Episode 5: For Whom Dobell Tolls
I say, tally-ho and good show to you all, chaps!
What a test match. I could write you a full match report but apparently my readership figures are healthy and I would hate to drive away a percentage with my esoteric analysis of Root, Anderson, Broad, Stokes et al. So I’ll just cut to the story telling.
On day 1, I rather blow the doors off. I zip around Tauranga on the electric scooters that have become my staple transport, start on the beers as soon as I set foot in the ground, and surge off with great confidence to meet England’s Barmy Army and their Trumpeter, Simon Finch. I do my level best to flirt with the cricket mums in the hope they will buy me the beers I can no longer afford - even gallantly giving up my jumper when the evening session begins - with notable success. We sing ourselves hoarse as Brook smites boundaries, and raise toast after toast as Jimmy purrs in under the lights and reduces the Kiwis to 30/3 by end of play. And yet AGAIN, I underestimate the adversary hiding in, quite literally, plain sight: the bastard sun.
For the next three days, I am genuinely very unwell. It feels like heatstroke on the first night in bed: throbbing, pulsing, boiling head, delirious dreams, bedsheets and blanket twisted into a sweat-drenched lasso, and a sore throat like I’ve swallowed a cheese grater. I still attend every minute of the match though. England close out a convincing win on day 4. It is time to start thinking about moving on from Tauranga, which is significant because Richard Lennox and family, and the caravan in their garden, represented the last of the firm contacts in my phonebook.
After the match, I climb Mount Maunganui, where more staggering views await me. But no vista compares to the sight on my descent. Like lovers making eye contact across a crowded room, I spy the face of George Dobell strolling along the bay at the foot of the mount. George Dobell, the greatest cricket journalist in the world. George Dobell, one of my heroes, shaking my hand as I heap objectively nauseating gush all over him. I hold an actual long conversation with George Dobell.
It all gets a bit “awwww, poor diddums” from here on in. George then mentions he’s going out for drink with another of my journalistic idols, Vithushan Ehantharajah. He invites me. I rush home. This could be the moment I kickstart my career as a sports journo. As I’m washing and shaving and perfuming, like a teenager with a hot prom date, I’m visualising how cool I’m going to be. I practise some smooth jokes and a winning grin. I even - get this - rehearse Vish’s full name. I scoot back into town, with the wind in my hair and beaming smile still in place. George has told me the rough area to look. I start searching, keeping a casual, aloof visage in place, so that when I see them it’s almost like I wasn’t expecting to.
There’s one, arterial, cultural street in Maunganui town. I walk up it. I walk down it. I enter and leave each and every bar at least three times. I become increasingly desperate, breaking into a jog between each survey. I bump into Duckett, an actual England cricketer, but he’s not the hero I’m looking for. For THREE HOURS I traipse up and down that street, before finally, I sit down on the curb - yep, the curb - and dejectedly concede defeat. I get back on one of the stupid scooters and go home. One can almost hear Hurt by Johnny Cash (no! By 9 Inch Nails, I’m told!). It’s the first time, readers, that I’ve been genuinely upset on my travels.
The next morning, George explains (over Twitter) that they went somewhere else, and that he tried to tell me but we’d forgotten to exchange numbers. I sullenly think it’s a shoddy excuse, but he then actually gives me his number, which cheers me up. I pack up my worldly possessions and set off for my first HelpX (rip-off Wwoofing) experience. My first ever host is called Nurse Ratched.
I will NOT be revealing this blog to any of the ensuing characters. I’ve also done them a favour they don’t deserve by giving them pseudonyms. Ratched has been very brusque over message when we were arranging my stay, but I thought nothing of it. It’s not until I call her because our arranged meeting point - a BP station outside Tauranga - doesn’t exist, that the bells start tolling. She is rude and unhelpful over the phone, abrasive and callous in person. She has thin eyebrows, strange hair, and is forever glaring balefully. My first impression was, I have to say, “what a cow”.
Her property is a large and ugly house set amongst the wild and pretty countryside. There are four others staying with her, which is why I chose it; aiming to replicate the UNIMPROVABLE community I am used to living with. However, three of them are not HelpX volunteers, but tenants, and all middle-aged at that; vitriolic and bitter about the world. Lebowski is big, drunk, and slurs his long, loud and very boring stories. Farquart is small, bearded, calculating and racist. Garfield is fat, pallid and rather detached. All four are thoroughbred conspiracy theorists, and whilst it’s healthy to hear opinions you don’t share, and whilst vaccine disparagement is not uncommon in NZ, one can be overexposed to 5g tower speculation, illuminati propaganda and even “earthquakes are manmade” sentiment. Too much of a good thing.
The fifth member of our happy family is Prometheus, who is a temporary resident like me, but almost completely silent. Instead of fire, though, he is escaping to bestow upon me a dire warning. I go on a walk on my first day to try and recuperate from my bruising first encounters, and meet him doing the same. As we pass each other, he mumbles “you won’t have to worry about me being around much longer.” I press him to expand. He glances over his shoulder and verbatim repeats my assessment of our host: “Ratched is a cow.”
I listen as he goes on; “she’s also a crazy bitch. If she starts ranting at you after she’s been drinking, just nod along. You don’t want to make her angry. I did, and we’ve fallen out hard. I’m making a run for it the second I’ve fixed my car.” He warns me to keep this conversation between us, before not entirely convincingly adding “you’ll be fine if you stay on her good side. All of their good sides.” He walks away abruptly, leaving me standing horrified in the road. For the second time in two weeks, I’ve wandered into something of a horror movie. The last one worked out fine, but this one… you know when you just get bad vibes?
I get my phone out and fire off some SOS messages. Wellington is probably my best bet. Cousin Mads’ friend, Hancey, replies promptly, as do David’s parents. With Ratched prowling over my shoulder, and Farquart interrogating me at every opportunity, I am beginning to plot an early escape.
Wish me luck. Word of the Week is, “get me the flying f*ck out of here.” Catch up soon.
