Private London

Chapter 11

I was startled out of my reverie by the buzzing of the seat-belt sign flashing overhead once more.

We were about half an hour away from Heathrow by my reckoning. I checked my belt again, something you learn in the military: take care of your equipment and with luck your equipment will take care of you. The clasp was working fine.

I glanced across at Hannah. She didn’t seem too bothered that turbulence ahead had been announced, and was listening quietly to some music on her iPod. Some thrash rap, no doubt – or whatever the cool kids were listening to nowadays. I guess you could call me old-fashioned but I like my music with a melody to it. Maybe I was getting old.

I aged five years in the next five seconds, though, when the 787 hit an air pocket. It might be called a Dreamliner but air pockets are my worst nightmare. The state-of-the-art plane dropped like a stone. I felt a small hand holding my own and looked across to see my young charge watching me, concerned.

‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Statistically you have a lot more chance being killed crossing the road than you do flying.’

Whoever comes up with these sayings should be taken away and shot, if you ask me.

‘I know that,’ she said. ‘But you looked like you were just about to have a heart attack.’

Hannah was trying to put a brave face on things, I could tell that. I forced the corners of my own mouth to form a smile. ‘Indigestion,’ I said. ‘I should have turned down that lobster sandwich. I never do well with crustacean-based food at altitude.’

‘I’m Jewish,’ she said.

I obviously looked puzzled.

‘Jews don’t eat shellfish,’ she explained.

‘I knew that, and very wise.’ I nodded. ‘Can play merry hell with the gastric juices.’ I winced as the plane was buffeted again.

‘If it lives in the sea it needs fins and scales to be kosher. But I don’t care – I love lobster.’

‘Not Orthodox, then?’

She looked at me again. ‘I’m not sure what I am any more. I didn’t make bat mitzvah, even.’

A sadness seemed to fill her eyes again. I looked down and saw that she was still holding my hand.

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the turbulence cleared. She smiled up at me, but the sadness in her eyes didn’t go away.

‘So, you’re going to take care of me in England?’ Hannah said, letting go of my hand.

I couldn’t be sure but I thought I detected an amused quirk in the set of her mouth as she asked the question.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m going to take care of you.’

Part Two