On the Saturday my father and Rabika took me shopping. Rabika chose me a tie and my father, who wasn’t certain what my interests were, offered to buy me a pair of boxing gloves in one shop and a waterproof watch for deep-sea divers in another. He couldn’t believe it when I turned down a judo outfit. Finally, since I didn’t want trouble, I accepted motoring gloves and all the ice creams that were going. If it had been the right time of the year they’d have paid for me to go into Selfridge’s grotto and sit on Father Christmas’s knee. I’m certain I could have got a whole electric train set out of them if I’d asked. My mother and Menashe were no less lavish. When I went round there on the Sunday morning (in order to remain impartial and to give Camilla something to think about I hadn’t stayed at either establishment), I found a breakfast table laden with my favourite Finchley foods – slightly burnt bagels, gafelbeiters, sweet and sour cucumbers, smetana and kes, blintzes – all the little delicacies, as my mother pointed out, that I couldn’t get in Castle Boterel or Tooting. In the afternoon they took me to Regent’s Park Zoo, watched me watching the monkeys, and bought me even more ice creams than I’d been bought the day before. All in all, it really would have been difficult for me, supposing I’d been forced to make a choice, to decide which pair of parents I loved the most.