THEODORE DALRYMPLE

It used to be that one listened for the first cuckoo of spring; nowadays, one listens for the first smashed car window of spring. Car-breaking is as seasonal as grouseshooting or fly-fishing, the acquisitive instinct of feral British youth being somewhat abated by inclement weather. But now the greenish shards of glass that beautify many a British kerbside sparkle prettily in the spring sunshine: it is obviously what God made the sun for, at least round here. I certainly cannot think of any other reason why He didn't leave us in our native darkness.

But spring is also traditionally the season of love. I realised this last week as soon as I walked on to the ward. A woman was lying in the first bed with her right arm resting on the top blanket. On her hand were tattooed, sans serif, those affecting words, True Love.

It wasn't difficult to divine why she was here. Her love was like a red, red nose that sweetly bleeds in June.

'Boyfriend?' I asked.

'Ex,' she said. 'You've left him?'

'Yes. I went to my other ex what lives upstairs and what I had me babby off.'

In the next bed was a woman with a tattoo of two koala bears kissing one another. She had tried to hang herself, from which I concluded that she had what are delicately referred to round here as relationship problems. I was not much mistaken.

'My fiance called me a smackhead, so I went ballistic and started hitting.'

'Why did he call you a smackhead?'

'I was only smoking the draw to make me relax.'

'Is he violent himself?'

'He's very violent, yes, once he gets going.' 'Has he hit you?'

'Not in the meaning way, just to get me out of his way.'

'Does he ever strangle you?'

'Yes,' she said, amazed at my perceptiveness. 'How did you know?'

I've heard it all before, of course — and will again, many times. I moved on to a male patient. He looked at me with the narrowed eyes of porcine aggression. He looked to me as if he had hit as in hit, and so it turned out.

'I've punched a lot of people I shouldn't've punched,' he said. 'You mean, there are many you should have punched?'

'But I've got to get my anger out, doctor.'

'What are you angry about?'

'Stress.'

'What stress?'

'I'm in court next week for hitting my 'And you hit other people as well?'

'Yes, my mum's going into nutter's mode. It's killing her, it's killed my dad and my missis.'

What a relief to turn from him to an Indian patient. Indians — a people with a proud, living tradition — don't have true love; they have arranged marriages, which last longer. However, this particular Indian had tried to hang himself because of the marriage his parents wanted to arrange.

'Don't you get on well with your parents?' I asked.

'I spend more time with them now they've got Sky TV.'

Alas, this was the root of the problem. 'They watched Asian TV too much and it gave them ideas for a wedding.'

'And you don't want one?'

'Don't get me wrong, doctor,' he said. 'Destiny's going to play its role somewhere.' 'If it doesn't,' I said, 'it's not destiny.'