boyfriends were prepared, psycho- logically speaking, for a history of serial polyandry; neither did they mind serial miscegenation; but concurrent polyandry was beyond their power to accept with equanimity. Both had been violent to women in the past, and both were so jealous and possessive that they searched her bag for supposed evidence of her infidelity, grew agitated at the ring of her telephone, and in general regarded all other men principally as possible rivals for her affection. They were both men of the murderous if-I-can't-have-her-no- one-else-will school. The two of them, alas, had recently met in her flat and, predictably, some- thing of a scene had ensued. The patient had rushed out on to the street where she took a handful of pills which she car- ried with her rather like Goering carried his cyanide capsule, though with rather less fatal result. Unlike Goering, she called an ambulance.

`They're going to kill each other or me, doctor. But I don't want either of them hurt.'

It sounded the perfect solution to me, but I could hardly say so.

`You've made me a bit of a mess of things,' I said instead.

`I've had a hard life, doctor, I've always had a hard life.'

I was reminded of the burglar who told me that he had to go on burgling because burgling was what he knew best.

`All the more reason to behave with care,' I said.

`I can't, doctor.'

`Why not?'

`Every time I try to do something sen- sible, something happens to stop me.' Tor example?' `Well, I went to college and I had to give it up.'

'Why?'

`Pressure. Stress.'

`Pressure, stress — where from?'

'My boyfriend at the time. He was a junkie.'

`But you chose him. Surely it's pre- dictable that a relationship with a junkie isn't going to be plain sailing.'

`But things just happen to me, doctor.' `Like what?'

`I was sexually abused.'

I groaned inwardly. I know that sexual abuse occurs; I know that it is disgusting; but somehow it is always produced tri- umphantly, like a trump card to secure the deciding trick of a rubber. I was sup- posed to say something like: Of course you can't be expected to behave with a modicum of foresight or common sense if you've been sexually abused.

`Let us return to your present situa- tion. You have two jealous men, both of whom are going to pester the life out of you. Perhaps they will be violent towards you.'

`Yes, that's right.'

`Well, you have to devise a means of ditching them both.'

`I couldn't do that, doctor. They might kill each other, and I'd feel responsible.'

Theodore Dalrymple