Second opinion

IF I were a government minister charged with the duty of reducing fraud on the social-security system, the first thing I would do would be to trace all those peo- ple in receipt of social security benefits who have a mobile phone. Cherchez le telephone portable would be my watch- word. Not only would fraud decrease, but robbery and theft as well, if no one on the Social was allowed to make use of this invention of the devil.

Last week, I saw a shaven-headed, tat- tooed young man of Pakistani origin in the first bed in the ward. He was the type who keeps a white concubine while agreeing to an arranged marriage. He had his mobile phone on his counterpane as children have their teddy bears. He had tried to hang himself earlier in the day, but looked cheerful now.

`Why did you do it?' I asked.

`The pressure got to me.'

`What pressure?'

`Just too much of it, that's all. It's off now.'

He didn't work, at least, 'not on the legal, like'. What, then, was his work?

He dabbled, he said. The gold of his front tooth gleamed (round here, a sure sign of evil).

When I asked him about his concu- bine, he said, 'I got a kid out of her,' and it appeared to me that he used the Ian- guage of an extortionist. No wonder the pressure upon him was great.

The next man suffered from pressure, too. 'My head's going to explode, doc- tor,' he said, 'with all that's going on in it.'

`What is going on in it?' I asked.

`Thoughts, doctor, thoughts. I can't get them out of my head. I'm telling you doctor, my head's in bits. My head's a shed, man.'

Could I not minister to a mind diseas'd and pluck from his memory if not a root- ed sorrow exactly, at least a temporary embarrassment? Alas not, though a sweet oblivious antidote was obviously what he wanted.

`Can't you give me nothing, doctor?' he pleaded. 'My head's just too much for me.'

I passed by the man who had just taken his 178th overdose — it makes you proud to be a taxpayer — and talked awhile to a woman who so far has taken only three. Every case is different, of course, and the unique feature of hers is that she always washes down the pills with champagne. (She is also on social security; I'd heard of champagne social- ists, of course, but not till now of cham- pagne social-security claimants. Our ward is like Africa: out of it comes always something new.) Then there was the man taking refuge in a hospital bed from his neighbour who threatened to set his three rottweilers (fed, naturally enough, on social security) on him, for reasons which I thought it indelicate to inquire after.

Finally, the demure little Indian girl in a shalwar-kameez, who looked as though ghee wouldn't melt in her mouth. They always surprise you, these girls: at the front of the hospital the other day I over- heard two of them, who were clad in black tents with only a slit over the eyes (covered by a veil) to establish contact with the outside world. One said to the other, `Gi's a fag, love.' If she'd lit up, she'd probably have been charged with attempted arson.

Anyway, my demure little girl was tru- anting from school, drinking like a fish and smoking dope like a fiend. And this was despite being escorted everywhere by her father, and collected afterwards.

I tell you, man, this job — it's doing my head in.

Theodore Dalrymple