The death of royalty

The cohorts of Hamas have invaded my neighbourhood. I was walking my dog, Maxi, in the afterglow of a shower that had lit the pavements with a pearlescence you normally see only in the piazzas of Syracuse, when I paused to look at the posters of kidnapped Israelis that someone had hung opposite Gail’s. I was thinking that I should have brought flowers, when they were upon us. Two women, their faces slack with the stupidity of hate, started tearing at the sad tributes with their carmine fingernails, screaming obscenities about Israel and the Jews. I didn’t know what the etiquette was on occasions like these, so I picked up Maxi, whose ears were back, and shouted obscenities at the women as they disappeared into the night like monstrous beetles. Then I wept for London in great, stupid sobs.

People used to say that St John’s Wood, where I live, was the only place in this town where Arabs and Jews coalesced.