The Girl on Paper

  Victor Hugo

  ‘Obviously, anything was going to be a let-down after the Bugatti,’ Billie pointed out, a hint of disappointment creeping into her voice.

  Southern outskirts of San Diego, 7 p.m.

  A dingy, run-down garage

  She sat down in the front seat of the car, a 1960s Fiat 500 missing its hubcaps and chromework, which Santos, the mechanic who had been recommended to us, was trying to pass off as a solid station wagon.

  ‘Sure, it’s not the most comfortable ride, but believe me it’s reliable!’

  ‘Whose idea was it to paint it pink?’

  ‘It was my daughter’s car,’ explained the Mexican.

  ‘Ow!’ cried Billie, banging her head against the roof as she got out. ‘You sure you don’t mean your daughter’s Barbie’s car?’

  It was my turn to look inside.

  ‘The back seat has been ripped out,’ I said.

  ‘More space for your luggage!’

  I inspected the headlights, indicators and hazard lights, pretending I knew what I was doing.

  ‘Are you sure it’s all OK?’

  ‘According to Mexican standards, yes.’

  I checked the time on my phone. We had picked up the $28,000 as planned, but we had wasted a lot of time getting from the pawnbroker’s warehouse to the garage. This car was almost certainly on its last legs, but without a driver’s licence between us, we could neither buy nor rent one the legal way. This car also had the advantage of a Mexican licence plate, which would make it easier for us over the border.

  Santos finally agreed to sell it to us for $1,200, but we had to struggle for fifteen minutes just to get my suitcase and Madam’s effects into such a cramped space.

  ‘Isn’t this the car they called “the yoghurt pot”?’ I asked, pushing down on the door of the trunk with all my strength.

  ‘El bote de yogur?’ he translated, pretending not to understand the connection I was making between the dairy product and the pile of junk that he was only too happy to offload on us.

  This time it was me at the wheel, and it was with slight apprehension that we hit the road again. It was already dark. We weren’t in one of the nicer areas of San Diego, and I found it difficult to orient myself amongst the endless parking lots and shopping malls, but we finally got ourselves back onto the 805, which led to the border.

  The tyres squealed on the asphalt and the powerful roar of the Bugatti had been replaced by the nasal whine of the Fiat’s little engine.

  ‘Come on, let’s go up to second gear,’ suggested Billie.

  ‘I’m already in fourth!’

  She glanced at the speedometer, which had barely reached 40 mph.

  ‘That’s as fast as it goes then,’ she said, crestfallen.

  ‘Well, at least now we won’t be breaking any speed limits.’

  The battered old thing just about got us to the Tijuana border crossing. It was a typical day there, lively and traffic-clogged. As we joined the ‘Mexico only’ line, I went over the procedure with my passenger.

  ‘We shouldn’t have a problem going in this direction, but if we do we’re going straight to jail. So no messing around this time, OK?’

  ‘I’m all ears,’ she said, blinking her Betty Boop eyes.

  ‘It’s not complicated: you keep your mouth shut and you don’t move a muscle. We’re just two innocent Mexican workers coming home after a day’s work. Got it?’

  ‘Vale, señor.’

  ‘And if you could quit fooling around for one second I would be eternally grateful.’

  ‘Muy bien, señor.’

  For once, we got lucky. We were through in less than five minutes, no searches, no questions asked.

  We stayed close to the coast, as we had done for most of the journey. Luckily the mechanic had installed a radio-cassette player. Unluckily, the only cassette we could find was an Enrique Iglesias album, which sent Billie into raptures, but made my ears bleed all the way to Ensenada.

  When we got there, a storm broke out of nowhere, and torrential rain beat down on us. The windshield was tiny and the flimsy wipers were so ineffectual that I often had to stick my arm out of the window to keep them working.

  ‘Let’s stop at the first place we find.’

  We passed a motel, but it had a ‘no vacancy’ sign outside it. We couldn’t see three yards ahead of us. Forced to keep my speed at 15 mph, I was getting a lot of grief from drivers stuck behind me, and the angry blare of horns accompanied us as we crawled along.

  We finally found shelter in San Telmo, in the Casa del Sol Motel, a rather inappropriate name given the circumstances, whose neon ‘vacancy’ sign flickered comfortingly in the rain. Judging by the state of the cars in the parking lot, I guessed that this place was not going to be a nice little B&B, but we weren’t exactly on our honeymoon anyway.

  ‘We’ll just get one bedroom, right?’ she teased, walking into reception.

  ‘One bedroom with two beds.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to be throwing myself at you any time soon.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not worried. I’m not a Mexican gardener – I’m not your type.’

  The receptionist grunted at us. Billie asked if we could see the room first, but I grabbed the key and paid up before she could say anything else.

  ‘Well, we don’t have anywhere else to go, it’s pouring out there and I’m exhausted.’

  The one-storey building formed a U-shape round a courtyard planted with scrawny, dead-looking trees that were bending in the wind.

  Unsurprisingly the room was extremely basic and badly lit, and a strange smell hung in the air. The furniture must have been in vogue when Eisenhower was in office. There was an enormous television set on a stand with four wheels and a large speaker behind the screen. The kind of ‘antique’ you might pick up at a yard sale.

  ‘Think about it,’ joked Billie. ‘People probably watched the moon landing and Kennedy’s assassination on this screen!’

  I switched it on, curious to see what would happen. It made a vague crackling noise, but no image appeared on the screen.

  ‘Well, I guess we won’t be watching the Superbowl in here.’

  The shower was roomy, but the taps were covered in rust.

  ‘I’ll let you in on a secret,’ said Billie, grinning. ‘You can tell by looking behind the bedside table if they’ve done the dusting properly.’

  Putting her words into action, she moved the table aside, then let out a scream. ‘Gross!’ she said, throwing her shoe at a cockroach. She turned to look at me, hoping to be comforted. ‘Shall we go and have our authentic Mexican dinner?’

  I was less than enthusiastic. ‘Look, there’s no restaurant around here, it’s pissing down out there, I’m totally wiped out and not particularly inclined to get back behind the wheel.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re just like all the others, all talk and no action.’

  ‘I’m going to bed, OK?’

  ‘Come on, let’s at least have a drink somewhere! We passed a little bar on the way here, just down the road.’

  I started to take off my shoes, then lay down on one of the beds.

  ‘Go without me. It’s already late and we have a long way to go tomorrow. And anyway I don’t like bars, especially not ones by the side of the road.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll go without you.’

  She went into the bathroom with a few of her things, to emerge moments later in a pair of jeans and a fitted leather jacket. She was ready to go, but looked as though she had something she wanted to get off her chest first.

  ‘Earlier, when you said you weren’t my type…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What do you see as my type?’

  ‘Well, take that asshole Jack, for example. Or even Esteban, who didn’t stop leering at you the whole time we were in that truck, probably led on by your come-hither stares and provocative outfit.’

  ‘Is that really how you see me, or are you trying to be cruel?’

  ‘Honestly,
that’s how I see you, and I know I’m right, because I created you.’

  Her face darkened and she left without saying another word.

  ‘Wait,’ I said, getting up to follow her. ‘At least take some money with you.’

  She held my gaze defiantly.

  ‘If you really knew me at all, you’d know that I’ve never had to buy my own drinks.’

  *

  Suddenly alone, I had a lukewarm shower, strapped up my ankle again and opened my suitcase to find something to sleep in. As Billie had promised, I found my laptop staring up at me like a physical manifestation of my guilt. I paced up and down the room for a while then opened the cupboard, hoping to find a pillow. In the drawer of one of the bedside tables, next to a cheap copy of the New Testament, I found two other books, no doubt left behind by previous occupants. The first was Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s bestseller The Shadow of the Wind, a book I had once given to Carole as a present, and the second was called La Compañía de los Ángeles. It took me a few seconds to work out that this was the Spanish translation of my first novel. I leafed through it curiously. The last person to read it had taken the time to underline certain sentences and had even made a few notes here and there. I couldn’t tell whether the person had loved or hated the book, but they had obviously felt strongly about it and that was what mattered to me the most.

  Feeling encouraged by this discovery, I sat down at the tiny Formica desk and switched on my computer.

  What if I got it back? I could start writing again; I could want to start writing again!

  The screen demanded my password. I felt the familiar anxiety resurfacing, but I tried to tell myself it was just nervous excitement. When the image of a beach appeared on the desktop I launched Word and a gleaming blank page appeared on the screen. At the top of the page, the cursor blinked expectantly, waiting for my fingers to start moving across the keyboard. My pulse sped up as if someone had put my heart in a vice. I suddenly felt dizzy and so nauseous that I had to switch off the computer again.

  Damn it.

  Writer’s block, blank-page syndrome, whatever you called it, I had never thought it would affect me. As far as I was concerned, a lack of inspiration was something that only afflicted pretentious intellectuals who wrote self-consciously, striking poses as they went along, not scribblers like me, who had been making up stories in their heads since the age of ten.

  Some artists had to invent their misery in order to create something of value, because there was not enough real misery in their lives. Others used their personal sorrow as a kind of trigger. Frank Sinatra had written ‘I’m a Fool to Want You’ after his break-up with Ava Gardner. Apollinaire had written ‘Sous le pont Mirabeau’ after his separation from Marie Laurencin. And Stephen King had always been very open about the fact that he had written The Shining under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Although I could not put myself in the same league as these greats, I had never needed chemical stimulation to write. For years I had spent every moment of every day – Christmas and Thanksgiving included – channelling my imagination onto the page. When I was on a roll, nothing else mattered: I was in a different place, in a trance, in a kind of hypnotic dream. During these fertile periods, writing itself became a drug, more euphoric than the purest coke, more delightful than the most intoxicating drunkenness.

  But all of that felt very far away now. I had given up writing and writing seemed to have given up on me.

  *

  One tranquilliser. It was important not to imagine I was stronger than I was. To humbly accept my addiction.

  I went to bed and turned out the light. I tossed and turned; sleep would not come. I felt utterly powerless. Why was I no longer capable of doing my job? When had I stopped caring about what became of the characters I had created?

  I saw from the ancient radio-alarm clock that it was 11p.m. I was starting to worry about Billie; she still hadn’t come back. Why had I been so harsh on her? I suppose because I still hadn’t quite come to terms with her sudden appearance and intrusion in my real life, and also because I didn’t feel capable of sending her back to hers.

  I got up, dressed quickly and went out into the rain. I had been walking for a good ten minutes before I saw the greenish neon sign that told me I was close to the Linterna Verde.

  The bar was busy, and the clientele almost entirely male. There was a lively atmosphere. The tequila was flowing freely and the old stereo blasted out classic rock. Her tray loaded with bottles, a waitress weaved between the tables, refuelling those who had finished their drinks. A wizened old parrot in a cage kept the drinkers sitting at the bar amused, while another barmaid – whom the regulars seemed to call Paloma – attracted catcalls as she took orders. I asked for a beer and she served me a Corona with a wedge of lime. I scanned the room. It was decorated with wooden screens, which looked vaguely Mayan. On the walls, old scenes from westerns jostled for space with photos of local football teams.

  Billie was sitting at the back of the room with two macho-looking guys. They were laughing raucously. I approached the group, beer in hand. She saw me, but acted as if she hadn’t. Judging by her dilated pupils I guessed she had already downed quite a few drinks. I knew all of her weaknesses, and I knew that alcohol often didn’t agree with her. I could also tell what these guys were like, and what they were after. They might not have been the sharpest tools in the box, but they obviously had a radar for vulnerable women, who were their prey.

  ‘Come on, I’m taking you back to the motel.’

  ‘Leave me alone. You’re not my dad and you’re not my husband. I asked if you wanted to come with me and you chewed me out.’

  She shrugged her shoulders and dipped a nacho in her guacamole.

  ‘Don’t be so childish. You can’t hold your drink and you know it.’

  ‘I can take my drink perfectly well, thank you,’ she said provocatively, grabbing the bottle of mescal that was standing in the middle of the table and pouring herself another glass. She then passed it to her companions, who both swigged straight from the bottle. The more muscly of the two, who was wearing a T-shirt that bore the name ‘Jesus’, offered me the bottle, like some kind of initiation.

  I looked suspiciously at the little scorpion at the bottom of the bottle, a sign of the local belief that the animal represented power and virility.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said.

  ‘If you don’t want to drink, you can leave, buddy! You can see the little lady is having a good time with us.’

  Instead of doing as he said, I took another step toward the table and looked Jesus straight in the eye. For all that I was an avid reader of Jane Austen and Dorothy Parker, I had also been raised on the streets. I had thrown as many punches as I had taken, from guys with knives, from guys much more intimidating than the one I was looking at now.

  ‘You can shut the hell up.’

  Then I turned to Billie again.

  ‘The last time you got drunk, it didn’t end well, remember?’

  She looked back at me disdainfully.

  ‘You really know how to wound people with your words, don’t you? They always hit right where it hurts. You’ve got a real talent for that, you know?’

  Just after Jack had cancelled their vacation to Hawaii at the last minute, she had made straight for the Red Piano, a bar near the Old State House. She was devastated, pretty much at rock bottom. To dull the pain, she had let a certain Paul Walker, who ran several local convenience stores, buy her a succession of vodka tonics. She didn’t say no, which he took to mean yes. In the taxi he had started to feel her up. She resisted, but perhaps not enough, because the guy clearly thought he was owed some kind of reward for all the drinks he had paid for. Her head was spinning so much that she didn’t even know what she wanted any more. Paul had followed her into her apartment block and invited himself up for another drink. Tired of the struggle, she had let him come up in the elevator with her, afraid he would wake the neighbours if she said no. After that point she had no recollection of wha
t had happened. She had woken up the next morning on the sofa, her skirt up around her waist. She had spent the next three months in a permanent state of panic, taking endless pregnancy and HIV tests, but hadn’t been able to bring herself to press charges, feeling partly responsible for what had happened to her.

  I had brought this awful memory back to her and now she looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

  ‘Why do you make me go through these things in your books?’

  The question hit home. I gave her the honest answer.

  ‘Probably because I gave you a lot of my personal demons to wrestle with. My darkest side, all the things I hate myself for, manifest themselves in you. The side that makes me lose all self-respect and self-esteem.’

  Stunned into silence, she still didn’t seem to want to come with me.

  ‘I’ll take you back to the motel,’ I insisted, offering her my hand.

  ‘Como chingas!’ Jesus whistled between his teeth.

  I ignored the provocation and kept my eyes on Billie.

  ‘The only way to get out of this is together. You’re my lifeline and I’m yours.’

  She was about to answer when I heard Jesus call me joto, faggot, an insult I was familiar with because it was the favourite swearword of Tereza Rodriguez, the old lady from Honduras who worked as my cleaner and who had been my mother’s next-door neighbour in MacArthur Park.

  The punch came out of nowhere. A proper right hook, straight from my teenage glory days, which knocked Jesus onto the next table, sending beer bottles and nachos flying. A great first blow, but sadly there were no more to come.

  In less than a second the atmosphere in the room was electric. Delighted to see things hotting up, the punters joined in with cries of ‘Fight! Fight!’ From behind, two guys lifted me up off the ground, before a third made me regret ever having set foot in the bar. Blows came from all angles at terrifying speed, striking me in the face, stomach and groin, but, in some perverse way, the vicious beating was doing me good. Not because I took any masochistic pleasure in it, but perhaps because this martyrdom was one small step on my road to redemption. Lying on the ground, my mouth was filled with the metallic taste of blood. Flashing images danced in front of my eyes, a mixture of things that were happening in the room and memories of other times, other places: Aurore looking lovingly at another man in the pages of a gossip magazine, Milo’s betrayal, Carole’s far-away look, the tattooed hip of Paloma, the Latina babe who had just turned up the music, and whom I could make out shaking her booty to the rhythm of the blows that were raining down on me. And Billie, I could see Billie moving toward me with the mescal bottle in her hand, ready to crack it over the head of one of my attackers.