SILENCE AIN'T GOLDEN

WINSTON-SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA

The half way point of our journey was approaching fast, and we intentionally stayed South for almost a week so we could stop off at Natalie’s cousin’s house for a weekend. I was kind of viewing it as a traveller’s rest, a place we could sit back, stay for a night or two, put our feet up and relax while someone looked after us. We rang them from the nearby town of Winston-Salem saying that we would be staying in a car park that night so they invited us over… The second we arrived that idea of us relaxing changed. We walked into their house, a lovely big, well laid-out, clinically clean, new build in homogenised suburbia not to hugs and kisses for Natalie, not even a handshake for me. We sat and I drank a beer while Natalie had a nice cup of English tea. And while Samantha prepared a meal I tried to make conversation with Dave. I’m quite good at making conversation, you know fitting in, but he would not bite. No topic; sport, football, work, America, England, accents, quality of life… all were received with one sentence answers. I know we turned up a day early but did they not want us there or something? They knew we were coming.

Michelle, their friend silently played with Grace, their five year old daughter. I had expected Grace to be a bundle of precocious trouble, but she sat compliantly playing. This was the cute-as-a-button cheerleading future prom-queen sitting making beads. They may have been tired after a busy week, but they simply had nothing to say. Not only to us but to each other. After a while I gave up trying to make small-talk and ate my dinner as the six of us stared endlessly into the nether not uttering a word. Silences of two and three minutes passed without a word. They stated they were not good hosts, with their deathly silences they would have made better ghosts. With every minute lasting at least an hour, we tried talking after dinner, about travelling and our route, planning what to see but it was all still very uncomfortable. Michelle seemed to talk the most, but she wasn’t exactly a skilled raconteur. We went to bed and didn’t sleep. There were only three rooms upstairs, the spare one we were in, Sam and Dave’s and Graces.

We figured Michelle must be downstairs in the basement in a coffin.

Natalie didn’t find it as awkward as me and said that her family don’t need to fill gaps in conversation. In the morning it was slightly better and we breakfasted on Winston-Salem’s very own Krispy Kreme doughnuts and weak coffee.

Then we drove to Pilot Mountain. A huge outcrop of forested rock encircled by ravenous vultures. Native American Indians used to use it at as a landmark. O.P. our RV made it to the top, and we set out on the one mile walk around the base of the rock on a lovely family day out. A lovely family day out without words, without the laughter and mirth and closeness you’d expect from a household with a five year old daughter. My family are not close by any means, in fact probably way more distant than Nat’s but at least we would laugh and joke and reminisce and chat and get endless cups of tea. I don’t know my cousins well at all either but I’m sure we would have been able to do our laundry, charge our computers and burn some DVDs for our journey. Now, I don’t want to come across all cynical, I am grateful that they took us in for the night so I’ll just say it was very strange.

Needless to say, I am not looking forward to meeting Natalie’s parentals.