Deborah Levy - Billy and Girl

‘Naaaaaa.’ Billy is fading too. Screwing up his eyes like he’s gone snow blind. ‘Those shoes were a free gift. A FreezerWorld promotion. They all had one. Every single Frozen customer had one. They got bubble bath in ’em.’

Billy knows his sister is about to cry her girl tears. Got to keep talking. Talk all the way through grief and out the other side. Thing is, all words have stopped. He wants to go to bed. He hasn’t got any summer clothes to pack. On account of the weather. Got winter clothes. Clothes for the cold. Trying to talk sunshine and shades but all words have stopped. Ice in his mouth. Shivering. Wants animal skins and furs. Girl has taken out the cash and is counting it at the table, tears pelting onto the fifty-pound notes.

‘Louise said she was going to see me later.’

‘Yeah.’ That’s the only word Billy wants to ever say again. Not too much effort. Yeah.

‘She’s dangerous.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Know what she does in her tea break?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Does it in the car park with Danny. D-a-n-n-y.’ Girl puts as much disgust into her voice as she can.

‘Louise helped us, Billy. She doesn’t know she wanted to, but she helped us all the same.’

Her brother puts his arms around her thin shoulders. ‘You’re a heroine, Girl. You were brilliant.’

‘Louise wants us to save her. From Mr Tens. From Danny. From the Frozen World.’

Billy takes notes in his head. Girl is his patient and Girl is his sister. When he is famous and the TV cameras travel across his pain features and make them a public spectacle, he will say, ‘Take your time. Stare at me without embarrassment. Don’t feel you have to look away. The great pain tundra of Billy England. I will wait if you have to inhale from your asthma machines. I will wait if you have to telephone your families to say you will be late. I will wait while you order coffees and Danish pastries from your subsidised cafeteria. I will even wait while you snort cocaine in the toilets.’

‘It’s a respectable cash haul, Billy.’ Girl is whispering now. Big smile. Big enough to cross the Thames and not fall in. ‘It’s enough. Run me a bath. The last bath I will ever have in England.’

Billy and Girl thought they were were heading for California. Knew all about America from the brochures and TV. Imagined themselves drinking daiquiris under the palm trees and blue movie skies. ’Cept it wasn’t the big buck agents, the surf and Disney pets that wanted them. No Mickey and his lovely first lady Minnie in her lickle white gloves to welcome Billy and Girl to the land of plentiful. No TexMex was to pass their lips. No tax-free shopping in Tijuana. No healthy walks through miles of mall to stretch the legs and get blood circulating pronto to the remaining shards of Billy and Girl heart-hacked with English weather problems. No Florida crocs and beauty-queen mermaids to tickle their pain history and stretch lips into knowing kitsch smiles. Girl was never to become a Nevada cowgirl sprayed into denim and photographed for gentlemen’s leisure mags. She thought she would be wearing high-cut orange bathers and shooshing her peroxide fluffy hair when she spoke to male lifeguards all muscle and morality and megahormone narratives. Poor Girl. I mean, can you see her scrawny white-bread English thighs lazing with the Californian beach girls? English Girl with her introspection and minicab rage and no cosmetic surgery to armour her and no sweet talk inside her to simper its way out and get involved with local boyfriend and beach-life issues? Girl buying donuts in bulk to bait every obese woman she meets into giving her an interview? Hi, Mom. Have a donut. Have three. No. That’s all over.

Billy was not to be discovered by Hollywood highballs on Malibu beach in his Speedo minitrunks. Not that kind of boy icon. For a start, even with a tan, even with a personal trainer in a de luxe Malibu gym, Billy is not reliable or predictable. He can’t be trusted to learn his lines. Writer delivers script. Director reckons this is the one to swipe all the Oscars on the big night and he is already getting his wife to write his speech. She’s faxing a draft to him right now. How he discovered William English singing ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’ whilst strumming a toy plastic banjo, and how he just knew, with Great Director’s Instinct, that the boy was a screen God for the contemporary world. Billy is wined and dined, groomed and flattered. Billy eats with gusto. Bloody steaks flap off the sides of his plate. Fistfuls of Californian french fries are shovelled into his boy mouth. Billy never has to eat another chicken winglet again. He gets a little plumper but won’t do arm curls, not even with the starter weights that even a poodle can lift effortlessly with one manicured pawkin. He reads the script. Agrees to be a star. He’ll play a sulky James Dean reincarnation called Jonnie. His co-star is an apple-pie babe with attitude and her character is called Candy. They go over the script together and then the big day arrives. Billy has to be dragged kicking and screaming out of his trailer and pushed onto the set. The scene is set in a moody bar.

JONNIE: See you’re drinking beer.

CANDY: Yeah. So what?

JONNIE: That’s a good brand.

CANDY: I know.

JONNIE: Mind if i sit here?

Candy shrugs. Jonnie sits .

JONNIE: I feel really good sitting next to you.

CANDY: ( Secretly flattered ) Well, thank you.

Not too demanding, is it, Billy? Lights. Sound. Action.

BILLY: See you’re drinking beer?

CANDY: Yeah, so what?

BILLY: That’s a good brand.

CANDY: I know.

BILLY: Mind if i sit here?

Candy shrugs. Billy sits .

BILLY: You remind me of my sister.

CANDY: (Improvising for camera) Oh.

BILLY: She won’t let me fall in love with other girls.

CANDY: Is that right?

BILLY: I don’t mind. Cos I’m frigid.

CANDY: (Catching director’s eye. He’s saying busk it.) Uh-huh.

BILLY: Completely totally fucking frigid.

CANDY: (Cracking up now) We’ll soon do something about that, Jonnie.

BILLY: Frigid.

DIRECTOR: Cut cut cut cut!

Okay. The English boy has a kind of anti-charisma that’s interesting. Inneresting. Let him ad lib. Look at him. He’s taking out a little pen knife and cleaning his fingernails. That’s not in the script either. Okay. Okay . But hang on. Frigid? Frigid??? Can’t have boy icon say he’s fuckin’ frigid. Not good for box office. Not good for the plot. Not good for the next scene when he has to take Candy home and make love to her in the shower. Cos the only power Jonnie’s got in this movie is his bad-boy sex appeal. So why not give Billy England a chance and try shooting that shower scene? See how that goes and then come back to the bar. Okay.

So Candy’s in the shower. Jonnie’s got to take off his kit, climb in with her and soap her breasts, real slow and sexy. Thing is, Billy English won’t take off his clothes. No matter director and art director saying he can keep his pants on. This boy doesn’t even wear short sleeves. No way. Says in England he showers in his anorak. That’s why it’s waterproof. Director thinks, Let’s get a little experimental. Why not? We’re ahead of schedule. Let him.

Lights. Sound. Action.

Billy English fully clothed gets into the shower with naked Candy. He takes the soap. What does he do? Starts washing his fucking hair. Standing under shower in anorak washing his hair. Inneresting. Only thing is he’s got lines scripted for him by the writer who is sobbing into his script, shouting something about never working again. Never let the writer near the shoot. Big mistake. Jonnie is supposed to say, ‘I’ve been wanting to do this ever since I first saw you in the bar.’ Do what? Wash his hair while naked nubile looks on? I mean, what kind of pervy movie is this?