The Girl on Paper

  Jacques Brel

  ‘Why is there a tank parked outside my house?’ I asked, pointing at the ostentatious sports car whose giant tyres dwarfed the kerb on Colony Road.

  ‘It’s not a tank,’ Milo replied irritably, ‘it’s a Bugatti Veyron, the Black Blood model. It’s one of the most powerful racing cars in the world.’

  Malibu

  A sunny afternoon

  Wind rustling the trees

  ‘You’ve bought another car? Are you collecting them or something?’

  ‘But this is so much more than a car, my friend. This is a work of art!’

  ‘Looks more like a babe magnet to me. Do girls really go for the whole car thing?’

  ‘Like I need a car to get girls!’

  I wasn’t so sure. I’d never understood my peers’ obsession with coupés, roadsters and convertibles.

  ‘Let’s go take a look at her!’ Milo suggested, his eyes shining with excitement.

  Not wanting to spoil his fun, I let him give me the full tour. With its sleek, elliptical shape and smooth lines, the Bugatti looked like a cocoon with a few growths on its exterior that glinted in the sunlight and contrasted sharply with the pitch-black bodywork: a chrome grille, metallic wing mirrors and glinting wheel-trims, where you could just make out the flaming blue of the disc brakes.

  ‘Do you want to check out the engine?’

  ‘But of course.’

  ‘You know they only ever made fifteen of these engines?’

  ‘No, but I’m so glad you told me.’

  ‘You can go from nought to sixty in under two seconds. At top speed, you can hit 250 mph.’

  ‘That’s great news, especially considering how expensive gas is now and how there are speed cameras every hundred yards around here, and I bet it’s really good for the environment!’

  Milo couldn’t hide his disappointment.

  ‘Do you have to be such a killjoy, Tom? You don’t know how to appreciate the good things in life. You need to learn to relax.’

  ‘Well, one of us has to be like that. And since you chose your role first I took the one that was left.’

  ‘Come on, get in.’

  ‘Can I drive?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You know perfectly well your licence has been suspended.’

  *

  The racing car left the shaded streets of Malibu Colony and joined the Pacific Coast Highway, which followed the coastline. The car hugged the road beautifully. The interior was lined with smooth leather that glinted a warm orange in the light. There was something extremely comfortable about it; I felt protected in the cosy surroundings and closed my eyes, letting the sound of Otis Redding on the radio wash over me.

  I knew full well that this sense of calm, fragile as it was, was only due to the tranquillisers I had taken after my shower, but the moments of relief were so rare I had learned to appreciate them whenever they came around.

  Ever since the day Aurore had left me it had felt as though a cancer were eating away at my heart, lodged there permanently like a rat in a pantry. Hungry for fresh meat, my ravenous grief had left me drained of all emotion and all willpower. During the first few weeks after the break-up, the constant threat of depression had kept me alert – I was determined to fight tooth and nail against despair and bitterness. But now I had lost my fear too and with it all dignity and even the desire to keep up appearances. The parasite that was growing inside me had gnawed away at me mercilessly, turning everything monochrome, sapping all my energy, extinguishing the last embers of hope. At the first sign of any intention on my part to regain control of my life, this canker turned into a hideous serpent, poisoning me with its venom, which seeped into my brain in the form of painful memories: Aurore’s quivering body, her scent, the fluttering of her eyelashes, the way her eyes would suddenly flash gold as they reflected the light.

  Soon even these memories became less vivid. I had so numbed myself with pills that everything had become blurry around the edges. I had started to let myself drift away, spending whole days sprawled on my couch in the darkness, protected by my chemically induced shield, knocked out cold by Xanax, which on bad days brought nightmares full of pointy-snouted rats with rough tails, nightmares from which I would awake covered in sweat, shivering and stiff with fear, wanting only one thing: to escape from reality once more by taking an even stronger dose of antidepressants than before.

  In this comatose haze, days had turned into months without my noticing, so loose was my grip on reality. But reality was still there: I was still being eaten alive by my grief and I hadn’t written anything in over a year. My mind felt blocked, paralysed into inactivity. Words no longer came to me, any will to write had deserted me, my imagination had dried up.

  *

  When we reached Santa Monica beach, Milo turned onto Interstate 10, following signs to Sacramento.

  ‘Did you see the game?’ he asked excitedly, handing me his iPhone, which was displaying a sports website. ‘The Angels beat the Yankees!’

  I glanced briefly at the screen, my mind on other things.

  ‘Milo?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You should be concentrating on the road, not me.’

  I knew that my friend found what I was going through difficult to relate to; it brought him face to face with things he didn’t really understand. As far as he was concerned, the breakdown, the emergence of that unbalanced side that we all have inside us, was something that he had wrongly believed would never happen to me.

  We turned right toward Westwood, going into Los Angeles’s Golden Triangle. As people like to point out, there is no cemetery and no hospital in this part of town. Just pristine streets and expensive boutiques, which operate on an appointment-only basis, like a doctor’s surgery. From a demographic point of view, no one is ever born or buried in Beverly Hills.

  ‘I hope you’re hungry,’ said Milo, turning onto Canon Drive.

  He screeched to a halt outside a stylish restaurant.

  After handing the keys to the valet, Milo led me confidently into this regular haunt of his.

  The former street kid from MacArthur Park saw the fact that he could walk into Spago’s without reservation, whilst mere mortals had to wait weeks for a table, as a kind of social payback.

  The maître d’ showed us to a chic patio area where business tycoons and Hollywood celebrities enjoyed the best tables. Milo made a discreet gesture: just a few feet away from us, Jack Nicholson and Michael Douglas were finishing their drinks, whilst over at another table, a sitcom actress who had fed our teenage fantasies picked at a lettuce leaf.

  I sat down, immune to the ‘important people’ around me. Over the last two years I had had the opportunity to meet people I had once idolised. At private parties, at various nightclubs, or in palatial houses, I had been able to talk to actors, singers and authors who had been my childhood heroes. But any illusions I had were utterly destroyed by these conversations. You don’t want to know what happens on the inside of the Dream Factory. In ‘real life’ these people I had once looked up to often turned out to be nothing more than a bunch of losers, predators methodically seeking out young girls that they would lure in, only to drop them as soon as they had served their purpose, before once more going out prowling for fresh meat. Just as sad were the actresses who were so charming and witty onscreen, but off camera staggered between lines of coke, anorexia, Botox and liposuction.

  But who was I to judge these people? Had I not myself become one of the crowd that I despised so much? Was I not also a victim of the loneliness that comes with fame, the dependence on medication, and the same selfishness which, in my more lucid hours, inevitably filled me with self-loathing?

  ‘Enjoy!’ announced Milo enthusiastically, pointing to the canapés that had come with our apéritifs.

  I took a small bite of a slice of bread topped with a sliver of tender meat.

  ‘It’s Kobe beef,’ he explained. ‘You know, in Japan they massag
e them with saké so that the fat is absorbed by their muscles?’

  I frowned slightly.

  He continued, ‘To tame them, their food is mixed with beer, and to relax them they are played classical music. Could be that the meat on your plate has listened to Aurore’s concertos. Maybe he fell in love with her music. See, now you have something in common!’

  I knew he was trying his hardest to try to lighten the mood, but even my sense of humour had abandoned me.

  ‘Come on, Milo, I’m getting tired. What is it that you wanted to tell me?’

  He wolfed down a last canapé without even tasting the meat, then took out a tiny laptop that he opened on the table.

  ‘OK, for now you have to keep in mind that I’m talking to you as your agent, and not your friend.’

  He always said this at the start of our so-called business meetings. Milo was the backbone of our little business. Cell phone surgically attached to his ear, he never seemed to stop, permanently on the phone to editors, foreign agents and journalists, always searching for a new way to promote the work of his only client: me. I don’t know how he managed to convince Doubleday to publish my books. In the competitive world of publishing he had learned his trade on the job, with no experience and no qualifications to help him, and had become one of the best, just through believing in me more than I believed in myself.

  He always said that he owed everything to me, but I knew that it was really the other way round: he was the one who had made me into a star by getting my first book onto all the bestseller lists. After this early success, I was offered contracts by some of the best agents in the business, but I had turned them all down.

  Because, above and beyond just being my friend, Milo possessed a rare quality that I prized above all others: loyalty.

  At least, that’s what I had always thought, until I heard what he had to say to me that day.

  4

  The inside world

  The outside world is so empty of hope that the inside world has become twice as precious to me

  Emily Brontë

  ‘Well, let’s start with the good news: your first two books are selling as well as ever.’

  Milo turned the computer screen so I could see the red and green lines shooting up to the top of the graph.

  ‘The international market has followed America’s lead, and your book is well on the way to becoming a global phenomenon. It’s only been six months and you’ve already received more than fifty thousand emails from readers! It’s incredible, isn’t it?’

  I turned to look at him. What he had just told me meant nothing to me. Heavy clouds hung in the smog-filled LA air. I missed Aurore. What was the point of being successful if I had no one to share it with?

  ‘Some more good news: shooting starts on the movie next month. Keira Knightley and Adrien Brody have both said yes and the big shots at Columbia are pretty excited. They’ve just managed to get the set designer from Harry Potter, and they think they’re looking at a July release across three thousand screens. I’ve been to a few casting sessions: they were amazing – you should have come.’

  As the waitress served the dishes we had ordered – crab tagliatelle for him and a chanterelle mushroom omelette for me – Milo’s phone started to vibrate.

  He glanced at the number on the screen, frowned a little, hesitating for just a second before deciding to take the call. He got up from the table and withdrew to the glass-covered walkway that led from the restaurant to the patio.

  The phone call was soon over. I had only caught snatches of the conversation because of the chatter from surrounding tables. I could tell that it was heated, with recriminations and references to problems that I knew nothing about.

  ‘That was Doubleday,’ explained Milo as he sat back down. ‘They were calling about one of the things I want to discuss with you. It’s nothing to worry about: just a problem with the printing of the special edition of your last book.’

  That edition was very important to me, and I had wanted every last detail to be perfect. It was to be bound in imitation leather, with watercolour illustrations showing the main characters, and a previously unpublished preface and postscript.

  ‘What sort of problem?’

  ‘To satisfy the huge public demand, they tried to rush the printing. They put the printer under enormous pressure and someone somewhere screwed up, which means they now have 100,000 faulty copies on their hands. They’re going to pulp them, but the annoying thing is that some of the copies have already been delivered to bookstores. They’re going to email all the stores and get them back.’

  He pulled a copy out of his bag and handed it to me. Even in my distracted state I spotted the problem straight away when I flicked through the copy. Only half of the 500 pages that made up the book had been printed. The story stopped abruptly on page 266, midway through a sentence:

  Billie wiped her eyes, which were blackened where her mascara had run.

  ‘Please, Jack, don’t leave like this.’

  But the man had already put on his coat. He opened the door, without so much as a backward glance at his mistress.

  ‘I’m begging you!’ she cried, falling

  And that was all there was. Not even a full stop. The book finished at ‘falling’, which was followed by 200 blank pages.

  Because I knew all my novels by heart, I had no trouble remembering what was supposed to come next: ‘“I’m begging you!” she cried, falling to her knees.’

  ‘Well, no point worrying about that too much,’ Milo cut in, picking up his fork. ‘It’s up to them to sort out the mess. The most important thing, Tom, is—’

  I knew what he was going to say before he even finished his sentence.

  ‘The most important thing now, Tom, is your next book.’

  My next book.

  He swallowed a large mouthful of pasta then started tapping keys on the computer.

  ‘The hype is unbelievable. Just take a look at this!’

  Milo had gone to Amazon’s homepage. From advance orders alone, my ‘next book’ was already number one, just above the fourth Millennium book, which was in second place.

  ‘What do you think of that then?’

  I sidestepped the question. ‘I thought Stieg Larsson was dead, and that they were never going to publish the fourth book.’

  ‘I’m talking about your book, Tom.’

  I turned my attention back to the screen, amazed by the fact that they were selling something that didn’t even exist yet, that would probably never exist. My next novel was due to be published on 10 December, just three months away. So far I had yet to write a single line and had only the vaguest idea of a plot in my head.

  ‘Look, Milo—’

  But my friend didn’t seem to want to let me speak.

  ‘This time, I promise I’ll get you a launch that will make Dan Brown jealous. You’d have to be living on another planet to miss this book coming out.’

  Milo was getting so carried away that it was difficult to stop him:

  ‘I’ve already started to hype the book, and there’s plenty of buzz on Facebook and Twitter, and a lot of discussion on book blogs between your supporters and your detractors—’

  ‘Milo—’

  ‘For the US and UK alone, Doubleday has ordered an initial print run of 4 million copies. The big names are expecting a great first week. We’ll have bookstores opening at midnight, like they did for Harry Potter!’

  ‘Milo—’

  ‘And you will have to put yourself in the spotlight a little more. I can get you an exclusive interview with NBC—’

  ‘Milo!’

  ‘Everyone’s really going crazy for you, Tom! No one wants to bring out their new book in the same week as yours, even Stephen King, who’s pushed the release date of his paperback to January so you don’t steal all his readers!’

  To shut him up, I slammed my fist down on the table.

  ‘STOP THIS!’

  Glasses shook and people around us jumped, shooting
disapproving looks in our direction.

  ‘There isn’t going to be a next book, Milo. Not for a few years, anyway. I can’t do it any more; you know that as well as I do. I’m all washed up. I can’t even put a few words down on paper and, most importantly, I don’t have any desire to.’

  ‘Well, at least try! Work is the best medicine. And, anyway, writing is your life. It’s your best hope for getting out of your depression!’

  ‘Don’t think I haven’t tried. I’ve sat in front of my screen for hours on end, but just looking at my computer makes me feel sick.’

  ‘Maybe you could get another computer, or start writing by hand in exercise books, like you used to.’

  ‘I could try writing on parchment or wax tablets – it still wouldn’t change anything.’

  Milo seemed to be losing patience.

  ‘You used to be able to work anywhere! I’ve seen you writing at a table in Starbucks, in plane seats, sitting on a basketball court, surrounded by guys yelling at each other. I’ve even seen you type out whole chapters on your cell phone, waiting for the bus in the rain.’

  ‘Well, I can’t any more. That’s finished.’

  ‘Millions of people are waiting to find out what happens next in the story. You owe it to your readers!’

  ‘It’s just a book, Milo, not the cure for AIDS.’

  He opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly froze, as though he were finally realising that there was no way of making me change my mind.

  Unless telling me the truth could.

  ‘Tom, there’s another problem.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘With the contracts.’

  ‘Which contracts?’

  ‘The ones we signed with Doubleday and with your foreign publishers. They paid us huge advances on condition that you would keep to the deadline.’

  ‘I never agreed to that.’

  ‘I agreed to it for you, and maybe you didn’t read the contracts all the way through, but you signed them.’

  I poured myself a glass of water. I didn’t like the way this conversation was going at all. For years we had each played our parts perfectly: I had let him take care of the business side of things, and I let my imagination take care of the creative side. Until now, this arrangement had suited me perfectly.