Second opinion

THERE is said to be a good evolutionary reason why there should be two sexes rather than one — or three. But what- ever that reason might be, it doesn't seem to apply around here, where most of the problems seem to be traceable to trouble between men and women. If it weren't for the existence of women, for example, there would be far fewer pris- oners than there are.

For example, last week I encountered a prisoner in the depths of despair. I asked him what was on his mind.

'I can't get to speak to my missus. She hasn't writ to me. I haven't heard a word off her.'

'What are you charged with?' I asked. 'Nothing to do with her, nothing at all.' 'Yes, but what was it?'

'Threatening to kill the kids, that's all. Nothing to do with her whatsoever. I didn't lay a finger on her.'

Another man had been charged with stalking his former girlfriend. He was sui- cidally self-pitying. He was only 21 years old and of good intelligence. I asked him about his previous girlfriends.

'My first serious one was when I was 16.' 'Why did you break up with her?'

'She was pregnant and got rid of my baby, so I got rid of her.'

'How old was she?' 'Fifteen.'

He was bitter that his current girlfriend — the one he loved and the only one, he said, he'd ever been faithful to — had gone to the police about him. It was true that he shouldn't have hit her, but she shouldn't have hit him first and, anyway, he wasn't like that till he met her.

'And what have you learnt from the whole experience?' I asked.

'Women,' he said. 'F— 'em and leave 'em.'

Meanwhile, back in the hospital, there was a man who had tried to kill himself with pills. He had just broken up with his girlfriend.

'Were you violent towards her?' I asked.

'No, never.'

'Would she say the same?'

'She'd tell you I had my hand round her throat a couple of times, that's all.'

It wouldn't be quite accurate, however, to say that without women all would be rosy for men. For example, in the bed next to the last patient's was a man who had been attacked with a hammer by his next-door neighbour, a drunk.

'Are you going to the police about it?' I asked him.

'No,' he replied.

'Why not?'

'Because he said that if I did he'd cut me up and put the pieces in a plastic bag.' And you believe him?'

'He's already done nine years in prison.'

It's awful how some people are stigma- tised in this unthinking fashion.

Of course, by no means all offences are crimes passionnels. One young man was brought before me in the prison because he had carved the word BoDGER into the flesh of his chest with a razor- blade.

'Who's Bodger?' I asked.

'My dog.'

'A bull terrier?'

'How did you know?'

There were no women in his life. He found dogs answered his emotional needs more satisfactorily than they. He was a straightforward old-fashioned burglar.

'And another thing about dogs, doc- tor,' he said. 'Unlike women, they guard your home.'

Theodore Dalrymple