Billy and Girl (British Literature) - Softcover

Levy was born in South Africa.

From Part 2 (taken from the advanced uncorrected galley): 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 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 The 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. Action. Sound. Billy English fully clothed gets into 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? So now actress playing Candy is going berserk. Wants to call her agent. Says why don't she wear her skis in the shower? Hell, why not eat a Caesar salad in the shower? Director gets an idea. He's not giving up on Billy England. Says to Candy, 'Okay, sweetheart, tell you what. Talk dirty to Jonnie while he soaps his hair in his anorak.' Okay. Camera's rolling. Candy narrows her eyes. Voice honey low. 'Hey, Jonnie. I want you to do things to me.' She presses her breasts against his anorak. What does Billy do? Billy screams. Got soap in his eyes, hasn't he? Director turns to camera. Genuine disbelief. Gestures to Billy. Someone take him away. Hang him. Mince him into mad Heritage British beef patties and feed him to the welfare single mothers and their bastard brats. Billy informs director that he's got a pricking pain all over his nerve fibers. He's not quite sure where the site of his injury is but he's searching the whole phenomenon and it's his life's work. All he knows is that pain is a black box full of mystery and one day he will unpack it for the reading public. The boy feels he has to explain further. The whole crew gather round. Make-up, continuity, gaffers, all-purpose electricians, the extras playing pool in the makeshift bar, the runners and boom-swinger guy who seems to be in some sort of shock because his arm is frozen in midair and he's muttering something about an aeroplane overhead when he's not even recording. Every time his eyes graze those of Billy The English, he shuts them tights so he doesn't have to put a face to the whining voice cracking into his head, wasting his time, encouraging the director to go berserk and sack the whole crew while he recasts. Billy is saying, 'See , it's a chronic interdependent kind of pain, a union of what the Greeks call the psyche (mind) and soma (body). He, Billy England, is perfectly aware that he is addicted to his pain. It is his narcotic, and he must give it up and endure cold turkey etc., but before he can do this he will have to find a way of declaring his grief before he can reshape it. Finally, Billy gasps breathlessly, finding an opportune moment to reach for a smoked-salmon bagel from the catering staff, is the director familiar with Freud's description of cancer of the jaw being like a 'small island of pain in a sea of indifference'? No? Well, he, Billy, is the small island of English pain in the Hollywood Hills, could someone pass him another bagel pleeeese? No, not salad. No, not egg mayonnaise. Billy England is a neurosurgeon of the mind - he will build stone cities, carve into rocks, build railroads of the mind, but for now his own soul-tissue damage precludes the possibility of being a boy star. When the director's jaw actually drops open, culled into silence by this gobbling goofy goy guy ranting in his wet anorak, Billy can see the thousands of dollars of dental work that have been put into the famous director's teeth and gums. Billy wants that kind of attention too. Not in the dental department, though. No. Billy is not reliable. Girl knows this. Look how he nearly sawed through his wrist to create a small diversion in FreezerWorld? Billy. Gulp.