On Tuesday night I was body double/understudy for the brave, brainy, beautiful Rachel Riley, at a packed ‘support Israel’ evening. The keynote speaker was the brave, brainy, beautiful lawyer Natasha Hausdorff. I was slightly out of my depth but I hope I provided some light relief. Natasha was dazzling in defence of beleaguered democracy, but the facts are sombre and the audience went home a little more concerned about our future in the diaspora. Anti-Semitism is known to be a light sleeper. I fear it may become insomniac.
I’ve been arguing vehemently with my brother Geoff about everything and nothing for 75 years. Inevitably, these days, our arguments are about Israel. I went with my chap David to stay with Geoff for three days in Belgium and I think David was somewhat shocked by the sight of the two of us fighting. First night:
Geoff (reasonable, provocative): It’s simple. They should just assassinate Hamas leaders.
Me: Oh, easy! Picking off terrorist thugs in luxury hotels in Qatar and underground tunnels the size of London Underground?
Geoff: If anyone can do it, it’s Mossad.
Me (livid): All solved then. You call Netanyahu and tell him you’ve designed a ‘long-range murder app that goes around corners’.
The next day we made up in the gilded Grand-Place over Belgian fries and beer. Then a visit to the Waterloo battlefield, which only confirms the absurdity of war. I’d never realised that the killing fields of this ‘operation’ were three Flemish farms. Thousands of volunteers provided their own uniforms, boots and weapons, 27 per cent of whom were Jewish boys trying to prove their allegiance to their country. Only an afternoon in the Magritte Museum could restore my sense of proportion.
In two swift hours we were back in London, buying ingredients for a chicken soup ‘bake off’. To explain: David makes his soup from a bag of giblets and veg. I make mine from a whole boiling fowl cut into eight portions. His costs six quid; mine £24. New friends we’d made over New Year – of the rock-star variety – had invited us over for a blind tasting. My daughter had a sneaky taste of both soups and tipped me a wink. She’s been tasting my soup for almost 50 years. She chose his. I sulked.
For the drive to our new friends, David wanted to take us in his kept-for-best Citroën DS. I’ve never driven in a vehicle which provokes gawps of envy, and I shamelessly sent pictures of it to my friends. Hubris followed as she broke down in W5. I have only four-letter words for the AA help chatbot. After being repeatedly cut off, David resigned his 50-year membership to a recorded voice.
We made it to the fabulous Basque cheesecake shop in Connaught Street, but we were ‘papped’ by MailOnline and accused of a ‘PDA’ in the street. A PDA is not, it seems, a sexually transmitted disease, but a ‘public display of affection’. Guilty as charged, m’lud, and I’d do it again if it meant getting that last crumb of cheesecake off his chin.
In the end we drove to Hampshire in my Honda Jazz and no one gave us a glance. The sight of wild horses trotting freely on the forest road made this city girl giddy with joy. The rock star’s house has a tiny beach looking out to the Isle of Wight, and it is dizzyingly beautiful. When two bowls of soup were solemnly placed before ten guests, there’s an obvious tell. David’s was pure consommé. Mine had pieces of chicken floating in it. Kindly, the guests praised both, but my daughter was right. His was best. I sulked again.
Back home, I felt unaccountably scrappy. Perhaps from the rumours that Russia and Iran combined to train Hamas terrorists for the 7 October massacre to divert attention from Ukraine. If true, it worked better than Putin could have dreamed. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is found guilty, but will probably be the next president of the US. That’s reason enough to feel tearful. And vaguely ill. Then I realised it’s 20 years to the day since my husband Jack died of myeloma. Every year I forget; every year my body remembers.
I read with some despair that Michelle Terry, artistic director of the Globe theatre, is being abused online for playing Richard III on the grounds that she is able-bodied. I know, I know, it was me who queried Helen Mirren’s suitability to play Golda Meir… but I didn’t say she shouldn’t play the Queen, DCI Tennison or do the voiceover for sodding Barbie. I suppose AI will pick us all off in time. Or Mossad, if you ask my brother.
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