The Girl on Paper Page 10

  ‘A nice little motel.’ As if we were on vacation!

  ‘And then tomorrow we’ll wake up early and get going straight away. Cabo San Lucas is 750 miles from Tijuana. We could do that in a day, and get to your one true love’s hotel by sundown.’

  When she put it like that, it sounded easy enough.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket – I could still receive calls, even if I could no longer make them. Milo’s number flashed on the screen. He had been leaving me voicemails every ten minutes for the last hour, but I was systematically erasing them, without even listening.

  ‘So we’re agreed: I’m going to help you patch things up with your sweetheart and in exchange you’re going to write this damned third volume!’ she summarised.

  ‘What makes you think I’ve still got any chance with Aurore? She’s madly in love with her Formula 1 man.’

  ‘That’s my problem, not yours. You just concentrate on writing. But no messing around, got it? I want a full-blown proper novel. And don’t forget my terms and conditions.’

  ‘I’m sorry? Terms and conditions?’

  She nibbled the end of her pen, like a small child about to start her homework.

  ‘Firstly,’ she began, marking a large 1) on the paper tablecloth in front of her, ‘I want you to stop making me the fall guy in your plotlines. Does it amuse you to lump me with every scumbag on the planet? Do you enjoy setting me up with married men whose wives no longer excite them and who see me as nothing more than a sure thing to satisfy their frustrated sex drives? Maybe my unhappiness makes your female readers feel better about themselves but it’s killing me bit by bit.’

  This unexpected tirade left me speechless. It was certainly true that I hadn’t cut Billie much slack in her life, but as far as I was concerned, that wasn’t a problem: she was a fictitious character, a purely abstract creation who existed solely in my imagination and in the imaginations of my readers. She was a heroine whose material form consisted of nothing but words on a page, but now the creature was attacking the creator!

  ‘Secondly,’ continued Billie, tracing a 2) on the tablecloth, ‘I’ve had enough of being broke. I love my job, but I work on the cancer ward and I can’t deal with watching people suffer and die every day. I’ve become a human sponge: I absorb my patients’ emotions. And I’m also up to my ears in student debt! I don’t know if you know what nurses get paid, but it’s not exactly Wall Street!’

  ‘So what can I do to make you happy?’

  ‘I want to be transferred to the paediatric ward. I want to deal with life, rather than death. I’ve been asking to move for two years now, but that shrew Cornelia Skinner says no every time. She claims we’re understaffed. And—’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘I’d love to come into a little money sometime soon, just to oil the wheels.’

  ‘Now hang on—’

  ‘What difference does it make to you? It’s so easily done! It would only take a line! Look, I’ll even write it for you: “Billie suddenly inherited half a million dollars from an uncle whose sole living relative she was.”’

  ‘Yeah, I guess I could do that. You clearly have no scruples about me killing off an uncle of yours!’

  ‘No, no, not my real uncle obviously, just some great-uncle once removed that I never knew, you know, like in the movies.’

  She wrote down her sentence, obviously pleased with herself.

  ‘Is that the end of your letter to Santa? Shall we get going?’

  ‘One more thing,’ she said, calmly. ‘The most important thing of all.’

  She wrote a 3) at the edge of the tablecloth, and then a name:

  Jack

  ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘I want Jack to leave his wife for good to come and live with me.’

  Jack was Billie’s lover. He was a married man, a selfish jerk with devastating good looks, and the father of two small boys. She had been having a passionate and painful affair with him for the past two years. He was a jealous and possessive narcissist who kept her firmly under his thumb, flipping between declarations of love and humiliating put-downs, always keeping her in the role of a mistress whom he could screw and then discard as he pleased.

  I shook my head in disgust.

  ‘Jack thinks with his dick.’

  I didn’t even see her hand coming. She slapped me as hard as she could, almost knocking me off my stool.

  The few customers left in the restaurant had all turned to stare at us, waiting for my reaction.

  How can she defend that jerk? wondered the angry voice in my head. Because she’s in love with him, for God’s sake! answered the more rational voice.

  ‘You have no right to pass judgement on my personal life, any more than I have the right to judge yours,’ she said defiantly. ‘I’m helping you get Aurore back, and you’re going to invent a life for me where I wake up every day in Jack’s arms – deal?’

  She signed the contract that she had drawn up on the tablecloth, then carefully tore it free and offered me her pen.

  ‘Deal,’ I said, rubbing my face.

  I signed on the proverbial dotted line and threw a few dollar bills on the table so we could leave.

  ‘You’ll pay for that slap,’ I promised her, giving her a withering look.

  ‘Yeah, we’ll see about that,’ she said, walking back to the car.

  16

  Speed limits

  That’s thirty minutes away. I’ll be there in ten.

  From Pulp Fiction, directed by Quentin Tarantino

  ‘You’re driving way too fast!’

  We had been travelling for about three hours.

  For the first sixty miles or so we had followed the seafront, passing Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and San Clemente, but the coast road was so busy that we’d turned onto California Route 78 after Oceanside, cutting through Escondido.

  ‘You’re going way too fast!’ I repeated, having got no reaction the first time.

  ‘Are you joking?’ replied Billie. ‘We’re barely doing seventy-five!’

  ‘But the limit here is fifty!’

  ‘So? This thing works fine, doesn’t it?’ she said, pointing to the radar detector that Milo had installed.

  I opened my mouth to protest, but suddenly a red warning light started to flash on the dashboard. An alarming rattling noise came from the engine, which then gave out completely. The vehicle ground to a halt a few yards down the road, giving me the opportunity to vent the anger that had been building up inside me since we had started driving.

  ‘I knew it was a ridiculous idea to go chasing after Aurore! We’ll never get to Mexico – we have no plan, no money and now no car!’

  ‘It’s OK, there’s no need to get wound up; we might be able to fix this ourselves,’ she said, getting out of the car.

  ‘What do you mean, fix it? It’s a Bugatti, not a bicycle!’

  Unruffled, Billie opened the hood and started to rummage around in the engine. I followed her, continuing my tirade.

  ‘These things are all electronic now; you need twelve engineers just to work out what the problem is in the first place. I’ve had enough: I’ll hitch a ride back to Malibu.’

  ‘Well, if you thought the car breaking down was going to let you off the hook, you can think again,’ she retorted, closing the hood.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I fixed it.’

  ‘What? Seriously?’

  She turned the key in the ignition and the car started up immediately.

  ‘There wasn’t really anything wrong with it; one of the radiators in the cooling system got disconnected, which automatically cut off the fourth turbo compressor and turned on the warning light for the central hydraulic system.’

  ‘Right,’ I replied, nonplussed. ‘Nothing wrong with it at all, really.’

  When we were back on the highway, I had to ask: ‘Where did you learn to do stuff like that?’

  ‘You of all people should know that!’

  I had to think back ov
er the details of my various characters to come up with the answer.

  ‘Your two brothers!’

  ‘Of course!’ she replied, accelerating. ‘You gave me mechanics for brothers and they passed on their passion to me.’

  *

  ‘You’re driving way too fast!’

  ‘Oh, you’re not going to start that again, are you?’

  Twenty minutes later

  ‘Indicate! Normally people indicate before they suddenly pull into another lane!’

  She stuck out her tongue impishly.

  We had just passed Rancho Santa Fe and we were trying to get back onto State Route 15. The air was warm and the afternoon sun cast a soft light on the trees and brought out the red ochre tones of the hills. We were not far from the Mexican border.

  ‘And while you’re at it,’ I said, looking pointedly at the car radio, ‘would you turn off the crappy tunes you’ve been inflicting on me for hours?’

  ‘You have such a refined turn of phrase – it really shows how well read you are.’

  ‘Seriously, how can you listen to this stuff? Remixes of remixes, bad rap lyrics, plastic R & B singers that all look and sound exactly the same—’

  ‘It’s just like being in the car with my father.’

  ‘So what’s this trash playing now?’

  She rolled her eyes dramatically. ‘Trash? It’s the Black Eyed Peas!’

  ‘Do you ever listen to real music?’

  ‘What do you class as “real music”?’

  ‘Bach, the Rolling Stones, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan—’

  ‘All right, well, why don’t you get your gramophone out for me sometime, Grandpa?’ she replied playfully, turning off the radio.

  For three minutes she was completely silent – a feat worthy of The Guinness Book of World Records as far as she was concerned – before piping up again.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Thirty-six,’ I answered, frowning.

  ‘Ten years older than me,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Yes, and?’

  ‘And nothing,’ she said, whistling to herself.

  ‘Look, if you’re going to start going on about generation gaps, you can stop right there, honey.’

  ‘That’s what my grandfather used to call me.’

  I turned the radio back on and started hunting for a station that played jazz.

  ‘Still, don’t you think it’s quite strange that you only listen to music that was recorded before you were born?’

  ‘Tell me, lover-boy Jack, how old is he again?’

  ‘Forty-two,’ she conceded, ‘but he’s a bit more on it than you are.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Every morning he does his Frank Sinatra in the bathroom, belting out “My Way” in front of the mirror! He uses his hair dryer as a microphone!’

  She looked at me with big, round eyes.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Author’s privilege. I know all your secrets, even the ones you don’t like to admit to yourself. Joking aside though, what do you see in the guy?’

  She just shrugged. ‘He got under my skin. I can’t explain it.’

  ‘Try.’

  She looked at me earnestly.

  ‘From the first time our eyes met, there was something between us, something instinctive, like animal attraction. We recognised each other. As if we had been together before we even met.’

  What a load of crap. A string of banalities that I was unfortunately responsible for.

  ‘But this guy couldn’t care less about you. When you first met, he hid his wedding ring. He waited six months before he told you he was married!’

  She blanched, clearly stung by the painful memory.

  ‘And, between you and me, Jack was never planning on leaving his wife.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m relying on you to change!’

  ‘Time and time again he humiliates you, and instead of telling him where to stick it you hero-worship him!’

  This time, she didn’t even try to excuse him and concentrated on driving, which made us speed up again.

  ‘Do you remember last winter? He promised you, swore to you, that you would spend New Year’s Eve together. I know it meant a lot to you, symbolically, to start the year with him. So you took care of everything. You booked a beautiful little bungalow in Hawaii and paid for the whole thing yourself. And what happened? The night before, he told you he wouldn’t be able to leave his family. Always the same story – his wife and kids first. And do you remember what happened next?’

  As I waited for an answer that I knew wasn’t coming, I studied the dashboard, which showed we were going at over 100 mph.

  ‘You really are driving too fast.’

  She took one hand off the steering wheel to give me the finger, at the precise moment a speed camera flashed, photographing us going faster than we had gone all day.

  She slammed on the brakes, but the damage was done.

  The classic trap: a speed camera just at the edge of some godforsaken hole in the middle of nowhere, at least half a mile from the nearest house.

  We heard the screech of a siren, accompanied by flashing lights.

  Tucked out of sight behind a thicket, the local sheriff’s Ford Crown had just come out of its hiding place. I turned round to see the blue and red lights of the vehicle that was now giving chase.

  ‘I told you about ten times you were going too fast!’

  ‘Well, if you weren’t so annoying—’

  ‘Oh, it’s so easy to blame other people, isn’t it?’

  ‘Shall I try to lose them?’

  ‘Stop messing around and pull over.’

  Billie flicked on her indicator and reluctantly did as I asked, while I kept on at her.

  ‘Now we really are in trouble: you don’t have a licence, you’re driving a stolen car and you’ve definitely set a record for the worst case of speeding in the history of San Diego County!’

  ‘OK, OK, are you done yet? I’ve had enough of your self-righteous preaching! No wonder your girl ran off!’

  I glared at her, furious. ‘There really are no words to describe you! You’re the ten plagues of Egypt all by yourself!’

  I didn’t even wait for a response; all I could think about was what being pulled over might mean. The sheriff’s officer would seize the Bugatti, call for reinforcements, take us to the station and inform Milo that his vehicle had been found. Things would only get worse when they discovered that Billie didn’t have a driver’s licence. Not to mention the fact that I was still a celebrity on bail, which wasn’t going to help matters.

  The patrol car had pulled over several yards behind us. Billie had switched off the ignition and was fidgeting nervously in her seat like a child.

  ‘Don’t try to be smart. Just stay still and keep your hands on the steering wheel.’

  She innocently undid a button of her shirt to better expose her chest, which was the final straw.

  ‘As if that’s going to make any difference! You don’t realise what you’re doing, do you? You just broke the speed limit by 50 mph! You’ll most likely have to make a court appearance and spend the next month in prison!’

  She paled visibly and turned round, watching the police officer anxiously.

  Even though his lights were still flashing, and it was broad daylight, the officer shone a harsh flashlight on us.

  ‘What’s he playing at?’ she asked, sounding worried.

  ‘He just put the licence plate number into his database and he’s waiting for the results.’

  ‘We’re probably not going to get to Mexico now, are we?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  I waited a few seconds before deciding to twist the knife further.

  ‘And you’re probably never going to get Jack back now either.’

  There was a deathly silence as we waited for the officer to deign to get out of his sedan.

  In the rear-view mirror I saw him come toward us like a calm predator, stalking a prey that he alrea
dy knew was his, and a feeling of despair crashed over me.

  So this is how it all ends.

  My insides felt hollow. I was overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of emptiness. It was probably to be expected that I felt strange: I had after all just lived through the most inexplicably bizarre day of my life so far. In less than twenty-four hours I had lost all my money, the most maddening of all my heroines had landed naked in my living room, I had thrown myself through a window to avoid being committed, fallen two storeys onto the roof of a Dodge, confidently sold for $1,000 a watch that was worth $20,000 and signed a harebrained contract written out on a tablecloth, just after being sent flying by a slap around the face.

  But I was feeling much better now, fresher and more optimistic than I had felt in a while.

  I looked at Billie as if we were about to part for good, as if this were the last time we would ever be alone together. As if the spell were about to be broken. For the first time, her eyes looked sad and full of despair.

  ‘I’m sorry I hit you,’ she apologised. ‘I got a bit carried away.’

  ‘Oh, that’s OK.’

  ‘And you couldn’t possibly have known about the watch.’

  ‘Apology accepted.’

  ‘And I should never have said that thing about Aurore—’

  ‘OK, OK! No need to overdo it.’

  The police officer was circling the car as if he were a potential buyer trying to decide whether he wanted it or not, then he double-checked the licence plate, taking his time, clearly enjoying himself.

  ‘We’re not going to give up that easily though,’ I said, thinking aloud.

  I was beginning to suspect that characters from novels were not really meant to function in the real world. I knew Billie; I knew all her flaws, the things in her life that made her unhappy, her candour, her vulnerability. In a way I felt responsible for what happened to her, and I didn’t want her to experience the trauma of prison. She looked up at me and I saw a flicker of hope in her eyes. It was us two against the world.

  The officer rapped on the window, indicating that we should open it.

  Billie obeyed meekly.