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Letters from Tara · December: The Plain Question

The draft she did not send

Danya,

Five days until I'm home. I've counted the shopping I need to do, and the washing, and the number of times I can listen to the same playlist on the train before I go mad, which I think is three.

Everybody in the flat is going home except Joss. Hollie is going back to the coast on the nineteenth. The twins are getting picked up by their dad on the twentieth, with a car full of laundry. I'm on the train on the twenty-third. Joss is staying in halls the whole time. He told Hollie in the kitchen, very fast, and then went back to his room.

I can't stop thinking about it. Six of us, and five going home, and one left in an empty building with the heating on a timer. I think he must be lonely. Or maybe something has happened at home, and he isn't welcome, and he's too proud to say. Or maybe he can't afford the train. He works nights somewhere, I think. He's always coming in at two in the morning with his headphones on.

I keep meaning to say something. I keep thinking he'll bring it up, and then I can say how sorry I am, and ask if he's all right. I thought maybe on the last night, when Hollie does her dinner, he'll say something, and I'll be ready.

I've got the whole conversation planned. I know exactly what I'll say when he tells me what's wrong. I just

The draft stopped there, as all the drafts did.

Tara read it on the Sunday morning, in her room, with the radiator ticking. She noticed something she had not noticed while she was writing it. There was not a single thing in it that Joss had actually told her. Every sentence about him was a guess. She had written a whole sad story, with a beginning and a middle, about a person she had spoken to perhaps six times. And she was waiting for him to bring it up, so that she could be ready for an ending she had made up herself.

She put the draft in the back of the notebook with the other three. There were four now.

She looked at the sticky note inside the front cover. The cheapest time to say the thing is before there is a plan for it to be against. She had written that in November. It was true about meetings. She wondered whether it was true about this too.

The last night was Thursday. It was Sunday.

The second day

On Monday, the second day of the last week, she knocked on Joss's door.

She had to knock twice. The first knock was so quiet that she was not sure she had done it. Her heart was going the way it had in the library in November, which was ridiculous over a question about Christmas.

The door opened. Joss had his headphones round his neck and a pencil behind his ear. Behind him, on his desk, there was a keyboard with sheets of music spread all over it, held down with mugs.

"Hi," said Tara. "Sorry. Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," said Joss. He looked slightly alarmed, as if he thought it might be about the bins.

"What are you doing for Christmas?"

It came out much more plainly than any of the sentences in her head. There was no are you all right, no I'm so sorry. It was just the question.

Joss looked surprised. Then he smiled, which she had not expected at all.

"Nobody's asked me that," he said. "Everyone's just gone oh, you're staying? in a sad voice and then changed the subject."

"I was going to do that," Tara admitted. "I've been doing it in my head for a week."

What Joss said

He told her standing in the doorway, leaning on the frame.

He was staying on purpose. He played piano at a hotel in the city centre, two evenings a week in term, in a big room with a lot of plants in it, while people ate dinner and did not listen. In December they wanted him every day. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after were the best-paid three days of the year, and Christmas lunch at the hotel was booked out in October.

"It's three days of work at the busiest time of year," he said. "And when everyone's gone, the hall is quiet enough to practise in properly. Nobody bangs on the wall. I've got an exam in January and I need about forty hours on one piece."

"So you're not, you know," said Tara.

"Sad?" said Joss. "Not about that. My mum's coming up for New Year. We've already booked a restaurant." He thought for a moment. Then he said something more honestly. "The bit I'm not looking forward to is Boxing Day. The hotel's shut. Everyone's gone. Nothing open. I'll probably play the same eight bars for nine hours and talk to nobody."

Tara thought about her draft, which had him lonely in the empty building all through the holidays, too proud to say so. The true answer had a hotel in it, a piano, his mum, a restaurant at New Year and one empty day. It was nothing like the story she had written.

"I made up a whole thing about you," she said. "In a letter. It was really sad."

Joss laughed. "Was it good?"

"It was very sad," said Tara. "You'd have hated it."

The second plain question

She could have stopped there. The first question had been answered, and he was fine, and she could go back to her room.

But there was the one empty day. And the second question was already in her mouth, the way the first one had been in the library in November. This time she did not wait for a gap.

"Would you like a visitor on Boxing Day?" she said.

Joss looked at her.

"My train home is on the twenty-third," said Tara. "But my aunt lives about forty minutes from here, and we always go to hers for Boxing Day lunch. I could come into the city in the morning. We could get the first bus somewhere, or walk by the river, or you could play me the eight bars."

"You'd come back on Boxing Day?" said Joss. "On purpose?"

"It's forty minutes," said Tara. "And my aunt will be thrilled. She always asks whether I've made any friends."

There was a short silence. A door banged somewhere down the corridor.

"Yes," said Joss. "Yes, OK. That would be really nice." He took the pencil from behind his ear and wrote the date on the back of his hand. "I'll find somewhere that's open. There must be something."

"There's always a café," said Tara. "There's always one café."

The last night

On Thursday Hollie cooked a roast for six. She made the gravy in the saucepan nobody owned, which was dented in a way that looked like a thumb, and she made Joss carve because he had the steadiest hands. Somebody put a paper crown on the twins' dad's car. They played charades until two, and Joss was by far the best at it, which surprised everybody except Tara.

At one point Hollie leaned over and said, quietly, "Is he all right? Joss? On his own all Christmas?"

"I asked him," said Tara. "He's working at a hotel. He's fine. I'm going back on Boxing Day."

Hollie looked at her with something like respect. "I've been wondering for a fortnight," she said. "I was going to ask him tonight."

"So was I," said Tara. "Then I asked on Monday instead."

The letter she sent

Danya,

You'll get this after I'm home, probably, which makes it a strange letter to write. I'm writing it anyway, because I said I'd tell you each time I did the thing a bit sooner.

This time I asked a plain question on the second day, instead of the last.

Joss, from my flat, is staying here for Christmas. I'd written a whole story in my head about why: that he was lonely, or not welcome at home, or couldn't afford the train. I was waiting for him to bring it up so I could be kind about it. I'd written the kind thing I was going to say.

Then I knocked on his door and asked what he was doing for Christmas. It turns out he plays piano at a hotel, and Christmas is the best-paid work of the year, and his mum's coming for New Year, and the story in my head was completely wrong. The only true bit was one empty day. So I asked if he wanted a visitor, and I'm going back on Boxing Day.

Two plain questions. About ten seconds each. The waiting would have taken all week, and at the end of it I'd have been kind to someone who didn't exist.

Tara

P.S. Four drafts in the back of the notebook now. This is the first one I've read and laughed at.

The question for your own table

Is there someone you have a story about in your head, about why they do something or how they feel, that you have never actually asked them about? What is the plain question?

Something to do

Think of one person you have been meaning to ask about something. Write the plainest question you could ask them, one sentence, with no apology in front of it. Then ask it this week, not at the last possible moment.

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