‘And it isn’t only Jews who find all things German repulsive,’ A.P. added. ‘My Grandma Kyverdale lost her brother in the war. Grandfather wanted to buy her a Mercedes for her sixtieth birthday, but she refused to have a German car.’

Jeremy absently watched the little boy carrying a duty-free bag transfer it from one hand to the other, as they shuffled their way towards the officials in the booths.

‘What you just told me, A.P., sounds more like a matter of principle than of revulsion,’ he said.

‘Whichever. I thought it was only our people that sort of thing went on with.’

Jeremy said after a pause, ‘You feel Jewish though technically you’re not, don’t you?’

‘But believe it or not that doesn’t give me any problems.’

‘How could it not?’

‘That’s a question I used to ask myself, but I think I now know the answer.’

Jeremy had to wait to hear it until they had shown their passports and proceeded through the barrier.

‘Once again we’re talking about feelings,’ A.P. went on, ‘and my feeling Jewish has to have come from sharing in the traditions, and all that, of my dad’s family. My mum doesn’t have a big family. Christmas and Easter at the Kyverdales’ is a different experience from the noisy Chanukah parties and Seder nights I don’t have to describe to you.’

A.P. smiled reminiscently. ‘To call the Kyverdale get-togethers sparse and formal would be an understatement. When we sit down for Christmas dinner – well, Grandfather would have to slide the condiments several metres to my grandmother at the other end of the table, if there weren’t also a salt and pepper set beside her place! Get the picture, Jeremy?’

‘But it doesn’t quite clarify what you’re saying.’

‘What I’m saying is that my Catholicism, though I’m a true believer, doesn’t permeate the whole of my life. Judaism, on the other hand, though it isn’t my religion, seems to have done so. I’ve tried to explain to you how that’s happened, since it can’t, scientifically, be a case of one half of my blood – the ethnic half – being stronger than the other. Conditioning has to enter into it.’

‘It might have been a different story, though,’ said Jeremy, ‘if your mother had come from an ordinary Catholic family.’