I took the booking on Sunday Morning as I prepared a private lunch for a friend at Real Man Pizza Company. A table for twelve on our quietest evening – Monday. Sure thing. The 12 turned out to be students from New York University studying in London for a year. They loved their pizza and chatted gaily. Can anyone name the capital of South Dakota? Er.. I was happy to assist. It’s Pierre. Bit as they chatted happily I look at my computer and saw what was happening in Boston.
I told them. Immediately they grabbed their i-phones and sat their gaping at the awful pictures, swapping snippets of rumour and mis-information, stunned. The natural reaction: did they know anyone in Boston. Of course they did. Emails and texts were sent. Will there be other attacks elsewhere. New York is in lockdown. Or maybe it is not. Who did it? Does it matter? Naturally we all have suspicions. But no-one aired them.
After offering them some chocolate pizza on me, my mind turned instantly back to Lockerbie. My first great love Abbe (who so cruelly spurned me all those years ago) was a student at Syracuse. So too were a big party on that fateful flight. Some died at once. Others only as they hit the ground after a 30 second freefall. I know Abbe has been haunted by the friends she lost and by a terror of flying ever since. I guess it is more than 25 years ago now.
There will be some folks in Britain who will harp on about America getting its just desserts. The same sort of revolting people who will be celebrating as others mourn on Wednesday. As it happens I regard America as, generally, a force for good in the world and a free and dynamic society I can only but admire. But as these youngsters wander back tonight I feel for them. They will be exposed to the nasty side of Britain as the nasty left spits bile not sympathy. All they will want is to be back home with their families.
My thoughts are with those hurt, killed or mourning in Boston. But my thoughts are also with a stunned and unhappy group of twelve young Americans wandering home tonight.