Nick Hornby - Juliet, Naked

The request was enough to loosen Tucker’s grip on Duncan.

“That’s not nice, Jackson,” said his father.

“No, it isn’t,” said Duncan.

Tucker shot him a warning look, and Duncan held both hands up in immediate apology.

“So come on, Duncan. Explain to me how you ended up using Julie’s toilet.”

“I shouldn’t have done it,” said Duncan. “When I got to her house, I was bursting. And there was this kid there who knew where she kept her front-door key. And she was out, so we let ourselves in, and I went for a pee, and he showed me the picture. We were in there for five minutes maximum.”

“Oh, that makes it okay,” said Tucker. “Seven would have constituted a violation of her privacy.”

“I know it was stupid,” said Duncan. “I felt terrible about it. Still do. I tried to forget it ever happened.”

“And now you’re boasting about it.”

“I just wanted to prove that I’m… a serious person. A serious scholar, anyway.”

“It doesn’t look as though those two identities are compatible, does it? A serious person doesn’t break into somebody’s house.”

Duncan took a deep breath. For a moment, Annie was frightened that he was going to confess to something else.

“All I can say in my defense is that… well, you asked us to listen. And some of us listened a little too hard. I mean, if someone had had a chance to break into Shakespeare’s house, he should have taken it, shouldn’t he? Because then we’d know more. It would have been perfectly legitimate to… to rummage around in Shakespeare’s sock drawer. In the interests of history and literature.”

“So according to your logic Julie Beatty is Shakespeare.”

“Anne Hathaway.”

“Jesus Christ.” Tucker shook his head bitterly. “You people. And for the record: I’m not even Leonard Cohen, let alone Shakespeare.”

You asked us to listen … That much at least was true. It had to be. He’d always said the right things, back in the days when he still spoke to local radio DJs and rock writers: he’d told anyone who wanted to know that there wasn’t anything he could do about being a musician, he just was one, and he’d be one whether people wanted to listen to him or not. But he’d also told Lisa, Grace’s mother, that he wanted to be rich and famous, that he wouldn’t be happy until his talent got recognized in all the ways that talent could be recognized. The money never really happened—even Juliet only provided a decent living wage for a year or two—but other stuff did. He got the respect and the reviews and the fans and the model who used to hang out with Jackson Browne and Jack Nicholson. And he got Duncan and his buddies. If you wanted to get into people’s living rooms, could you then object if they wanted to get into yours?

“This will probably sound silly,” said Duncan, “and not what you want to hear. But I’m not the only person who thinks you’re a genius. And while you might think we’re… we’re inadequate as people, we’re not necessarily the worst judges in the world. We read, and watch movies, and think, and… I probably blew it as far as you’re concerned with my silly Naked review, which was written at the wrong time, and for the wrong reasons. But the original album… Do even you know how dense that was? I still haven’t peeled it all away, I don’t think, even after all this time. I don’t pretend to understand what those songs meant to you, but it’s the forms of expression you chose, the allusions, the musical references. That’s what makes it art. To my mind. And… sorry, sorry, one last thing. I don’t think people with talent necessarily value it, because it all comes so easy to them, and we never value things that come easy to us. But I value what you did on that album more highly than, I think, anything else I’ve heard. So thank you. And now I think I should leave. But I couldn’t meet you without telling you all that.”

And as he stood up, Annie’s phone rang. She answered it and held the receiver out to Tucker. Tucker didn’t notice it for a moment. He was still staring at Duncan, as if the words he’d just said were suspended somewhere near his mouth in a speech bubble and could be reread. Tucker wanted to reread them.

“Tucker.”

“Yeah.”

“Grace,” she said.

“Yay,” said Jackson. “Gracie.”

For most of the last twenty years, Tucker had Grace down as the key to a lot of things. She was why he’d stopped working; every time he’d taken the lid off himself and taken a peek inside, he’d had to close it quick. She was the spare room that never got tidied, the e-mail that never got answered, the loan that never got repaid, the symptom that never got described to a doctor. Except worse than any of that, obviously, what with her being a daughter, rather than an e-mail or a rash.

“Grace? Hold on a minute.”

As he took the handset from the kitchen to the living room, he suddenly saw that this strange little seaside town was perfect for the sort of reconciliation that could bring that whole sorry story to an end. He didn’t think he could ask Annie to accommodate yet another member of his family, but Grace could stay in a B&B or somewhere for a couple of days. The bleak pier they’d seen that morning… He could see them sitting on the boards, dangling their feet under the railings, talking and listening and talking.

“Tucker?”

“Dad” was an appellation you had to earn, he guessed, mostly by being one. Maybe that’s how their conversation on the pier would end: she’d call him “Dad,” and he’d weep a little.

“Yeah. Sorry. I was just taking the phone somewhere more private.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in this weird little seaside town on the east coast of

England called Gooleness. It’s great. You’d dig it. Grungy, but kind of cool.”

“Ha. Okay. You know I came from France to see you in the hospital?”

She had her mother’s voice. Or rather—and this was worse, really—she had her mother’s temperament: he could hear the same determination to think the best of him and of everybody else, the same puzzled smile. Neither Grace nor Lisa had ever made it easy for him: they’d both been heartbreakingly tolerant and sympathetic and forgiving. How was one supposed to deal with people like that? He preferred the chilly sarcasm that was his usual lot. He could ignore that.

“Yeah, Grace, I heard you were coming.”

“So, you know. Why did you run away?”

“I wasn’t running from you.”

He couldn’t afford too many lies, if he was really aiming at truth and reconciliation, but one or two little ones, judiciously positioned right at the beginning of the road in order to ease access, might be necessary. “I didn’t want to see you with all those other people.”

“Ummm… Is it unreasonable to point out that most of those other people are your children?”

“Most, sure. But not all. There were a couple of ex-wives in there. They were making me feel uncomfortable. And since I wasn’t feeling so great…”

“Well, I guess only you know how much you could cope with.”

“What I was thinking was, you could come up here,” said Tucker. “That way, you and I could…”

Some terrible words and phrases were coming into his mind: “quality time,” “heal,” “bond,” “closure.” He didn’t want to use any of them.

“What could we do, Tucker?”

“We could eat stuff.”

“Eat stuff?”

“Yeah. And I guess talk.”

“Hmmm.”

“What do you think? Should I get you the train schedule?”

“I think… I think I don’t want to do that.”

“Oh.”

He couldn’t quite believe it. Where was the accommodation in that?