Q. An old friend shares aesthetic sensibilities and tastes in people. Hence we have sustained a highly enjoyable correspondence over some decades. However, having recently had significant professional success, he is no longer fulfilling his side of the bargain. Even 1,000 words from me will now elicit only a perfunctory response. Yet whenever we meet in London he apologises that he is too busy to respond at length and begs me to continue with my own musings, on which he insists he ‘depends’. Mary, how, without seeming querulous, victimy or even ‘queeny’, can I make him see this has become an unfair exchange?
— Name and address withheld
A. While the disparity in word count might seem unfair, you can be reassured by your friend’s real enthusiasm at close range. Moreover, you could take heart from David Batterham’s recently published book of his letters to Howard Hodgkin (Dear Howard: Tales Told In Letters). Despite their quality and wit, and the relish with which the painter received them, Batterham,a bookseller, never received one word of reply to these 1970s letters. Nevertheless they survived, and provide a mosaic of small, hilarious and poignant detail and a valuable personal record for their author (and now, after publication, a record to delight others). Detail is what has been lost in modern-day communication, but detail is vital to the socio-historic record. You should continue writing into the void, confident that your friend is sincerely enjoying your output; and in the fullness of time you can revel in the record yourself.
Q. I’ve been sharing a university flat with a close friend who is lovely in all ways but one. She has never been taught how to do laundry properly and she regularly overloads the machine and leaves the clothes wet for days.
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