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Letters from Tara · April: Are You All Right?

The draft she did not send

Danya,

Easter was good. Mum cooked too much, as usual, and I slept for most of the first two days. It was strange being back in my old room. It felt smaller.

It's quiet here now. Everyone came back from Easter with a lot of work, and the kitchen's been half empty in the evenings.

Joss has gone quiet too. You remember Joss, the music one, who keeps night hours and leaves notes on the fridge instead of talking. Since Easter there haven't been any notes. And I haven't heard him playing through the wall, not once, and normally he plays until about two in the morning, very quietly, the same bit over and over. He signs up for the practice rooms on the sheet outside the music building. I walk past it to the library. Since Easter he's put his name down six times, and I think he's only been twice, because the other four times the room was empty when I went past.

Not that I'm counting. I am a bit counting.

It's probably nothing. People get tired at this point in the year. He might just be busy, or he might have a girlfriend, or he might be writing something in his head. It isn't really my business. I'm going to leave it a few weeks and see if it passes, and if he's still like this in May, I'll say something. I don't want to be nosy. And I'm not even sure anything's

The draft stopped there, as all the drafts did.

Tara read it on the Wednesday evening, sitting on her bed, with the wall between her room and Joss's on her left. It was silent. It had been silent for nine evenings.

She noticed something she had not noticed while she was writing. The draft had a waiting plan in it again. A few weeks. In May. And this time the reason for waiting was a new one. Not it's too late, but I'm not sure. As if being sure were the price of asking.

She looked at the sticky note inside the front cover of the notebook. There were five lines on it now. The fifth was from March, in green ink.

The cheapest time to say the thing is before there is a plan for it to be against.

Ask on the second day, not the last.

First chance, not last.

A no on the day costs a minute.

The first minute is the cheapest.

She had noticed on Tuesday. Today was Wednesday. It was the second day.

She put the draft in the back of the notebook with the other seven. There were eight now.

Thursday

She knocked on Joss's door at about nine, with two mugs of tea, because it felt less strange to arrive with something.

It took him a while to open it. He had his headphones round his neck, not on, and he looked as if he had not been sleeping, or had been sleeping at the wrong times.

"Hi," said Tara. "I made too much tea."

"You made exactly two teas," said Joss.

"I know," said Tara. She held one out. "Can I say one thing? You've gone really quiet since Easter. I haven't heard you playing. Are you all right?" She took a breath. "You don't have to answer. I just wanted to ask, in case."

She had practised it on the stairs, where she practised everything. Out loud, it sounded a lot plainer than it had in her head. It also sounded completely fine.

Joss looked at the tea for a long moment.

What Joss said

Then he stood back from the door and let her in, which he had never done before. His room was very tidy except for the desk, which was covered in sheets of music paper, most of them crossed out.

"My grandad's ill," he said. "He went into hospital over Easter. He's the one who taught me piano. He's home now, sort of, but he's not right, and my mum keeps ringing, and every time the phone goes I think it's going to be bad news." He sat down on the bed. "And I haven't done anything for my folder. It's due in three weeks. It's meant to be four pieces. I've got half of one."

"Have you told your tutor?"

"No," said Joss. "I keep meaning to. Then it feels too late, and too embarrassing, like I'm making excuses. So I don't, and then I don't go to the practice room, because what's the point, and then I lie here." He rubbed his face. "It's stupid."

"It isn't stupid," said Tara.

"Nobody's asked," said Joss. "That's the weird thing. I thought somebody would notice and ask, and nobody did, and then I thought, well, maybe it's not that obvious, and I just have to get on with it." He looked at her, almost shy. "Thanks for asking. Honestly. I've been waiting for someone to ask for about three weeks."

Tara thought about her draft, which had said a few weeks. She thought about how many weeks it would have been by then.

Soup

Hollie, who cooked for six and could not stand an empty kitchen, heard voices and came to see. Twenty minutes later there was a pan of soup on the hob and three bowls on the kitchen table, and Joss was eating as if he had forgotten that was a thing people did.

"Write to your tutor," said Hollie, with her spoon. "Tonight. Before the deadline, not after it. After it's an excuse. Before it's just information."

"What do I say?"

"That your grandad's ill and you're behind," said Tara. "That's it. The plain version."

Joss wrote it on his phone at the kitchen table, with Hollie reading over one shoulder and Tara pretending not to read over the other. It was four sentences long. He sent it before he could change his mind.

The tutor answered the next morning, before nine. She was sorry about his grandad. She gave him two more weeks, and said he should come and talk to her on Monday, and that this happened more often than he would think.

That evening, for the first time since Easter, Tara heard him through the wall. The same bit, over and over, very quietly, until about two in the morning. She did not mind at all.

The letter she sent

Danya,

Easter was good. Mum cooked too much. My old room is smaller than I remember.

This month I asked someone if they were all right.

Joss went quiet after Easter. No music through the wall, no notes, missed practice. I wrote you a whole letter about how I'd wait a few weeks to be sure, because I didn't want to be nosy and I wasn't sure anything was wrong.

Then I realised I was waiting to be sure before I asked. And the asking is how you find out.

So I asked him on Thursday, the second day I noticed, with a cup of tea. His grandad is ill, and he'd fallen behind and was too embarrassed to tell anyone. He said he'd been waiting for someone to ask for three weeks. Three weeks. If I'd waited a few weeks more, it would have been six.

Hollie made soup. He emailed his tutor that night and got two more weeks. He's playing again. I can hear it through the wall, the same bit over and over. It's lovely.

I didn't need to be sure. I just needed to ask, and let him say he was fine if he was.

Tara

P.S. Eight drafts now. In this one I wrote "I'm not sure" as if it were a reason to wait. It's the reason to ask.

The question for your own table

Is there someone who has gone quiet lately: a friend, a neighbour, someone at work or in the family? What would it cost to ask them, plainly, if they are all right?

Something to do

Ask one person this week, in plain words, how they really are, and leave them room to say "fine". Mean the question, and listen to the answer.

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