If symptoms

persist.. .

THERE IS no doubt that Mr Lilley, the Minister for Social Justice, is putting fear into the hearts of the malingering class- es. I discovered this while a prominent member of these classes, a patient of mine, aged 56, was explaining to me why it was that he made love to Iris at every opportunity which presented itself, even though she lived in a home, made love to lots of other men, was 60 years old and wouldn't be allowed out again if the nurses discovered what she was doing during her so-called walks.

`I'm not a pervert, I just can't help myself, doctor,' he said. 'Besides, I like it. That's why I knock her off, as they call it. It's natural: you can't stop a bird eat- ing worms.'

But the real reason for his behaviour ran deeper (of course, it always does). The fact was that his wife had never sat- isfied him sexually, not in 36 years of marriage.

`She sits at night with babies' nappies on, you have to take them off before you can do anything. It's not very inviting.'

I was beginning to feel slightly uncom- fortable: there are, after all, some confi- dences of which one had rather not be the repository.

`I want someone to love me like they do on the telly or the films, not like my wife loves me. She just lies on the bed and tells me in the middle of it that there are some cobwebs on the ceiling, or sometimes she mentions Mr Lilley's new system of invalidity benefit — incapacity benefit, I think he calls it — and it puts me off, like, I get all-nervous and I can't go on.'

I must confess that, experienced as I am at listening impassively to the utmost absurdity, I laughed. Until then, I had never thought of government ministers as bromides, rather as soporifics.

`My wife doesn't understand me, doc- tor,' he continued. 'She doesn't under- stand my need for sex. That's why I'm always after Iris, I'm just like any other man. And I'd tell her to her face if she was here, in front of you, like.' I said nothing. With only the faintest of discernible movements, I moved my shirt cuff back so that I could glance at my watch. I suspected that my patient's time was up.

`Only if I don't have the sex what I need, doctor, I begin to get a bit up-pent, and then I spring like a big rat. You're not like me, are you, doctor?'

`Er, no,' I said, reluctant as ever to answer a patient's question.

'I don't suppose you've ever done the opposite of what you really wanted to do, like me. You can control yourself, because you're a doctor. You're not like me, you think before you act.'

`Generally, yes,' I said.

Then he thought of a solution to his problems. He wanted me to admit him to hospital for four years, until he could draw his old-age pension.

`After all,' he said, 'there's patients in that hospital who aren't no worse than what I am. They're like children, only they've got adults' minds.'

Theodore Dalrymple