Old Friends and Dog Collars

It’s a strange and wonderful thing meeting up with a friend you haven’t seen for a while. Ten years, in this case.

There’s that mild anxiety. Will we have things to talk about? Will the conversation flow?

The more neurotic worries… Will we even recognise each other? (Umm, yes, obviously.)

And, of course, the age factor…

Guys, I’m told, look at the hair. In particular, how much of it remains. Then at the gut.

For me, it’s all about the lines. Not really about the weight.

And it wasn’t, a few years back. I remember meeting up with a friend in the early part of the century, when we hadn’t seen each other for the big end of a decade.

All I remember thinking is, “I wonder what K looks like now?” It didn’t particularly occur to me that she could have sprouted wrinkles, turned grey, or become obese.

Now, of course, it’s all about the ageing process, and such unfortunate transformations are, if not yet to be predicted, at least of exponentially increasing likelihood.

Oh, and kids too.

Kids, needless to say, are one of the plus points of getting older.

Miki last saw Zac at our friends’ wedding in the south of France shortly before 9/11, and found him the cutest baby ever. And now she has a daughter of her own, who’s rising five.

Both Zac and I are very much looking forward to meeting her when she’s back from the grandparents.


“So,” says Zac, with the air of one delivering a rapier thrust of wit, as we loiter under the lemon trees in the courtyard of the dance centre, and he endeavours to make his Magnum last a lifetime. “Last time you went to a modern dance performance, did the Soviet Union still exist?”

“Ummm….” I say.

I know, of course, that I have been to a modern dance performance. But I certainly haven’t been to one for a while.

“After,” I say. “Definitely after. The Soviet Union fell in 1991. I was seventeen then. Though did I ever tell you that when the Berlin Wall came down I was convinced there was going to be a nuclear war?”

“Yes,” he says, and I realise why I have no idea where my parents were when Kennedy was shot. It’s because at any time they might have told me this, I would have been beyond uninterested.

“Yeah,” I say. “But it’ll be great.”

I hope it will.

Hell, I used to go to Tel Aviv to party. (When it comes to hedonism, it’s one of the Middle East’s more savage ironies that Tel Aviv and Beirut – still technically at war – form a dead heat for most fun cities in the region.)

Now, they don’t just call Tel Aviv the new Miami for the Bauhaus. Or the beaches, that curve right along the city. And, while I know Tel Aviv has a lot more to offer than nightclubs – which were, obviously, much better in the old days (an opinion, I would guess, that has been voiced by older generations since the days when nightlife consisted of reels, gavottes and foxy lutenists) – I’m generally intrigued to see how it plays with a child in tow and narcotics and other excess firmly off the menu.

Exhibit one. The modern dance.

We enter, settle down, and as two guys engage in a prolonged feat of what I shouldn’t call rope play, I sneak a look at Zac. He seems 100% focused. And engaged. Result!


Miki’s waiting for us in the courtyard, and I recognise her instantly. She doesn’t seem to have changed.

Nor, for that matter, does she seem to have aged. Which is a little unfair.

Me?

“Yeah,” she says. “You look like a woman, not a girl. But you’re looking good.”

The last time I was in Tel Aviv with Miki, I could a) fit into and b) look good in head to toe Thierry Mugler PVC (UK size 8!).

Well, at least I think I looked good. And Miki, who was a stylist at the time, put me in it, so I must have done. Right?

Right????

Ummm…

Boy, that was a long time ago… Now I have to wear a top that drapes over my skinny jeans to camouflage the muffin top and emphasise what passes for my breasts.

AKA, looking like a woman, rather than a girl.

AKA, 2 clothes sizes larger, and probably 3 clothes sizes larger around the tummy.


We talk about the dance as we wait for the dancers to come out, and Zac compliments Miki on the costumes she did for the show, before scampering, randomly, around the courtyard.

“Yeah,” says Miki. “I’ve taken Rio to it, too. It’s OK for kids.”

“Even the S&M?” I say.

“Yeah,” she laughs. “It’s like S&M for five year olds.”

“What’s S&M?” asks Zac, desisting for a second from bowling with the citrus he’s kidnapped from the trees.

“Sado-masochism,” I say.

“Ohhhhhh….” he says, eyes widening with illumination. “The DOG COLLARS!”

Miki laughs. I wonder what Zac’s been looking at on the internet…

We go for beer (me) and mint lemonade (Zac) with one of the dancers in Florentine, a neighbourhood of bright graffiti, post-industrial alleys, hipster bars and local eateries that reminds me of how Shoreditch used to be a decade ago. A couple of musicians show up and play Turkish instruments. There are a lot of very beautiful girls. It’s fun.

By 1am, I’m tired. Twelve years ago, I’d barely have been getting started…

So, I don’t resist Zac when he decides it’s time to go.


“Hmmm…” says Zac, as we cab it back to our flat. “Tel Aviv really is a very cool city, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” I say.

I am super-pleased Zac likes Tel Aviv. It’s a place where you can see Picasso, Da Vinci, Renoir, Seurat, Monet, Manet, Rothko, Liechtenstein and more in the morning, then amble to the beach and splash in the Med; club till dawn then eat world-beating hummus in Jaffa Old Town; chow down on sashimi or catch up on opera. It’s thoroughly metropolitan. But with real, functional beach.

Further, I’m pleased my son has taste.

But, me being me, we only have three days in which to experience all of this: we need to meet friends in Turkey within a few days, and having too much fun in Dahab has seriously slashed our time in Israel.

“Mum,” says Zac, when I explain this to him. “You are a fucktard.”