The Cheese Correspondence

It starts, as many of my worst decisions do, with me sitting at my kitchen table writing a letter to a stranger. Not an email. Not a text. Not one of those passive-aggressive thumbs-up reactions people use instead of actual communication. A proper letter. Pen scratching across paper. Envelope. Stamp. The full aggressively vintage ritual. Every fortnight, without fail, I receive one back. And I hate admitting this because it makes me sound like someone who owns ornamental teaspoons, but the second I hear the letterbox clatter, I get excited. Genuinely excited. Which is ridiculous really, because our conversations are hardly revolutionary. We mostly talk about food. Specifically cheese. I’ve gone into alarming detail about my clean eating habits, which admittedly lose all credibility once followed by four handwritten paragraphs passionately ranking supermarket cheddars by emotional support value. Sometimes I send little gifts. This week it’s a Dairylea sandwich. Which will almost certainly be mould by the time it arrives, but the thought is there. Human civilisation has mostly survived on good intentions and slightly suspicious dairy. I finish the letter with my name and pause. Because the strange thing is… I don’t actually know theirs. Not properly. I address them exclusively as Pal. That’s it. No gender. No age. No location. For all I know, I’ve spent six months emotionally bonding with a retired lorry driver with strong opinions on Stilton or an unusually articulate badger. All I know is this: They like cheese. Not quite my carry-a-Babybel-loosely-in-your-pocket level of commitment, but certainly within cheese fiend territory. And somehow… that’s enough. The routine becomes strangely comforting. A soft, repetitive rhythm that quietly stitches itself through my life. I begin looking forward to the letters more than actual human interaction, which feels less charming once you say it out loud. The envelopes never reveal anything. Always plain white. Always the same scruffy handwriting, impossible to place. One morning another letter lands on the mat. I pick it up. And for some reason… I sniff it. As though scent alone might reveal the truth. It doesn’t. It just smells faintly of cheese. Which somehow raises more questions than answers. I make my usual Thai jasmine tea, settle into my favourite armchair and carefully tear the envelope open. Inside is the usual glorious nonsense. Arguments about whether brie is overrated. An oddly emotional paragraph about Red Leicester. A surprisingly aggressive rant describing pre-grated cheese as “the glitter of the dairy world.” I laugh out loud at parts. Feel unexpectedly sad at others. Because beneath all the cheese talk there’s loneliness there too. Quiet loneliness. The sort that sits politely in the corner pretending not to exist. Then I reach the end. And my stomach drops. They want to meet. In real life. Today. No exchanging numbers. No social media stalking beforehand like normal paranoid people. Just a location and a time, like it’s 1987 and one of us may potentially be a serial killer. Suddenly I feel nauseous. Because this person is practically a stranger. A stranger I’ve somehow told intimate details about my dietary habits and emotional dependence on mature cheddar. I spend the next hour changing outfits approximately ninety-seven times, but nothing sits quite right. One dress makes me look like I run a crystal healing Facebook group. Another like a recently divorced primary school teacher discovering Prosecco and emotional arson. Eventually I settle on a blue floral dress. It’ll do. I stand in front of the mirror practising smiles. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.” “Likewise.” “It’s been too long.” At this point my own reflection is staring back with genuine concern. I exhale slowly, grab my cardigan and pull it tightly around myself like it might somehow provide emotional stability. It doesn’t. Mambos. That’s where we’re meeting. Which immediately concerns me because I haven’t stepped foot inside a Mambos in well over a decade. The last time I did, I felt like I’d accidentally fallen through a tear in time directly into 2009. Sticky floors. Warm cider. Music so loud you have to communicate exclusively through aggressive nodding and hand gestures. The sort of place where people lose their phones, dignity, and occasionally consciousness. I arrive early. Then wait. And wait. Every person approaching makes my face light up hopefully before immediately crushing me seconds later. Not them. Not them either. Just innocent strangers now convinced I’m lingering outside smiling intensely at pedestrians for shits and giggles. Time stretches. My nerves worsen. I tap my foot anxiously against the pavement. Fiddle with my sleeves. Check my reflection in darkened windows only to discover I somehow look progressively more unhinged each time. “Come on, you fucker,” I mutter under my breath. “Who are you calling fucker?” I spin around. An old man stands behind me. Very old. Eighty at least. Flat cap. Ruddy cheeks. Thick glasses. Waistcoat held together by what appears to be a safety pin and pensioner-level stubbornness. My brain scrambles desperately for a name. “Are you…” Nothing. The old man extends his hand. “Clive.” His handshake lasts roughly the length of a minor political era. “Nice to meet you,” I say weakly. Admittedly… this is not what I expected. At all. “I thought you’d never arrive,” I tell him. “Me too,” he laughs. “Arthritis is kicking up a right old bastard today.” Oddly… I immediately relax. The mystery is over. I’ve been writing to Clive. Of course I have. Who else writes letters nowadays besides lonely old men and murderers on death row? “Shall we get a drink?” I ask. “Thought you’d never ask.” That’s when I notice he’s missing several teeth. Which feels unfair to judge at eighty. If you make it that far at all, I think society should allow you to smile with increasing philosophical ambiguity. I order prosecco. Clive orders something brown and medically concerning. We sit outside beneath a giant parasol because apparently sunlight makes him sneeze uncontrollably. “Comes on like a bloody exorcism,” he explains. Now that we’re actually sat together, my mind goes blank. Complete emptiness. Static. For months we’ve written to each other effortlessly. But suddenly, faced with an actual human being, my personality seems to have packed its bags and left. “Cheese,” I blurt eventually. “A fellow cheese addict, right?” Clive winces slightly. “Oh… cheese is alright, I suppose.” Alright? The word lands with genuine emotional violence. “Mind you,” he adds casually, “one bite nowadays and I’m shitting through the eye of a needle for three days.” Right. Excellent. Strong opening. Nothing keeps social interaction sparkling quite like aggressive gastrointestinal honesty. An awkward silence settles briefly between us, both of us seemingly waiting for the other person to explain why we are here. Then, slowly, one drink becomes two, then three, and Clive unfolds across the evening like a creased old map. Widowed young. Never remarried. “Didn’t feel right after her,” he says quietly, staring into his pint. “Some people only fit once, don’t they?” And suddenly there’s something terribly sad about him. I think about Mum after Dad died. That strange permanent absence some people carry around like a missing limb. The way grief settles into a person’s bones and quietly lives there. For a moment, Clive stops being funny. He just becomes lonely. Then immediately ruins the moment by farting so violently the parasol above us trembles in fright. “Christ alive,” he mutters proudly. The mood resets itself. Clive talks about gardening. Golf. Stamp collecting. The many betrayals of the human body. And dear Christ, there are many. Apparently his digestive system is now held together entirely by medication and optimism, while his bladder operates on what sounds like pure spite. And somehow during a story about haemorrhoids and a lawnmower accident, I realise something deeply unsettling. I’m actually enjoying myself. There’s warmth there. Gentleness. The unmistakable softness of someone who has spent years becoming smaller so they don’t inconvenience anybody. When I excuse myself to the bathroom, I’m still smiling. Until I look in the mirror. And nearly scream. I look old. Not tired. Not rough. Old. My skin sags around my jaw. Deep wrinkles carve through my forehead. My eyebrows have thinned into two frightened commas barely clinging to existence. I stare at myself in horror. What the fuck? Is Clive aging me? By proximity? Like some sort of pensioner vampire? Back outside, he somehow looks better. Rosier. Straighter. And unless I’m hallucinating… I’m fairly sure he has more teeth than before. “I’m sorry, Clive,” I say sorrowfully. “I really don’t feel well.” “You don’t look too good,” he admits. Yeah. No shit. Because apparently you’re draining me like a Capri-Sun. “I should probably head home.” His whole face falls. “That’s a shame,” he says softly. “I’ve felt more alive today than I have in years.” A chill crawls through me. Because he genuinely means it. For a split second, beneath all the accidental elderly vampirism, I almost feel guilty. He’s just a lonely old man who wanted someone to sit with him for the evening. Then he smiles again and I notice what is definitely, absolutely another tooth. Nope. We’re back to fear again. “I’ll write to you,” I say hurriedly. Clive frowns slightly. Confused. Then smiles politely. “Right-oh, dear.” And I run. Straight through back alleys and side streets. My lungs wheeze like an asthmatic accordion. By the time I reach home my skeleton feels like it’s quietly filing for separation with immediate effect. I collapse into bed. And sleep. For two straight weeks. When I finally wake, weak and disoriented, there’s a letter waiting on the mat. Same envelope. Same scruffy handwriting. I stare at it for a long moment. Like it might explode. Or worse… contain another invitation to Mambos. Eventually, I make my tea. Thai Jasmine. Extra strong this time. Then lower myself into my armchair. Open the letter slowly, carefully. I’m sorry I didn’t meet you two weeks ago when I said I would. I got nervous. Cold feet took hold and rendered me a coward. But I thought you deserved to know a little more about me. I’m McKenna. I’m sixteen years old and live in Bognor Regis. My friends describe me as an old soul trapped in a young body. I enjoy letter writing, old music and cheese with a level of devotion that may honestly require medical intervention. I hope we can still write to one another. I read the letter three times. Then a fourth. Slowly. Carefully. Like the words might rearrange themselves into something less mentally devastating. Sixteen years old. Bognor Regis. Too nervous to come. Never showed up. I stare into space for a full minute. Then another horrifying realisation slowly slides into place. Clive didn’t know what halloumi was. Nobody reaches eighty in modern Britain without accidentally encountering halloumi. Clive hated cheese. Not casually disliked. Hated. The man spoke about cheddar like it had personally wronged him. And then the final horrifying memory arrives. Clear as day. “Brie’s a bit much, if you ask me.” I bolt upright in my chair. My blood runs cold. CLIVE THOUGHT BRIE WAS “A BIT TOO MUCH.” It’s not just suspicious. It’s fundamentally incompatible with the entire basis of our friendship. What the fuck. If McKenna never came to Mambos… Then who the fuck was Clive? And worse — why did he just go along with it? I sit there, replaying the entire evening in my head with dawning horror. Me desperately steering everything back to cheese. Clive responding like a seasoned diplomat with IBS. Me interpreting vague politeness as mystery. Him probably thinking I was mildly unwell but harmless. “Oh Christ,” I whisper. Because suddenly I realise something even worse. He never actually confirmed anything. Not once. I assumed. Every single time. “Are you—” “Clive.” That’s all he said. That’s it. No correction. No confusion. No: Sorry love, think you’ve got the wrong bloke. Just immediate acceptance of whatever this was. I picture him now, standing outside Mambos, hearing some nervous woman mutter “Come on, you fucker,” before immediately greeting him like a long-lost soulmate. And instead of questioning this deeply bizarre interaction… He simply rolled with it. WHY? Was he lonely? Confused? Mildly drunk? Did he just fancy a free drink and a quiet evening? I suddenly remember the moment I said: “I’ll write to you.” And the way he paused. Confused. Polite. A man trying desperately to locate the correct social response to a conversation he blatantly did not understand. “Oh my God.” I bury my face in my hands. I didn’t meet my mysterious pen pal. I accidentally abducted an elderly stranger into an intensely personal, cheese-based emotional relationship for the better part of an evening. And somehow, the most upsetting part of all this is still the possibility that somebody out there loves cheese more than I do.