The Girl on Paper (29 page)

The estate, a replica French château built by an eccentric multimillionaire in the sixties, sprawled over the cliff tops above Zuma beach. With fifteen acres of field, garden and vineyard, it felt more like deepest Burgundy than a city of surfers and white beaches beside the ocean.

These were the exclusive surroundings in which Milo and Carole had chosen to celebrate their marriage. Since our adventure had come to an end, my two friends had been blissfully in love, and I couldn't have been more delighted to see them so happy at last.

Life was getting back to normal. I'd paid off my debts and sorted out my legal problems. The third volume of my trilogy had come out six months earlier and been well received by readers. The first film adapted from my novels topped the box office for three weeks in the summer. The wheel of fortune turned quickly in Hollywood: I'd gone from zero back to hero, once again the bestselling author who could do no wrong.
Sic
transit gloria mundi
.

Milo had opened up our offices again, and this time he was playing it safe with my affairs. He'd got back the Bugatti, but when he found out his wife-to-be was expecting, he'd traded it in for a Volvo.

In short, Milo was not the old Milo any more.

Although it seemed as if life was smiling on me again, I was in a kind of mourning for Billie. I was still in love with her. I had stayed true to my promise, keepong off the cocktail of antidepressants, tranquillisers and crystal meth, and trying to live as clean a life as possible. To keep busy, I'd embarked on a massive book-signing tour, which took me all over the world in the space of a few months. Just meeting people did me good, but whenever I found myself alone I thought of Billie and remembered our extraordinary meeting, the way we sparred and sparked off each other, and the warmth when we touched.

After Billie, I'd drawn a line under my love life and broken off all contact with Aurore. There was no point giving it another go. I'd stopped thinking about the future, taking each day as it came.

But I knew I couldn't afford to buy another one-way ticket to nowheresville. If I broke down now I'd never get up again. I couldn't let Carole and Milo down when they were doing all they could to help me. So as not to put a damper on their happiness, I did my best to hide my feelings, turning up to their matchmaking dinners on Friday nights when they hoped to find me a soul mate. They were determined to track down ‘that special someone' and got everyone they knew on the case. Thanks to their efforts, I met a hand-picked assortment of single Californian girls over the next few months, including a college professor, a scriptwriter, a teacher and a psychologist – but the game soon wore thin and our conversations never carried on beyond dinner.

‘A speech from the best man!' shouted one of the guests inside the reception marquee.

The tent was filled almost entirely with cops, firemen and ambulance drivers, people Carole knew through work who had come along with their families. On Milo's side, it was pretty much just me and his mom. The mood was relaxed and laid-back. The canvas curtains flapped in the breeze, bringing in wafts of cut grass and sea air.

‘Speech!' they all clamoured, clinking their glasses and forcing me to my feet. I could have done without this. The feelings I had for my friends were not easily expressed in front of a crowd of forty people.

Still, I played the game, and everyone went quiet as I began.

I turned to face Carole. She looked incredible in her corseted dress threaded with tiny crystals.

‘Carole, we've known each other since we were kids – pretty much all our lives. Our paths are inextricably linked and I could never be happy knowing you weren't happy too.'

I smiled at her and she winked back at me. Then I turned to Milo.

‘Milo, we've been through everything together, from the tough times growing up, right up until we ‘made it to the top' and all that jazz. Together, we've made mistakes, and fixed them. Together, we've lost everything, and won it all back. And I hope that's how we'll carry on our journey through life – together'

Milo gave me a little nod. I could see his eyes were shining.

‘Over the last year, the two of you have shown me that I can always count on you, no matter what. You've shown me that the old saying about friendship doubling joy and halving grief is more than just a neat phrase.

‘From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you, and to promise you that I'll always be there for you too.'

Then I lifted my glass. ‘To the bride and groom!'

I saw Carole wiping away a tear, as Milo walked over to hug me.

‘We need to talk,' he said into my ear.

We snuck off to a quiet spot, a boathouse on the edge of a lake patrolled by an army of swans. The little building, topped with a pediment, was home to a collection of varnished wooden boats, and had a cool, timeless feel that was very New England.

‘So, what did you want to talk about?'

Milo loosened his tie. He was trying hard to look calm, but it was clear from his face he was feeling uncomfortable.

‘I can't keep on living a lie, Tom. I know I should have said something sooner but—'

He stopped and rubbed his eyes.

‘What is it?' I asked, anxious to know what was going on. ‘Don't tell me you've lost on the markets again?'

‘No. It's Billie.'

‘What about Billie?'

‘She… she's real. Well, kind of…'

I had no idea what he was trying to say.

‘Man, are you wasted?'

He breathed deeply to try to regain his composure, sitting down at a workbench.

‘You have to look at the whole picture. Remember what a state you were in a year ago. You were all over the place. It was one thing after another: speeding fines, drugs, trouble with the law. You'd stopped writing and you were sinking into
a deep depression that nothing could drag you out of; not therapy, not medication, not our support.'

I sat down next to him, feeling suddenly uneasy.

‘One morning,' he went on, ‘I got a call from the publisher about an error in the latest print run of the second book. He sent a copy over by courier and I saw that the book stopped right in the middle, on the words, “she cried, falling”. The sentence went round and round in my head the whole day, and I was still thinking about it at my meeting with Columbia that afternoon. The producers were wrapping up the casting for your film adaptation, and they were auditioning for the supporting roles that day. I hung around for a while on the set where they were trying out actresses for the part of Billie. And that's where I met this girl—'

‘What girl?'

‘Her name was Lilly. A messed-up-looking girl whose script was shaking while she read her lines. She was pale, her eyes were plastered with mascara and she mooched about looking flaky, like a Cassavetes heroine. From what I saw, I thought her audition was out of this world, but the assistant director made it clear she didn't stand much chance. The guy must have been blind; it was so fricking obvious the girl was your Billie. So I asked her for a drink and she told me about her life.'

Milo went quiet for an unbearable length of time, waiting to see my reaction, measuring his words – but I'd had enough of him beating around the bush.

‘Go on, for God's sake!'

‘In between waitressing jobs, Lilly was doing some modelling while trying to get into acting. She'd done a few photo shoots for magazines, appeared in some tacky commercials and played bit-parts in short films, but she was no Kate Moss.

‘Even though she was still young, she gave the impression
she was already coming to the end of her career. She seemed out of place in the cut-throat world of fashion, where new girls were always arriving on the scene and if you hadn't made it big by twenty-five, forget it…'

I felt a shiver go down my spine and the blood pounding in my temples. I didn't want to hear what he was about to say.

‘What is it you're trying to tell me, Milo? What did you offer that girl?'

‘I offered her $15,000,' he finally admitted. ‘Fifteen thousand dollars to play the part of Billie, but not in a movie. In your life.'

‘I offered her $15,000 to play the part of Billie, but not in a movie. In your life.’

Milo’s revelation was like an uppercut landing on my chin. My head was spinning and I felt like a boxer collapsing in the middle of the ring.

While I sat in stunned silence, Milo tried to explain himself.

‘I know it’s crazy, but it worked, Tom! I couldn’t sit back and watch you fall to pieces. I had to grab hold of you and shake you into action. It was the only card I had left to play to get you out of your depression.’

I couldn’t take it in.

So Billie was just an actress? And the whole thing had been a lie? Then how the hell had I fallen for it?

‘I don’t believe you,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t add up. It’s not just that she looks exactly like her, but there are so many other things that prove she must be Billie!’

‘Like what?’

‘Her tattoo, for one.’

‘It was a fake. A transfer we got from the on-set make-up artist.’

‘She knew absolutely everything about Billie’s life.’

‘I got her to read all your books and she pulled them apart. I didn’t give her the password to your computer, but she had access to your character biographies.’

‘And how exactly did you get hold of those?’

‘I hired someone to hack into your machine.’

‘You’re one heck of a bastard.’

‘No. I’m your friend.’

No matter what he said, there was no way I could believe it.

‘But you tried to have me committed! You drove me to the psychiatrist yourself!’

‘Because I knew that, if my plan worked, you’d refuse to go along with it and you’d try to escape.’

Pictures ran through my head of everything I’d been through with ‘Billie’. I sifted through them, trying to find something to catch Milo out.

‘Hang on a minute! She knew how to fix the car when it broke down! Where did she learn to do that if her brothers aren’t mechanics?’

He batted it back.

‘That was just a wire I’d disconnected. We rehearsed it; it was a way of clearing up any doubts you might still have had. Don’t waste your time trying to question it; there’s only one thing that could have given her away, but luckily it passed you by.’

‘What?’

‘Billie’s left-handed, but Lilly’s right-handed. Obvious when you think about it.’

I was racking my brains, but I just couldn’t remember if he was right about that or not.

‘OK, that’s all very well, but you’ve missed the most important part: Billie’s illness.’

‘Well, when you arrived in Mexico, things did begin to move
faster,’ Milo admitted. ‘Though you still weren’t ready to write again, it was obvious you were feeling better – and, more to the point, that something was going on between you and her. Though neither of you would admit it, you were falling for each other. I thought about telling you everything then, but Lilly was determined to carry on. The whole business with the illness was her idea.’

Now I really was confused.

‘But… why?’

‘Because she loved you, you idiot! She wanted you to be happy; to start writing again and win Aurore back. And she did it!’

‘So, the white hair was—’

‘Hair dye.’

‘The ink in her mouth?’

‘Just the contents of an ink cartridge emptied under her tongue.’

‘And what about the test results in Mexico? The cellulose they found in her body?’

‘The whole thing was a wind-up, Tom. Dr Philipson was three months from retirement. I told him you were my friend and I wanted to play a trick on you. He was bored stiff sitting around in his clinic; getting in on the joke kept him entertained. But you know how it is – the best-laid plans and all… The whole thing could have fallen apart when Aurore suggested taking Billie to see Professor Clouseau.’

‘But he would never have got mixed up in some game of smoke and mirrors. Billie wasn’t putting it on in Paris. She almost died, I know it.’

‘You’re right, but that’s when something unbelievable happened. She didn’t know it, but Billie really was sick. Thanks to Clouseau, her heart tumours were discovered. So, in a way, you could say I saved both of your lives.’

‘OK, so how about the book you spent weeks chasing all over the world?’

‘Well, I had to go along with that one,’ he admitted. ‘Carole was still in the dark about the whole thing and believed in the story 100 per cent. It was her in the driving seat. I just went along with it, playing the g—’

Before Milo could finish his sentence, I’d floored him with a punch.

‘You had no right!’

‘No right to save you?’ he asked, getting back on his feet. ‘It’s not a question of rights. It was what I had to do.’

‘At what cost?’

‘Whatever it took.’

He wiped away the blood trickling from his mouth, before rapping out how he saw it.

‘You’d have done the same for me. You were ready to kill to protect Carole, so don’t try to lecture me! It’s the story of our lives, Tom: when one of us cracks, the others come running. That’s the one thing that’s saw us through.

‘You got me off the streets. I’d still be locked up if it wasn’t for you, not marrying the woman I love. If it wasn’t for you, Carole might have wound up hanging from the end of a rope, not about to give birth. And what about you?’ he asked. ‘Where would you be now if we’d let you tear your life apart? In rehab? Or dead?’

A white light shone in through the frosted-glass windows. I left his question hanging. My mind was on something else.

‘Where is she now?’

‘Who, Lilly? No idea. I gave her the dough and she took off. I think she left LA. She used to work weekends at a nightclub on the Sunset Strip. I went back to look for her, but no one had seen her.’

‘What’s her surname?’

‘No idea. I’m not even sure Lilly’s her real name.’

‘You’ve got nothing else to go on?’

‘Hey, listen, I can understand you wanting to find her, but you have to realise that the woman you’re looking for is a second-rate actress, a waitress in a strip joint – not the Billie you fell in love with.’

‘You can keep your advice to yourself. So that’s all you have on her?’

‘Sorry, that’s it. But I want you to know that I’d do it all again if I had to.’

I walked out of the boathouse, trying to make sense of what Milo had just told me, and took a few steps onto the wooden landing stage jutting out over the lake. White swans swam among wild irises, indifferent to human suffering.

I picked up my car from the parking lot and drove along the coast to Santa Monica. My head was all over the place as I made my way into the city. I felt I was cruising aimlessly through Inglewood, onto Van Ness and down Vermont Avenue, before realising that some invisible force had guided me back to where I grew up.

I parked the convertible near the plant tubs, which, for as long as I could remember, had never contained anything other than cigarette butts and empty bottles.

In the shadow of the high rises, everything and nothing had changed. There were still the same guys shooting hoops on the basketball court and others leaning against the walls, waiting for something to happen. For a second, I was sure one of them was going to shout out, ‘Hey, freak!’ But I was a stranger here now and no one bothered me.

I walked past the wire-fenced court to the parking lot. ‘My’
tree was still there. It looked even scrawnier now, with even fewer leaves, but it was still standing. I sat down on the dry grass and leaned back against the trunk, just like I always used to.

Just then, a Mini Cooper screeched to a halt, right across two parking spaces. Carole got out of the car, still in her wedding dress. She walked toward me, a large sports bag in her right hand, the beautiful white train of her dress in her left to keep it from getting dirty.

‘Check this out, there’s a wedding in the parking lot!’ hollered one of the players from the court.

They all stopped to take a look, before getting back to business.

Carole joined me under the tree.

‘Hey, Tom.’

‘Hey. I think you’ve got your dates mixed up though; today’s not my birthday.’

She smiled, a tear running silently down her face.

‘Milo told me everything a week ago. I swear that’s the first I heard of it,’ she told me, sitting down on the low wall.

‘Sorry I ruined your wedding.’

‘It’s OK. How are you feeling?’

‘Like someone who’s been taken for a ride.’

She took out a pack of cigarettes, but I held her back.

‘Are you crazy or something? You’re pregnant, remember.’

‘Well, don’t talk like that then! That’s not the way you should look at it.’

‘How else do you expect me to look at it? I’ve been treated like a fool, by my best friend of all people.’

‘Look, I saw the way she was with you, Tom. I saw the way she looked at you and I’m telling you she wasn’t faking it.’

‘No, just raking it in to the tune of $15,000!’

‘Now hold on. Milo never asked her to sleep with you!’

‘Well, she couldn’t wait to get out of here as soon as her contract was finished, could she!’

‘Just put yourself in her shoes for a second. You think it was easy for her to untangle it all? As far as she knew, you’d fallen in love with a character – a character that wasn’t really her.’

There was something in what Carole was saying. Who had I really fallen for? A character I’d created, which Milo manipulated like a puppet on a string? Or a failed actress playing the biggest role of her life?

Neither. I’d fallen in love with a girl in the middle of the Mexican desert, when she made me see that everything was richer, more flavoursome, more colourful when she was with me.

‘You’ve got to find her, Tom, or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.’

I shook my head. ‘It’s impossible. We’ve got nothing to go on, not even a name.’

‘You’ll have to do better than that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You see, I could never be happy knowing you weren’t happy too.’

I could hear in her voice that she really meant it.

‘So I brought you this.’

She reached over to her bag and handed me a bloodstained shirt.

‘It’s a lovely gift, but I think I preferred the computer,’ I joked, to ease the tension.

She couldn’t help smiling, before explaining the reason behind it.

‘You remember the morning I turned up at your place with Milo and you first told us about Billie? Your apartment was a mess and the terrace had been turned upside down. There
was blood on the window and all over your clothes.’

‘Yes, that’s when “Billie” gashed open her hand.’

‘Seeing the blood really worried me. All kinds of thoughts were going through my mind, like maybe you’d killed or hurt someone. So, the next day I came back to clean up all the traces of blood. I found this shirt in the bathroom and took it away to remove the evidence. I held on to it, and when Milo told me the truth, I took it to the lab for a DNA test. I checked it against the database and…’

She produced a folder from her bag.

‘… and I found out your lady friend has form.’

I opened the wallet to find a photocopy of the FBI file, which Carole summarised for me.

‘Her name’s Lilly Austin, born 1984 in Oakland. Arrested twice in the last five years. Nothing too serious: once for failure to comply at a pro-choice march in 2006, and again in 2009 for smoking pot in a park.’

‘Is that all you need to do to get a record?’

‘I’m guessing you don’t watch
CSI
then? California state police routinely take DNA from people who’ve been arrested for or suspected of committing certain offences. If it makes you feel better, you’re part of the club too.’

‘Do you have her new address?’

‘No, but I put her name into our database and came up with this.’

She handed me a sheet of paper. It was an enrolment form for Brown University, for the current academic year.

‘Lilly’s studying literature and dramatic arts,’ explained Carole.

‘How did she get into Brown? That’s one of the best schools in the country.’

‘I called them. She won a place on the basis of her written application, skipping the usual process. I guess she must
have spent the last few months studying.’

I looked at the two documents, fascinated by Lilly Austin, the stranger whose picture was slowly forming before my eyes.

‘I’d better get back to my guests,’ said Carole, looking at her watch. ‘And you’ve got someone to see too.’

I took the first flight to Boston the following Monday. I arrived in the capital of Massachusetts at 4 p.m., hired a car at the airport and headed toward Providence.

The Brown University campus was made up of impressive redbrick buildings surrounded by lush green lawns. It was the end of the day for many of the students. Before setting off, I’d looked up the timetable for Lilly’s courses online, and I was waiting outside the doors of the hall where her lecture was about to finish, my heart thumping.

I was standing far enough back so that she didn’t see me when she came out with a crowd of other students. I didn’t quite recognise her at first; she’d cut her hair and dyed it darker. She was wearing a tweed cap and an outfit – short grey skirt over black tights, fitted jacket over turtleneck sweater – that gave her the look of a London girl.

I’d made up my mind to go over, but I wanted to wait until she was on her own. I followed the group of two guys and another girl until they got to a café not far off campus. Drinking her tea, Lilly launched into a passionate debate with one of the male students – an intellectual type with Latin good looks. The more I watched her, the happier and calmer she seemed to me. Moving far away from LA to continue her studies seemed to have restored her sense of balance. Some people were good at that, starting over; all I could ever do was carry on.

I left the café without approaching her and got back in the car. Dipping back into college life had left me feeling low. Sure, I was glad to see her looking happy, but the girl I’d seen today wasn’t ‘my’ Billie any more. She’d clearly turned a page, and seeing her chatting to that twenty-year-old made me feel old. Maybe the ten-year age gap wasn’t so easily bridged after all.