Nick Hornby - Juliet, Naked

“I think he’s a little overcome,” said Annie. “He needs to recover his composure. Try and be nice to him. Just remember: this is the most amazing moment of his life.”

When Duncan came back in, Tucker gave him a big bear hug.

“It’s okay,” Tucker said. “Everything’s okay.”

Annie laughed, but Duncan held on a little too long, and she could see that he had his eyes closed.

“Duncan!” she said. And then, to make it sound as though she wasn’t telling him off, “Do you want to eat with us?”

They chatted, as best they could, while toast was buttered and eggs were scrambled. Annie could have kissed Tucker: he could see how nervous Duncan was, and he was asking him questions—about the town, his work, the kids at the college—that he seemed reasonably sure Duncan could answer without crying. There was a tremble in Duncan’s voice whenever he spoke, and he was adopting a slightly over-formal register for the occasion, and sometimes he’d giggle for no apparent reason, but most of the time it was possible to imagine that the four of them were participating in a casual weekend social occasion, the sort of thing they’d all done before and might do again.

Annie could have kissed Tucker for lots of other reasons, too. It struck her that everybody in her kitchen loved him with some degree of intensity. (Everybody else, anyway—she knew him well enough to understand that he wasn’t too keen on himself.) Jackson’s love was the most neurotic and needy, but well within the realms of the normal, as far as she could remember from her child psychology classes; Duncan’s was weird and obsessive; and hers… She could characterize it as a crush, or the beginnings of something deeper, or the pathetic fantasy of an increasingly lonely woman, or the recognition that she needed to sleep with someone before the decade was out, and sometimes she thought of it as all of these things at once, and she always wished that she hadn’t told him off so often over the previous twenty-four hours. And yes, he’d needed it, sort of, but only if he were to stay in the world he’d stepped into. There’d been a subtext to the scoldings: if you’re going to live with me in Gooleness, then you have to do right by your family. That’s how we do things around here. But seeing as he wasn’t going to live with her in Gooleness, what business was it of hers? It was like telling Spider-Man not to climb up buildings while he was here, because of health and safety. She was missing the point of him.

The social occasion soon fell, inevitably, into something else, mostly because every single thing that either Jackson or Tucker said either confirmed or disproved theses that Duncan had been constructing for years.

“Well,” said Duncan, as they sat down. “This looks nice.”

“My sister doesn’t eat bacon,” said Jackson, and Annie could see Duncan wrestling with himself: What was he allowed to ask?

“Have you got other brothers and sisters, Jackson?” he asked eventually, presumably on the grounds that to ask nothing at all would be rude.

“Yeah. Four. But they don’t live with me. They have different moms.”

Duncan choked on a piece of toast.

“Oh. Well. That’s…”

“And none of the moms is named Julie,” said Tucker.

“Ha!” said Duncan. “We’d rather given up on that theory anyway.”

Jackson looked at the men, uncomprehending.

“Don’t worry about it, Jack,” said Tucker.

“Okay.”

“I took Tucker and Jackson into the museum this morning,” said Annie. There was very little neutral ground for them to clamber on, in this conversation, seeing as every little detail about Tucker’s personal life would offer a life-threatening level of excitement. “Showed them the shark’s eye. Do you remember me telling you about that?”

“Yes,” said Duncan. “Indeed. Your exhibition must be opening soon.”

“Wednesday.”

“I must try and get along to see it.”

“We’re having a little drinks reception for it on Tuesday night. Nothing much. Just a few councillors, and the Friends.”

“You should get Tucker to sing,” said Duncan. It was going to be impossible, Annie could see that now. Duncan might only ever get one shot at this and he wasn’t going to waste it.

“Yes,” said Annie. “I’m sure that, if Tucker wanted to break his twenty-year silence, then the Gooleness Seaside Museum would be the most appropriate venue.”

Tucker laughed. Duncan looked down at his plate.

“I’d enjoy it, anyway. I… I don’t know what Annie’s told you, but I really am a very big admirer of your work. I’m… Well, I don’t think it would be overstating the case were I to describe myself as a world expert.”

“I’ve read your stuff,” said Tucker.

“Oh,” said Duncan. “Gosh. I… Well, you can tell me where I’ve gone wrong.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start,” said Tucker.

“Would you maybe like to do an interview? To set the record straight? You’ve possibly seen the website, so you know you’d get a fair hearing.”

“Duncan,” said Annie. “Don’t start.”

“Sorry,” said Duncan.

“There isn’t a record,” said Tucker. “There’s me and my life, and fifteen people like you who have for reasons best known to yourselves spent too much time guessing what that life is.”

“I suppose that’s what it must look like. From your perspective.”

“I’m not sure there’s another one.”

“We could limit the questions to the songs.”

“Don’t push it, Duncan,” said Annie. “I don’t think Tucker’s keen on the idea.”

“Was I right, by the way?” said Tucker. “Did you have some questions that you thought would prove that I am who I said I was?”

“I… Well, yes. I did have one.”

“Hit me. I want to see if I know my own life.”

“It’s possibly… I’m wondering whether it’s possibly too invasive.”

“Is it something I’d have to send Jackson out of the room for?”

“Oh, no. It’s just… Well, it’s silly really. I was going to ask you who else you’ve drawn, apart from Julie Beatty.”

Annie could feel the drop in temperature. Duncan had said something he shouldn’t have said, although she didn’t understand why he shouldn’t have said it.

“What makes you so sure I drew her?”

“I can’t divulge my sources.”

“Your sources are no good.”

“I respectfully beg to differ.”

Tucker put down his knife and fork.

“What is it with you guys? Why do you think you know stuff, when you know nothing at all about anything?”

“Sometimes we know more than you think.”

“Doesn’t sound like it to me.”

Duncan was suddenly unable to make eye contact with anyone at the table, which in Annie’s experience was the first sign that he was losing his temper. His anger was so carefully and closely managed that it only came out through the wrong holes.

“It’s a lovely drawing, the one of Julie. You’re good. I’ll bet she doesn’t smoke anymore, though.”

That last detail was triumphantly delivered, but the triumph was diminished by Tucker standing up, reaching across the table and lifting Duncan up by the neck of his Graceland T-shirt. Duncan looked terrified.

“You went into her house?”

Annie remembered the day Duncan had gone out to Berkeley. He’d come back to the hotel in a peculiar mood, flustered and a little evasive; that night he’d even told her that he felt his Tucker Crowe obsession was waning.

“Only to use the toilet.”

“She invited you in to use her toilet?”

“Tucker, please put him down,” said Annie. “You’re frightening Jackson.”

“He’s not,” said Jackson. “It’s cool. I don’t like that guy anyway. Punch him, Dad.”