David, the slightly younger and far less worldly-wise of this pair of fifteen- to sixteen-year-olds, is confused at the feelings that the more sophisticated Theo inspires in him. Theo is far more sanguine, and quite likely knows what’s happening. I make it quite obvious that, for both characters, the feelings that grow within them, each for the other, are both confusing and disturbing. Of course it is a love story. Near the end of the tale, David asks of his much older sister:

‘Can you tell me, does it always hurt? Does it always hurt so really, really bad?

‘What…?’ she began.

‘Like there’s nothing else but that feeling and it goes on and on and it’s in your mind and things go wrong and don’t work out and there’s nothing, nothing you can do to make it feel better.’ He looked at his sister and he breathed hard. ‘Does it always have to hurt?’

As he looked at her, so she looked at him…

The setting of the novel is small-town New Zealand, my favoured terrain in many, if not most, of my books. I have lived in all four main New Zealand cities, spent a year in London, but it is small-town and rural New Zealand that is closest to my heart and where I have spent most of my life. I know it well. I appreciate the advantages, and occasionally rail at the disadvantages of such living.

Against this backdrop of factors, I wrote the book. I wrote it because there was nothing else around that told such a story. I wrote it, quite consciously, reflecting my own feelings of bewilderment at a similar age and stage to that of my two protagonists. I wrote it fully in the knowledge that, had such a tale been available to me at age sixteen, my life just may have been somewhat different. I know that I did not write the thing in order to shock or titillate. It is a story of young love.

David is small-town ‘ordinary’. He is happy with his life and with his achievements, most particularly those on the rugby field. His home life is equally satisfactory, and his relationship with his parents is warm and sound. He has no desire to move beyond his immediate horizons. Theo, on the other hand, the ‘outsider’, new to the town, has enjoyed a more cosmopolitan existence. He may be worldly-wise beyond his years, but a veneer of sophistication at age sixteen is generally no more than a veneer. He comes to the town to live with his grandmother, Gretel, whose own story provides a counterpoint to the main tale. A refugee, a Polish Jew, she has experienced the ultimate horrors of rabid prejudice. In early old age, wealthy enough to indulge herself, she retires to the town, builds a house and plants a garden, and cherishes the enjoyment of watching it grow. David, rather than her grandson, helps with her garden.

So I write their story. As always, it does not take long. Then, completely gutless, I put it away. Why? Well, for no better reason than I lacked the courage to do anything with it. I was concerned at what I might be saying, how what I was saying might reflect on me in ways that I chose to avoid. That what I was writing might be construed as autobiographical. Some things were better left unsaid. It was consigned to the proverbial bottom drawer and forgotten for a number of years.