I Am 14. And Unable To Take The Hint.

Wednesday is about books. And writing. Today a non-fiction short-story, if there is such a thing. Well, there is now...

When I was 12 or 13, I stayed in Dunedin for a week – a hockey tournament. We would be billeted out to a local family on these trips, usually it would be someone from the team and their family but sometimes you’d just get a local family. It was some sort of community service I guess, an offering. And in Dunedin me and one of my teammates were sent to stay with a family. They didn’t have kids in the local team. They had a daughter a year younger than us and a son a few years younger still. But they were really nice – all of them. The parents were called Elizabeth and Murray but told us we must call them Liz and Muz. So we did.

The first night was a good success, and there was a big parcel of fish’n’chips which, in the 1980s, was as good as it ever got really. A fantastic treat always. Particularly so if you could eat out of the paper, maybe even in front of the telly. And on this occasion we got to do both of those things.

But that next morning it was sprung on us that the kids would be going up the coast to stay with their grandparents, which meant it was just us and the parents – they worked during the day, which was fine because we were playing hockey matches all day. We’d arrive home bruised but not beaten, tired but somewhat elated (we would finish fifth out of about 27 teams, so to begin with we were doing really well each day) and we would be given a bath and a meal and Liz and Muz would sometimes go out and leave us alone to watch TV or they’d hang out and chat and we’d read books for a bit or whatever else. One night I spilled some orange juice all down this shirt that was on the back of one of the dining room chairs. It was a mistake. An accident. (I didn’t do it on purpose). But I also didn’t know how to come clean exactly, so I mopped up the juice and tidied away the glass but just left the shirt there to hang, wet, stained, on the chair. This was for Muz to go to work in the next day in the office. And Liz said, with something of a laugh, “Well, Muz, it looks like someone’s had a go at your shirt, I better wash that one again and we’ll just hope for the best”.

She never laid blame, but I imagine she saw that my face was a bit redder than usual.

On the final night of the tournament the kids came back. And Kate, the daughter, was super pleased to see us particularly. (I don’t remember the boy’s name at all – but I am doing well enough to remember Kate and Muz and Liz).

We played in her room, stayed up late and chatted about whatever nonsense was filling our heads back then. I remember talking about The Rolling Stones and Santana and The Kinks. Some of my favourite bands of the time. I played some of my tapes (I always took my Walkman with me when I went on sports trips back then). I can’t remember her caring at all, nor can I recall that particularly bothering me.

When we said our goodbyes, Kate gave me and the other guy a huge hug each and told us to write to her. We had exchanged addresses. She said she wanted to come to the North Island to visit.

None of this seemed weird. It was all just chat. And it all just felt very natural too.

I was home a week, if that, when the first letter arrived from Kate. And my mum told me it was embarrassing that she had written first – I really should have written to thank her and her family. So, I sat down and wrote two letters. One to Kate. One to Muz and Liz. I thanked Muz and Liz for their hospitality and posted it separately. I wrote a longer letter to Kate about the bands I was listening to and the tapes I was planning to buy, the films I loved, the TV shows that were my favourites and I was big-time into books, so I guess I said something about the books I was reading at that time. Probably included a little list or something, Top 5 Recent Reads. Or something.

The letters carried on for a while. She would reply. I’d go back with more. My letters were probably longer. And then one day she wrote to me and said, incredibly bluntly, that she was not going to write any more. She had enjoyed the exchanges, but she was unlikely to ever see me again and so this was going to be it from her. But she added that I was welcome to keep on writing if I wanted. She reiterated that she would not be writing back. Ever. But hinted that she would probably read the letters if I bothered to send them.

So I wrote back.

A month or so passed and I wrote again. And then again.

These letters were never answered. I have no further knowledge about this family whatsoever. But I think about this sometimes, actually quite often. Because, you see, although I didn’t keep writing to her for years and years, over the last two decades I have written so many pieces for websites, and of course for newspapers and magazines before that. A daily blog for a decade or more. And stories galore in almost every type of format.

These are still the letters that are never answered.

I keep writing them. I keep sending them out.