Nick Hornby - Juliet, Naked

“It looks better in the light,” Annie explained apologetically.

Tucker was finding his bearings now. If he translated some of the ethnic foods into Americans’ favorites and swapped a few of the bookies for casinos, he’d be at one of the trashier resorts in New Jersey. Every now and again, one of Jackson’s school friends got dragged off to a seaside town like this, either because the kid’s parents had misre membered a vacation from their youth, or because they had failed to spot the romanticism and poetic license in Bruce Springsteen’s early albums. They always came back appalled by the vulgarity, the malevolence and the drunkenness.

“Do you like fish and chips, Jackson? Shall we get some for supper?”

Jackson looked at his father: did he like fish and chips? Tucker nodded.

“There’s a good chippy down the road from us. From me. You’ll be okay if you just eat the fish, Tucker. Don’t touch the batter. Or the chips.”

“Sounds great,” said Tucker. “We might never leave.”

“We will, Dad, won’t we? Because I need to see Mom.”

“Just a joke, kiddo. You’ll see Mom.”

“I hate your jokes.”

Tucker was still distracted by the conversation they’d had on the train. He didn’t have a clue how he was going to talk to Annie; he didn’t know whether he was capable of it. If it were up to him, he’d write it all down, hand her a piece of paper and walk away. That was pretty much how he’d got to know her in the first place, now that he came to think about it, except he’d written everything down on cyberpaper.

“Have you got a computer at home?”

“Yes.”

“Can I write you an e-mail?”

He tried to imagine that he was at his computer in the upstairs spare bedroom and he’d never met Annie, and she was thousands of miles away; he didn’t want to think about having to talk to her in half an hour’s time. He told her how he’d found out he had a first daughter, and how, even then, he hadn’t rushed to see her, because of his embarrassment and cowardice, how he’d only seen her three or four times in her life. He’d told her how he didn’t even like Julie Beatty much, so he had to stop singing songs about how he’d been crushed by the weight of his sorrow and desire and blah, blah, and when he’d stopped singing those songs he couldn’t find any others.

He’d never put it all together like this before; even his ex-wives didn’t know as much as Annie would. They’d never done the math either, not that he’d helped them—he’d lied about Grace’s age more than once. And when he stared at the sum total of his crimes on the screen, it seemed to him that they didn’t amount to a whole lot. He hadn’t killed anyone. He looked again: there must be something missing. Nope. He’d done twenty years for crimes he hadn’t committed.

He called down the stairs to Annie.

“You want me to print it out? Or you going to read it on the screen?”

“I’ll read it on the screen. Do you want to put the kettle on?”

“Is that easy?”

“I think you’ll manage.”

They passed each other on the stairs.

“You can’t throw us out on the streets tonight.”

“Ah. So now I see why you wanted to wait until Jackson was asleep. You were playing on my good nature.”

He smiled, despite the churning in his stomach, went to the kitchen, found the electric kettle, pressed its switch. While he was waiting for the kettle to boil, he spotted the picture of him and Jackson, the one that Cat had taken outside Citizens Bank Park when they’d gone to see the Phillies. He was touched that she’d taken the trouble to print it out and stick it up there. He didn’t look like a bad man, not in that photo. He leaned against the kitchen counter and waited.

“Okay,” she said, when she’d read what he’d written. “First of all, you call an ex-wife or one of your children or somebody now.”

“That’s all you have to say? About my whole career?”

“Now. Nonnegotiable. I’m presuming here that one of the things you’re owning up to is running away from Grace before she arrived at the hospital.”

“Oh. Yeah. Ha. I forgot I hadn’t owned up to that already.”

“You don’t have to speak to Grace, although you probably should. But somebody has to let her know. And you must tell them all you’re safe anyway.”

He chose Natalie. She’d be angry and cold and withering, but it wasn’t as if it mattered so much. He wasn’t counting on her to make him soup in his old age. He called her cell, she answered it, and he walked through the hailstorm of arrows to deliver the basic information she needed. He even gave her Annie’s phone number, as if he were a regular father.

“Thank you,” said Annie. “Second thing: Juliet is brilliant. Don’t lump the music in with the rest of it.”

“Have you been taking any of this in?”

“Yes. You’re a very bad man. You’ve been a useless father to four of your five children, and a useless husband to every single one of your wives, and a rubbish partner to every single one of your girlfriends. And Juliet is still brilliant.”

“How can you think that? Now that you know what a bunch of crap it all is.”

“When did you last listen to it?”

“God. Not since it was released.”

“I played it a couple of days ago. How many times have you heard it?”

“You know I, like, made it, don’t you?”

“How many times?”

“All the way through? Since it was finished?”

Had he ever? He was trying to remember. There had been a moment in just about every relationship when he’d walked in on somebody listening to his music furtively; he could remember all the startled guilty faces. It had even happened with a couple of his kids, although not Grace, thankfully. But then, he hadn’t seen enough of Grace to catch her doing anything furtively. He shook his head.

“Never?”

“I don’t think so. Why would I have done that? But I played those songs on stage every night for a while, remember. I’d know if there was anything in them. And there isn’t. They’re all lies.”

“You’re telling me that art is made up ? My God.”

“I’m telling you that my… art is inauthentic. Sorry. Let me rephrase that. I’m telling you my rock album is a fake bunch of crap.”

“And you think that matters to me?”

“I wouldn’t like it if I found out John Lee Hooker was a white accountant.”

“Is he not?”

“He’s dead.”

“You see, this is all news to me. Anyway, what you’re saying is I’m an idiot.”

“Huh? Where did that come from?”

“Well, I’ve listened to it hundreds of times, and it still doesn’t feel to me as though I’ve emptied it. So I must be daft. It’s all just facts, isn’t it, as far as you’re concerned? It’s a rotten album, fact. And if I can’t grasp the facts, then that makes me stupid.”

“No, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“So, go on. Square your feelings about Juliet with mine.”

He studied her. As far as he could tell, she was really irritated, which had to mean that she really did have something invested in the music. And whatever it was, he was dumping all over it.

He shrugged.

“I can’t. Unless I say, you know, everyone’s opinion is valid.”

“Which you don’t believe?”

“Not in this case, no. See… It’s like I’m a chef, and you’re eating in my restaurant, and you’re telling me how great my food is. But I know I pissed all over it before I served it up. So, you know, your opinion is valid, but…”

Annie wrinkled her nose and laughed. “But it demonstrates a certain lack of taste.”