Tom Bickerby is wondering if his son Alex will ever blend into the crowd. I can tell him now that he won't. Alex has Downs syndrome. Everyone is telling Tom that people with Downs are "the life and soul of the party," always laughing, always jolly, not a care in the world.
Tom is right to believe this cannot be true. Life with Downs Syndrome can be very miserable. My friend Carole had Downs. I met her when I was 17 and she was 22, though she behaved like an eight-year-old. Mostly she was happy as we cleared tables together, me to pay for driving lessons, her because her parents wanted to get her out into the world and a proper job.
Carole was an object of fun from the start in a cafe filled with teenagers. She laughed along with their jokes, most of them harmless but some sexual and cruel. She had Downs but she was not stupid, and when she finally understood she was hurt. In that she was the same as everyone else.
Where she differed was in being the most genuine human being I have ever known. She had absolutely no pretence. When she liked you, she liked you, when you hurt her it showed. The jokes stopped. People formed a real affection for Carole. Sadly her parents could not bear what had gone before and she left the job. We missed her. Of all the people I knew at that time, Carole is the one I remember best, not for being the life and soul but for her purity of spirit.
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