My Madeleine Moment

We all have memories we experience now and then, but the taste of mint and dark chocolate (After Eight, bite size) exploding in my mouth caught me unaware. In a nanosecond I had the perfect Proust’s madeleine moment. I was back to 1970, London, a flat on a cul de sac a friend of my young husband’s lent us -lukewarm dirty bathwater still in the tub- while he scooted off to Mexico for the World Cup. He also left behind a trove of After Eights which I proceeded to go through with utter relish and no misgivings.}

Yeoman’s Row is pretty much a deserted cul de sac and the only people I saw everyday were a bunch of architects working in a basement who as I walked by acknowledged my presence with smiles and the occasional wolf whistle - very much the male-female standard protocol those days. The fact that their windows were at eye level with my very fashionable miniskirt made perfect sense; they were my first encounter with English manhood.

One morning my then-husband said he would meet me later for lunch and bid me goodbye. Just as I decided to take out the rubbish and watched my husband’s back turn on Brompton Road and disappear, a gust of wind slammed the front door shut.

I was left outside, scantily-clad in a short transparent baby doll. No keys, no shoes, no husband, no way of going anyplace in present state of undress. I hid behind a bush: London, May, not too warm. Waited, freezing. A traffic warden eventually appeared (“Lovely Rita, Meter Maid”*) Me, psst, psst. She casted a disapproving glance in my direction probably thinking they should have never let foreigners in and approached with caution. I explained my predicament and asked her to please go to the studio next door and get help. The architects arrived shortly, in a festive mood -thankfully they also brought a ladder. After a couple of tries -all the while checking the top part of my transparent lingerie- they got me back inside the house.

I bought them a round of pints at the Bunch of Grapes which sealed our friendship.

Thus began my life-long infatuation with London.´Twas a great time to be twenty then inCarnaby Street, whiffs of cannabis, patchouli and unwashed bodies coming out of every shop, tie dye T-shirts and wide leg jeans hanging from hooks on The King’s Road where all the lookalike brands now stand. London was grotty and gritty but it was the center of the maddest fashion and the best music.

It had Mary Quant and Twiggy and 007 (“Oooh ….James”) and of course The Beatles. It had no money –at least not new- no Arabs, no Russians, no financial wizards whizzing about in Lamborghinis just a few lucky blokes at the wheel of a Mini Cooper with a long-legged, booted-up bird seating on the passenger side.

I’ve come often under very different circumstances and my infatuation has not wavered. Used to stay at the Cadogan Hotel when you had to put 20p to get the radiator going; it’s long been renovated, very posh now costing an arm and a leg. When visiting my son at school I would save by renting a flat on Ovington Square with a hide-a-bed in the wall and a noisy Spanish waiter upstairs who would come back from work at 1 am and drop his shoes on my head.

Made more friends and once on a lark I took a day round-trip to Madrid just for lunch with a Colombian guy; back home I went on with my life, back home he went on to become President.

As I grew older, and suitors grew more resourceful, my lodgings took a turn for the better and I ended staying at Claridge’s.

I’ve attended weddings and funerals and once after such an event at Westminster my future husband took me to lunch at The Wolseley and proposed.

I immediately accepted; I know how hard it is to get a table.

A kaleidoscope of memories has turned London into a familiar place which stores many of my madeleine moments.

I love the tree-lined streets which make many parts of London feel like a small village. I cherish the English wit, their tolerance, their humour always self-deprecating and so in tune with mine that I tend to forget I am not writing from here -nor for here- and that in my country we are bound by totally different codes something which often gets me into trouble; sometimes serious trouble. One cannot but welcome a country where -rumour has it- the Duke addresses the Queen as cabbage or sausage and calling someone old cow or bloody cow can be affectionate, or not, yet nobody would dream of making a fuss. I did call and in print, forgetting where I was, bloody fool.

The woke army had a field day and descended upon me with irrepressible ire clamoring to a man: Off with her head! **

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*”Lovely Rita, Meter Maid” The Beatles, 1967

** “Alice in Wonderland” Lewis Carroll, 1865