Getting propositioned at the grocer’s is so Covid

I ask for two bunches of mint and have a quick scoot round the shop, picking up nuts, spices and pitta bread while the Iranian guy goes out the back to fetch the herbs.

While I’m waiting, there’s a sudden blast of loud music and the Iranian woman shop-keeper — also in face mask — beckons me to the door to come and see: driving by is a flatbed truck with two frummers standing on the open back and a host of giant speakers. One is singing into a mic and the other is playing keyboards. It’s at once completely bonkers yet also joyful — a moment of playful delight in a weird and grim time (it turns out it was Lag b’Omer — which I’d strangely forgotten to celebrate).

With no expectation of success, I ask the woman if she has any flour and she points to it — they’ve sensibly bought large sacks and decanted it into plastic tubs of 500g — plain, self-raising and wholemeal. Let the baking begin again! While the guy is wrapping my mint and ringing up my purchases, a florid-faced customer appears and scoots right up behind me.

I’m not known for being assertive but this is such a blatant flouting of the rules that I put up my hand.

“Whoah — that’s too close. It’s two metres, please.”

There’s also a large sign on the front of the till and the shopkeeper tells him to move farther back.

Unexpectedly, the customer laughs.

“Beautiful! Two metres!” he says, as if I have made an unusually brilliant joke.

It’s at this moment that I realise he’s incredibly drunk, an observation confirmed two seconds later, when he says, “You’re gorgeous!”

Yes, I’m boasting but only because this literally never happens so I have to seize my moment. Random strangers noticing my tremendous gorgeousness hasn’t happened for easily 15 years, possibly 20. I’d be flattered if he weren’t blind drunk. He’s as drunk as it’s possible to be while still remaining (barely) upright.

Then he says, “Don’t be Jewish all the time. For one day — just be lovely!”

I tense up. I don’t want to get into some fractious exchange with a drunk man about being Jewish.

Also, how did he know? I don’t wear a sheitl (though god knows it’s getting more and more tempting as each week goes by distanced from my beloved hairdresser). I’m wearing my current default outfit: black track pants, T-shirt, a navy hoodie my son’s now outgrown (yes, I really do need some new clothes). It’s not as if we’re in Kosher Paradise — how is it so obvious and to someone who’s barely conscious?

“Where are you from?” he asks, swaying slightly. Again, I sound very English and I don’t look fresh off the boat.

“I was born here,” I say a tad defensively, thinking now is not the time for me to launch into a fascinating explanation of my mixed lineage.

“The Jews….” he announces.

Oh no — I can’t handle this. Lockdown has left me ridiculously over-sensitive; when I step outside the house, I feel vulnerable. I can’t deal with some mad antisemitic drunken rant, I just can’t.

“The Jews,” he repeats, pausing ominously "— are lovely!”

Then he says, “You’re beautiful. I’m taking you out tonight.”

It suddenly clicks that this man is so out of it that he has no idea of the current crisis, literally zero awareness that we’ve got, you know, a bit of a situation global pandemic-wise.

“I’m sure my husband will be pleased,” I inform him, turning smartly for the exit, while a tiny bit of me is thinking, aw, wouldn’t it be nice to go out tonight….?

Claire Calman’s new novel, ‘Growing Up for Beginners’, will be published on June 4. Available to pre-order from Amazon and other outlets. @clairecalman