Juliet, Naked

Oregon, in 1985?”

“Not really.”

“Then this website isn’t for you.”

“How come you know so much about it? Are you one of the nine Brits?”

“No. There are no women who bother. My, you know, Duncan is.”

What was she supposed to call him? Not being married to him was becoming every bit as irritating as she imagined marriage to him might be. She wasn’t going to call him her boyfriend. He was forty-something, for God’s sake. Partner? Life partner? Friend? None of these words and phrases seemed adequately to define their relationship, an inadequacy particularly poignant when it came to the word “friend.” And she hated it when people just launched in and started talking about Peter or Jane when you had no idea who Peter and Jane were. Perhaps she just wouldn’t ever mention him at all.

“And he’s just written a million words of gibberish and posted them up for the world to see. If the world were interested, that is.”

She invited Ros to inspect Duncan’s piece, and Ros read the first few lines.

“Aaah. Sweet.”

Annie made a face.

“Don’t knock people with passions,” said Ros. “Especially passions for the arts. They’re always the most interesting people.”

Everyone had succumbed to that particular myth, it seemed.

“Right. Next time you’re in the West End, go and hang out by the stage door of a theater showing a musical and make friends with one of those sad bastards waiting for an autograph. See how interesting you find them.”

“Sounds like I should buy that CD.”

“Don’t bother. That’s what gets me. I played it, and he’s completely wrong. And for some reason I’m bursting to say so.”

“You should write your own review and stick it up next to his.”

“Oh, I’m not an expert. I wouldn’t be allowed.”

“They need someone like you. Otherwise they all disappear up their own bottoms.”

There was a knock on Annie’s open office door. An old lady wearing a hoodie was standing there offering them both an envelope. Ros stepped over and took it.

“Shark picture,” the old lady said, and waddled off.

Annie rolled her eyes. Ros opened the envelope, laughed and passed the picture over. It featured the same gaping, diseased wound that Annie’d seen in one of the other photos. But someone had had the bright idea of planting a small child on top of the shark. She was sitting there with her bare feet dangling inches from the hole; both toddler and wound were weeping.

“Jesus,” said Annie.

“Maybe nobody went to see the Rolling Stones here in 1964,” said Ros. “The dead shark was just too much fun.”

Annie started writing her review that night. She had no intention of showing it to anyone; it was just a way of working out whether what she thought meant anything to her. It was also a way of sticking a fork into her irritation, which was beginning to swell like a sausage on a barbecue. If it burst, then she could imagine consequences that she wasn’t yet prepared for.

She had to write at work—letters, descriptions of exhibitions, captions, bits and pieces for the museum website—but most of the time, it seemed to her, she had to think up something to say, create an opinion from nothing. This was different; it was all she could do to stop herself from following every single one of the strands of thought she’d been chewing on for the last couple of days. Juliet, Naked had somehow given her ideas about art and work, her relationship, Tucker’s relationship, the mysterious appeal of the obscure, men and music, the value of the chorus in song, the point of harmony and the necessity of ambition, and every time she finished a paragraph, the next one appeared in front of her, unbidden and annoyingly unconnected to the last. One day, she eventually decided, she would try to write about some of those things, but it couldn’t be here and now; she wanted this essay to be about the two albums, the immeasurable and unquestionable superiority of one over the other. And maybe about what people (Duncan, in other words) thought they heard in Naked that wasn’t actually there, and why these people (he) heard these things, and what it said about them. And maybe… No. That was enough. The album had created such mental turbulence that she briefly began to wonder whether it was a work of genius after all, but she dismissed the idea. She knew from her book group that novels none of them had enjoyed could produce stimulating and sometimes even useful conversation; it was the absences in Naked (and, therefore, in Duncan) that had made her think, not the presences.

Meanwhile, Duncan’s friends on the website had been listening, and several more long reviews had been posted. In Tuckerland, it was something like Christmas; clearly those who believed had stopped work for the festive season, in order to spend time with their extended Internet family and, from the look of some of the pieces of writing, celebrate with a few beers or a spliff. “NOT a masterpiece but masterful nonetheless,” was the headline of one review. “WHEN WILL THE POWERS THAT BE RELEASE ALL THE REAL UNRELEASED STUFF?” said another, who went on to say that he knew for a fact that there were seventeen albums of material in the vaults.

“Who’s that guy?” she asked Duncan, after trying to read a paragraph of his feverish, occasionally rather affecting prose.

“Oh. Him. Poor old Jerry Warner. He used to teach English at some public school somewhere, but he got caught with a sixth-form boy a couple of years back, and he’s been a bit off the rails since. Too much time on his hands. Why do you keep looking at the website, anyway?”

She’d finished her essay now. Somehow Juliet, Naked—or her feelings about it, anyway—had woken her from a deep sleep: she wanted things. She’d wanted to write, she wanted Duncan to read what she’d written. She wanted the other message board members to read it, too. She was proud of it, and she had even begun to wonder whether it might not be socially useful in some way. Some of these cranks, she hoped, might read it, blush a deep crimson and return to their lives. There was no end to her wanting.

“I wrote something.”

“What about?”

“About Naked.”

Duncan looked at her.

“You?”

“Yes. Me.”

“Gosh. Well. Wow. Ha.” He smiled, stood up and started pacing around the room. This was the closest she would ever get to telling him that he was about to become the father of twins. He wasn’t thrilled by the news, but he knew he wasn’t allowed to be openly discouraging.

“And do you think… Well, do you think you’re qualified to write something?”

“Is it a matter of qualifications?”

“Interesting question. I mean, you’re perfectly at liberty to write whatever you want.”

“Thanks.”

“But for the website… People expect a certain level of expertise.”

“In the first paragraph of his post, Jerry Warner says that Tucker Crowe lives in a garage in Portugal. How expert is that?”

“I’m not sure you’re supposed to take him literally.”

“So, what, he lives in a Portuguese garage of the mind?”

“Yes, he’s wayward, Jerry. But he can sing every word of every song.”

“That qualifies him to busk outside a pub. It doesn’t necessarily make him a critic.”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Duncan, as if he had a crazy gut feeling that the receptionist should be offered a place on the board of his company. “Let me see it.”

She was holding the piece in her hand. She gave it to him.

“Oh. Right. Thank you.”