The Girl on Paper, Page 2

  *

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: Greetings from South Korea

  Sent: December 21, 2009

  To: [email protected]

  Dear Mr Boyd,

  I’m not going to tell you my life story. I just want to let you know that I was recently admitted to a psychiatric clinic to be treated for severe depression. Several times I even tried to end it all. While I was there, a nurse persuaded me to open one of your books. I had heard of you already – it’s hard to miss your book covers on the subway, on buses or at tables outside cafés. I thought your stories weren’t for me. I was wrong. I know that life isn’t like a book, but I found in your plots and your characters a little spark of something that gave me hope.

  With deepest thanks,

  Yunjin Buym

  *

  (Onl!ne, 23 December 2009)

  WRITER TOM BOYD ARRESTED IN PARIS

  The bestselling author was arrested at Charles-de-Gaulle airport last Monday after a scuffle with a waiter who refused to serve Boyd, claiming that he was drunk. Boyd was taken into police custody. Following an investigation, the public prosecutor set a date for a hearing at Bobigny criminal court in late January. Boyd faces charges of disorderly conduct and assault and battery.

  *

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: Your most avid reader in Serbia!

  Sent: December 25, 2009

  To: thomas.boyd2@gmail

  Dear Mr Boyd,

  This is the first time I’ve ever written to anyone that I only know through their books! I teach literature in a small village in the south of Serbia, where we have no bookstore and no library. On this day, I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas, as night falls on the snowy landscape around me. I hope one day you will come and visit our beautiful country, and while you’re at it, why not my little village, Rakovica!

  Thank you for allowing me to escape a little.

  Yours,

  Mirka

  PS I would also like to tell you that I don’t believe a word of what they are saying in the papers and on the news about your private life.

  *

  (New York Post, 2 March 2010)

  THE RISE AND FALL OF TOM BOYD

  At 11 p.m. the night before last, for reasons as yet undisclosed, the bestselling author came to blows with another patron at the Beverly Hills hotspot Freeze. What started as an argument between the two men quickly escalated into a fistfight. Police arrived quickly on the scene and arrested the young author after finding ten grams of crystal meth on his person.

  Boyd has been charged with drug possession and was released on bail, but is expected to appear before the Los Angeles Superior Court shortly.

  It’s a safe bet that this time Boyd will need an excellent attorney if he expects to avoid jail.

  *

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: One of the good guys

  Sent: March 3, 2010

  To: [email protected]

  Let me introduce myself: my name is Eddy, I’m 19 and I’m training to be a baker in Stains, on the outskirts of Paris. I completely screwed up high school because I never turned up, and because I liked weed a little too much.

  But last year I met a great girl. I didn’t want to lose her so I decided to get my act together for her. I went back to school, and now I’m not just learning new things, I understand them too. Out of all the books she told me to read, yours are my favourite: they bring out the best in me.

  I can’t wait for your next book, but I don’t like some of the stuff I’ve read about you in the papers. My favourite characters in your novels are the ones that stay true to what they believe in, no matter what. So if you really believe in what you write, you should take better care of yourself, Mr Boyd. Don’t let alcohol or dope take over your life.

  Don’t be a loser like I was.

  With all my respect,

  Eddy

  1

  The house by the sea

  Sometimes, women meet men who have nothing and decide to try to give them everything. Sometimes, they succeed. Sometimes, women meet men who have everything, and decide to leave them with nothing. They always succeed

  Cesare Pavese

  ‘Tom, open the door!’

  The shout was drowned out by the wind and there was no reply.

  ‘Tom! It’s me, Milo. I know you’re in there. Come out of your hole for crying out loud!’

  Malibu

  Los Angeles County

  A beach house

  For the last five minutes, Milo Lombardo had been hammering incessantly on the wooden shutters overlooking the terrace of his best friend’s house.

  ‘Tom! Open up or I’ll kick the door down. You know I’m strong enough!’

  Wearing a tailored shirt, a well-cut suit, and sunglasses, Milo nevertheless looked as if he had seen better days.

  At first, he had thought that with time Tom’s wounds would heal, but, far from moving on, Tom seemed to have plunged into an even blacker depression. The writer had barely left the house in six months, preferring to barricade himself in his luxurious prison, refusing all phone calls and visitors.

  ‘Last chance, Tom: let me in!’

  Every evening Milo came to bang on the door of the luxury house, but every evening all that greeted him was the angry complaints of annoyed neighbours and the inevitable intervention of the security guards who were employed to protect the houses of the mega-rich residents of Malibu Colony.

  But he had had enough of waiting around for Tom to open up. It was time for more extreme measures.

  ‘OK, you asked for it!’ he said, taking off his jacket and grabbing the metal crowbar lent to him by Carole, their childhood friend who was now a detective with the LAPD.

  Milo glanced back at the view behind him. The sandy beach was basking in the warm early-autumn sun. Lined up like sardines, the luxury villas extended along the seafront, as if creating a kind of barrier against unwelcome intruders. The area was home to countless Hollywood stars and business tycoons. Tom Hanks, Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Aniston were all said to own properties here.

  Milo blinked, dazzled by the sunlight. Fifty yards away, a tanned Adonis was standing in front of a small hut on stilts. He was clearly a lifeguard and was looking through his binoculars, apparently mesmerised by the surfer girls enjoying the powerful Pacific waves.

  As no one was watching, Milo got to work with the crowbar.

  He wedged the curved end of the metal lever into one of the small slits in the shutter and pushed down with all his might until the wooden slats broke away from the frame.

  Do you have the right to save your friends from themselves? he wondered as he broke into the house.

  But the moment of moral doubt didn’t last long; apart from Carole, Milo had only ever had one friend and he was prepared to do anything to help him forget his heartache and start living again.

  *

  ‘Tom?’

  In the half-light it felt as if the house was in an eerie state of suspended animation, and it smelt stale and musty. The kitchen sink was overflowing with dirty plates and the living room looked as though it had been vandalised: the furniture had all been turned over, while the floor was littered with dirty laundry and broken plates and glasses. Milo had to pick his way through pizza boxes, empty Chinese takeaway cartons and beer bottles to get to the windows, which he opened to bring some light and air back into the room.

  The two-storey house was built in an L-shape with an underground swimming pool. In spite of the mess, the house seemed calm, with its maple furniture, pale wooden floors and abundant natural light. The interior design was a blend of modern and vintage, mixing more up-to-date pieces with furniture that harked back to the days when Malibu was just a surfing beach, before it became the luxury haunt of miilionaires.

  He found Tom on the sofa, curled up in the foetal position. He was a shocking sight; pale, with a Robinson Crusoe-style beard, he looked n
othing like the stylish photos on the back of his novels.

  ‘Anyone in there?’ shouted Milo.

  He moved closer to the sofa. The coffee table was littered with crumpled prescriptions from Dr Sophia Schnabel, the ‘psychiatrist to the stars’, whose Beverly Hills clinic kept a significant proportion of the area’s jet-set population in legal drugs.

  ‘Tom, get up!’ Milo barked as he knelt down beside his friend.

  Warily, he inspected the pillboxes that were scattered around the floor and table: Vicodin, Valium, Xanax, Zoloft, Stilnox. A lethal modern cocktail of painkillers, tranquillisers, antidepressants and sleeping pills.

  ‘My God!’

  Suddenly fearing an overdose, he was seized by panic and took his friend by the shoulders to try and rouse him from his drug-induced slumber.

  Violently shaken back to consciousness, the writer finally opened his eyes.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he slurred.

  2

  Two friends

  I kept repeating over and over all the things you’re meant to say to help a broken heart, but words are no help at all… There are no words that have the power to heal the guy who feels he has nothing left, because he has lost the one he loves

  Richard Brautigan

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I slurred.

  ‘I’m worried about you, Tom! You’ve been locked away here for months, stuffing yourself with sedatives.’

  ‘Well, that’s my problem!’ I shouted back, trying to get up.

  ‘No, Tom, your problems are my problems. I thought that’s what friends were for!’

  I sat on the sofa with my head in my hands and shrugged my shoulders, half ashamed, half in despair.

  ‘Anyway,’ Milo continued, ‘if you think I’m just going to sit here and watch a woman put you through all this—’

  ‘You’re not my father, OK?’ I answered, slowly and laboriously trying to stand upright.

  As I got to my feet, I suddenly felt dizzy and had to lean on the back of the sofa for support.

  ‘That’s true, but if Carole and I don’t take care of you, who will?’

  I turned away from him, ignoring his question. Although I was only in my boxers, I made my way to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water. Milo followed me, dug out a trash bag and began to sort through the contents of my fridge.

  ‘Unless you’re planning on death by out-of-date yoghurt, I’d get rid of all of this dairy stuff if I were you,’ he said, sniffing a rather dubious-looking pot of fromage frais.

  ‘It’s not as if you have to eat it.’

  ‘And these grapes – was Obama even in office when you bought them?’

  He then turned his attention to the living room, clearing the floor of all the takeaway boxes and empty bottles.

  ‘Why are you still hanging on to this thing?’ he asked disapprovingly, pointing at a digital photo frame which was playing a slideshow of photos of Aurore.

  ‘Because this is MY HOUSE and in MY HOUSE I can do what I want.’

  ‘Maybe, but that girl broke your heart into a thousand pieces. Don’t you think it’s time you took her down from her pedestal?’

  ‘Listen, Milo, I know you never liked Aurore—’

  ‘I’ll admit I wasn’t her biggest fan. And, if I’m honest, I always knew she wouldn’t stick by you.’

  ‘Oh, really? May I ask why?’

  Things he had obviously been wanting to say for a long time came pouring out.

  ‘Because Aurore isn’t like us! Because she looks down on people like us! Because she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Because for her life is a game, whereas for us it’s always been a struggle—’

  ‘As if it were really that black and white! You don’t know anything about her!’

  ‘Stop defending her! Look what she’s done to you!’

  ‘Of course, you’d never be in this situation, would you? You’ve never been in love; all you have is your bimbos!’

  The argument had unintentionally escalated and now we were trading retorts like blows.

  ‘But what you’re going through has nothing to do with love!’ Milo raged. ‘It’s something else entirely, a mixture of suffering and dangerous obsession.’

  ‘At least I’m not afraid to take risks! You, on the other hand—’

  ‘What, you think I’m afraid of taking risks? I parachuted from the top of the Empire State Building! The video was all over the internet.’

  ‘Yeah, and what did you get out of that, apart from a huge fine?’

  Milo carried on as if he hadn’t heard me.

  ‘I’ve skied down the Cordillero Blanco in Peru. I’ve paraglided off the top of Everest. I’m one of the handful of people in the world who have climbed K2—’

  ‘I’m not saying you’re not a daredevil. But I’m talking about daring to fall in love. And that’s a risk you’ve never taken, not even with—’

  ‘SHUT UP!’ he exploded, grabbing the collar of my T-shirt to stop me finishing my sentence.

  He stayed like that for a few seconds, fists clenched, glaring at me, until he remembered where he was; he had come to help me, and there he was about to punch me in the face!

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, releasing his grip.

  I just shrugged and walked out onto the wide terrace that looked out over the ocean. Out of sight of prying eyes, the house was connected to the beach by a private flight of steps, which were currently lined with terracotta pots of dying plants I had not bothered to water for months.

  To protect my eyes from the sun I put on an old pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarers that were lying around on the teak table, then flopped down into my rocking chair.

  Milo appeared from the kitchen a few minutes later carrying two cups of coffee and offered me one.

  ‘Right, let’s stop acting like kids and talk about this,’ he said, leaning on the table.

  I said nothing, lost in the view of the rolling waves. At that moment I only wanted one thing: for him to tell me whatever it was he had come to say and then leave so I could go and throw up in the toilet, then swallow a handful of pills that would take me far away from reality.

  ‘How long have we known each other, Tom? Twenty-five years?’

  ‘Something like that,’ I said, taking a sip of coffee.

  ‘You’ve always been the sensible one,’ Milo said. ‘You’ve stopped me from making more than one mistake in the past. If it weren’t for you, I would have ended up in prison, or worse, ages ago. If it weren’t for you, Carole would never have become a cop. And, if it weren’t for you, I would never have been able to buy my mother a house. Look, what I’m trying to say is, I owe everything to you.’

  I felt embarrassed and tried to brush his words aside with a dismissive gesture. ‘If you’ve just come round to go all soft on me—’

  ‘I’m not going all soft on you! Think of everything we’ve had to face together, our lousy childhood, the drugs, the gang violence…’

  This new line of attack got to me and I felt a shiver down my spine. Despite how far we had come from those days, a part of me was still that fifteen year-old from MacArthur Park, with its dealers, its dropouts and its stairwells filled with shouting and screaming. And the fear that followed you everywhere.

  I turned away and looked out at the ocean. The water was calm and shimmered a thousand shades of blue from turquoise to ultramarine. Just a few gentle, regular waves rippled the surface of the Pacific. The tranquillity was a million miles away from our turbulent adolescence.

  ‘We’re clean now,’ Milo carried on. ‘We earn an honest living. We don’t carry guns under our jackets any more. There are no bloodstains on our T-shirts, no traces of cocaine on our banknotes—’

  ‘I don’t see how this has anything to do with—’

  ‘We have everything we could possibly ask for, Tom! Health, youth, jobs that we love – you can’t just throw all of that away for some girl! It’s stupid. She’s not worth it. Keep your mourning for when real pa
in comes around.’

  ‘Aurore was the love of my life! Why can’t you understand that? Why can’t you just let me be?’

  Milo sighed. ‘Do you really want me to say it? If she truly was the love of your life, she would be the one here with you now, trying to keep you from self-destruction.’

  He gulped down his espresso, then observed, ‘You’ve done everything possible to get her back. You’ve begged her, you’ve tried to make her jealous, you made a fool of yourself in front of the whole world. It’s over: she’s not coming back. She’s moved on and you should too.’

  ‘But what if I can’t?’ The question I hadn’t wanted to ask.

  He seemed to consider this for a moment. His expression was anxious and unreadable.

  ‘I think you don’t really have much choice any more.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Take a shower and get dressed.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To have a steak at Spago’s.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘I’m not taking you there for the food.’

  ‘So why are we going?’

  ‘Because you’re going to need a stiff drink after you hear what I have to tell you.’

  3

  A man possessed

  Jef, you’re not alone

  But stop your crying

  Like that, everyone can see,

  Just cos some girl

  Just cos some fake blonde

  Let you go…

  I know your heart’s heavy

  But you’ve got to move on, Jef