Devil in Disguise (24 page)

Boris
brought on board a brilliant costume maker, who designed outfits with concealed
panels. At a given moment Genita would freeze and the lighting would change so
that she became a glowing blue silhouette. As ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’
boomed out of the speakers, she would discreetly pull a string and a cloud of
white butterflies would appear to float out from under her luminous silk dress.
By the time Genita had fulfilled Boris’s expectations and sold out six nights
at the Bloomsbury, the butterflies had been replaced by doves sprayed with
iridescent glitter, and the sardines with a pig’s head.

It was a week after these
triumphant gigs that Simon had his final encounter with Daniel. It had not been
planned and really shouldn’t have happened at all. Simon was well on the road
to success with the Turkish youth from the corner shop and had arranged for
Hail to come round to his place one evening to give him a private Turkish
lesson. Daniel hadn’t entered his thoughts for weeks. But Molly had invited him
for a celebratory dinner at her house, and Daniel had been there, looking
particularly tasty in a white T-shirt and jeans, lit from behind by a lava
lamp. After three bottles of champagne,’ Molly had been pie-eyed with
tiredness. ‘I’m completely sizzled,’ she said, and Simon laughed.

‘Go off
to bed, darling. I shall let myself out. Thank you for a lovely evening.
Delicious shepherd’s pie.’

Molly
stumbled over to the kitchen and filled a glass with water. She leant over
Simon and gave him a sloppy kiss on his forehead. ‘Congratulations on
everything, darling. I really mean that. The world is your oyster now. The sky
is the limit. Goodnight, love.’ She blew a kiss to Daniel but staggered a bit
in the delivery, and he jumped up to help her into the bedroom.

Two
minutes later he returned, shutting the door quietly behind him.

‘Out
like a light,’ he said, then flopped down on the sofa next to Simon and closed
his eyes.

‘Just
the two of us left at the party, it seems …’ said Simon.

Daniel
smiled, saying nothing and keeping his eyes firmly shut. Seconds later his
thighs drifted lazily apart and Simon knew what was expected of him. He set to
work eagerly, happy to oblige now that Daniel seemed like a straight man again.

It was
the sound of Molly’s fist slamming on the bedroom-door panel that alerted them
to their exposure. Daniel’s automatic response was to leap to his feet and pull
up his jeans in one movement lasting about two seconds. His hands clasped his
now covered genitals protectively, like a fireguard. ‘What’s going on?’ he said
unconvincingly, looking around him as if he’d just been beamed in from a
time-travelling experiment.

Simon’s
final position was less dignified: he was crouching on the carpet, naked from
the waist down. He raised his head and looked at Molly, as thick drool lowered
itself from his mouth to the hearthrug beneath him. The three of them stared at
each other. The silence was deafening.

‘I
see,’ said Molly, very slowly and quietly.

Molly couldn’t remember
afterwards what she threw first, but it was something breakable — either a lamp
or a pair of seventies glass vases. It didn’t really matter because everything
followed in the end. The sound of shattering porcelain helped her to express
her anger and distress and she lunged around the room, grabbing anything she
could lift and flinging it at her lover and her best friend as they dived for
cover. The TV set she couldn’t lift, but she tipped it onto its side and it
made a satisfying deadly thud. All of this was accompanied by shrieks and
screams, expletives and threats. When she finally stopped — only, it has to be
said, when there was nothing left to break and everything that wasn’t nailed to
the walls had been launched across the room — she realised that Simon and
Daniel had left. The front door was open. She closed it behind them, turned and
viewed the devastation. Stepping carefully over the shattered fragments and
jagged edges, she slumped onto the sofa, too numb to cry.

After a
good ten minutes of deep breathing, she felt contrastingly calm and cool, like
a deserted street after a hailstorm. It was the middle of the night and she was
still a bit drunk, but she knew she had to get out of that flat right away. The
bedroom had escaped her rampage and she took her suitcase from the top of the
wardrobe and opened it on the — bed — the very bed she had been sleeping
soundly in fifteen minutes before while her boyfriend betrayed her with her
best friend. With this thought the tears streamed down her cheeks. Of course
she’d known that Simon’s lustful desires centred on attractive ultra-straight
men, but she’d never imagined he would steal her boyfriend. How could he? They
had been confidants, trusted and true soulmates.

With a
sudden hot rush she remembered all the times Simon had engineered things to be
with Daniel while she was otherwise occupied. The nights she’d waited outside
the cinema, the evenings that Daniel was late home because Simon had been
discussing the merits of Swiss or Roman blinds. And then there had followed
occasions when she had reached under the duvet to initiate their lovemaking
ritual and Daniel had uncharacteristically declined. It all became clear. She
didn’t for a moment suppose that that evening had been the first of their
illicit trysts.

She had
stood in the doorway for quite a few seconds before she’d banged the panel with
her hand, and there was something very relaxed and comfortable about what was
going on between them. Daniel’s undulating hip thrusts and Simon’s moans of
pleasure had a musicality about them that was more of a waltz than a quickstep.
They had been there before, clearly. She was completely amazed by the
realisation. Daniel was, or so she’d thought, one hundred per cent
heterosexual. She had never had the slightest inkling otherwise. She paused and
shook her head with amazement. It just wasn’t within the bounds of possibility.
It was laughable. And so she laughed — a bitter, disbelieving laugh that soon
turned into a cry of despair.

When
the latest wave of emotion subsided,’ Molly seized the window of opportunity
and threw her belongings into the suitcase. She knew she would never return to
this flat, so she chose with as much care as her hysterical mood would allow. She
went into the bathroom clutching an empty Tesco carrier-bag and swept the contents
of ‘her’ shelf into it. She plucked her expensive shower gel from its hook in
the shower cubicle and threw in all of her cosmetics. Clothes were rifled
through next, and tossed in a jumbled mess into the case. Within twenty minutes
she was packed and couldn’t wait to get out of there.

The
suitcase had not been enough so the excess was in a black bin-liner. Her exit
from the flat was not, therefore, as glamorous as she might have hoped. She
paused long enough in front of the bathroom mirror to rearrange her curly hair,
wipe the tearstains from her cheeks, apply some dark brown eye-shadow and some
subtle tan blusher.

Then
she walked out of Daniel’s flat with her head held high,’ wearing four-inch
heels and an expensive black mock-moleskin coat that made her look and feel a
little like Kate Bush wandering madly over the moors. Molly knew she must be
over the limit for driving, but the alcohol was only having a mild anaesthetic
effect now, enabling her to act in her own best interests.

She
threw her luggage into the boot and buckled herself into the driver’s seat. She
turned the key, started the engine and decided to wait while the windows
de-misted. Trying her best to live in the moment, as Jane had advised,’ Molly
thought about how much she loved her car. It was like a womb. When she was
inside with the windows locked, it became her private world. It would have to
take care of her now. Protect her. Molly pressed the button for the CD player
and closed her eyes. Petula Clark’s voice rang out, begging her sailor to stop
his roaming.

Molly
had no idea where she was going. The simple act of fleeing was enough to
satisfy her for the moment. As she drove away, and out of Daniel’s life, she
opened the windows and let the cool, damp air invigorate her spirits. Then she
had an idea.

‘Lilia!’
she said to herself. ‘I’ll go and see Lilia.’

An hour
and a half later she found herself driving through the dark Northamptonshire
countryside. The windows were firmly closed now and rain was hammering on the
car roof. She was going very slowly down a narrow country lane. She didn’t seem
to need to direct her trusty car: it just took her, slowly and safely, to her
destination.

She
pulled up outside Kit-Kat Cottage and turned off the engine with a sigh of
relief. She had arrived in one piece. The porch light was on but otherwise it
was in darkness. What should she do? It was now four in the morning. Should she
rouse the house, making a dramatic, tear-drenched entrance? Or should she wait
until morning when there were signs of life within and her arrival would be
more conventional?

Well,
she figured, she was an actress. She would go for the more memorable approach.
She applied some blood-red lipstick,’ tousled her hair to give it some lift and
crept up the gravelled driveway like a burglar. She wondered whether to ring
the bell or tap lightly on the front door but then had the bright idea of
telephoning. She retrieved her mobile phone from her handbag and dialled
Lilia’s number. It rang ten or eleven times before an answer came.

‘Yes? Who
is it?’ The accent sounded odd but it was clearly Lilia’s voice.

‘Lilia?
It’s Molly. I’m so sorry to disturb you at this time of night, but I’m outside
your front door. Do you mind if I come in?’

‘Molly,
my child! What are you doing here?’ said Lilia, reassuringly German once more.
‘Of course — of course, you can come in. You poor thing! Something must have
happened … I am coming now to let you in.’

The
line went dead and within a few seconds the hall light came on. Then Lilia was
standing before her in her embroidered kimono, arms outstretched in greeting,
her face the epitome of motherly love. ‘Molly! Molly! Come in, you must be
freezing. Oh dear!’

Molly
fell into the old woman’s arms, sobbing already, a long-distance runner at the
end of her gruelling journey, collapsing with relief. ‘Lilia. Thank you for
opening the door, for being here for me.’

Lilia
pulled her in and led her distraught visitor into the lounge. ‘Sit there,” she
said, pushing Molly into the armchair and shuffling off to the sideboard to get
two glasses and a bottle of brandy. ‘You need a drink. Sit quietly, drink this,
and when you are ready, tell me everything. Keep breathing at all times.’

Molly
was hyperventilating, her inhalations rasping and raw.

‘Sit
still. Be calm,’ Lilia commanded. ‘You are home now. Relax!’

Slowly
Molly’s breathing returned to normal and she ceased flailing and rocking from
side to side.

‘Now,’
said Lilia,’ ‘tell me what has occurred. Your boyfriend Daniel, I suspect. Am I
right?’

Molly
wiped her eyes. ‘How did you know that?’

They
talked until dawn. Molly explained in great detail the relationship between her
and Simon, and how she was now certain that the affair between him and Daniel
had been going on under her nose for months. She recounted each and every occasion
when Simon had made arrangements with her just to be sure she was out of the
way. She trembled in the recalling, she choked as she described the scene she
had witnessed on the sofa, and she wailed her distress to a deeply sympathetic
Lilia,’ who rocked her in her arms and told her everything would be all right.

‘I am
so tired,” said Molly, finally. ‘I wish I could go to sleep and never wake up.’

‘You
will go to sleep. Your room is unoccupied and you need to sleep and heal
yourself. Come.’ Lilia, despite her fragility, pulled Molly out of her chair
and hooked an arm round her waist. ‘In the morning it will not seem so dark. It
is the end of a chapter in your life, but by the same token it is also a new
beginning. Better you find out the truth about Daniel and Simon now than in six
months’ or two years’ time. All will be well. Come along now.’ As she spoke she
led Molly out of the door, along the corridor and into her old room. ‘There
now,’ she said, releasing her grip and allowing Molly to collapse on the bed.
‘Sleep well. Rest is what is required. You are home now, my dear Molly.’ She
stroked Molly’s cheek and hummed a gentle, soothing lullaby. Molly went
gratefully to sleep, escaping her misery in unconsciousness, the only true
escape for the broken-hearted — apart from death, and that seemed a little
dramatic, even for a musical-theatre actress.