Devil in Disguise (33 page)

‘I see
Old Father Time is here,’ muttered Lilia, under her thick black veil.

‘Sssh!’
said Molly. ‘He’s sitting right behind us.’

‘What’s
Roger after? Some free sandwiches?’

‘I
invited him. I thought it would be nice for you to have some support.’

The
other attendees were a strange middle-aged couple dressed in black who sat
staring ahead throughout the brief service.

‘Look
at them,’ hissed Lilia. ‘Grief groupies. I expect they hang around here all
day, going to funerals. Weirdos.’

It was the
briefest of ceremonies with no personal tributes, and just a single dark pink
rose on the coffin, from Lilia. She’d picked it herself from the garden.

‘It’s
from my “Angela Rippon” bush,’ she explained, as they filed out afterwards.

‘Beautiful,’
said Roger. ‘Thanks for asking us. I didn’t know Joey, but he was obviously a
very special man who’ll be sadly missed.’

Freddie
muttered, ‘So very sorry …’ and shook Lilia’s hand solemnly.

‘He had
a wonderful life,’ said Molly, in an attempt to fill the awkward silence.

There
was no wake afterwards. Molly thought they ought to ask Roger and Freddie back
for a drink but Lilia wouldn’t hear of it. ‘I never feed vultures,’ she said,
when they were on their way home in a taxi.

‘They
came to pay their respects,’ said Molly. ‘I think it was very nice of them.’

Lilia
just sniffed and stared out of the window through her veil.

Back at
the house, every sign of Joey had, by now, been erased. The various slings and
hoists that had been used to lift and transport him, the special mattress, the
nappies, pills, lotions and dressings that were all kept on a big plastic tray
had been returned to the hospital or donated to a hospice shop. Even his
armchair had been thrown out and the furniture rearranged to fill the gap.

The
morning after Joey’s funeral Molly discovered Lilia staring out of the kitchen
window, her face miserable. She put an arm round her and gave her a hug.
‘You’re missing him, aren’t you?’ she said.

‘I do
not understand,’ said Lilia, her eyes searching the garden. ‘The starling has
gone. And I have not seen my little thrush since the night Joey died. I have
put out bread for him, whistled for him, but he hasn’t come to see me.’

‘Ah,
love,’ said Molly.

‘Sometimes,
in my
People’s Friend,
I read letters from widows. Their dead husbands
revisit them in the form of a robin redbreast hopping around in their garden
and fearlessly landing on their shoulders to give them an affectionate peck on
the cheek. Why, in my case, has this happened in reverse?’ Lilia turned to Molly
for an explanation. ‘Will my thrush ever return?’

‘Mine
never has,’ said Molly, ‘but I’ve got some very effective ointment if it does.’

There
was silence for a moment, then both women laughed for the first time since Joey
had died.

‘Maybe
he was Joey’s bird, not yours,’ Molly suggested. ‘He’s gone with Joey to guide
him to heaven.’

Lilia
shrugged. ‘Either that or next door’s cat got him.’

Despite the removal of any
evidence that Joey ever lived there, Lilia talked about him constantly in terms
that indicated how much she missed him and how badly she was coping. ‘It is
worst at night,’ she would say, with a trembling voice, when Molly said she was
going to bed. ‘I reach out to touch him and he isn’t there. I call his name but
he doesn’t answer!’ she wailed. ‘How can I go on? What is the point?’

Molly
would smile and rub her back. ‘Don’t upset yourself now. You know you can
always sleep in my bed.’

As a
result, Lilia never did return to her own bedroom, but continued to sleep with
Molly, clinging to her with her bony hands and sometimes weeping tearlessly on
her neck. ‘Do not leave me, Molly. Do not abandon me at such a time!’ the old
lady cried on her shoulder. Heathcliff slept on the bed too, and although it
was hot and uncomfortable, Molly could see no way to ask for her privacy back.

The
singing and acting lessons resumed on the day after the funeral and Lilia
seemed happiest when she was giving her
protégée
instructions. In fact,
without her time-consuming duties, getting Joey up and fed, Molly found that there
were even more hours in the day to spend on her scales, diction and deportment.
The cold baths and meagre breakfasts were reinstated.

Gradually
Lilia became her old happy self again. Instead of looking for her starling and
thrush each morning, she took to calling sweetly, ‘Here, Pussy! Come to Lilia!’
to next-door’s cat while standing at the door with a bucket of water at the
ready. The day she finally managed to drench him, she hummed to herself all
afternoon and opened a bottle of port to celebrate.

‘You are not smoking
enough,’ said Lilia one day, examining a half-empty packet. ‘You should have
finished these yesterday and be on to the next packet by now.’

‘I’m
trying my best but they’re giving me a cough,’ said Molly, defensively. ‘Did
you hear me this morning? I sound like Alf Garnett.’

‘I
heard just a polite clearing of the throat. We are aiming for the full
consumptive lung rattle. You are a long way off When I used to share a room in
Paris with Edith Piaf, she filled half a bucket with phlegm before breakfast.’

‘You
lived with Edith Piaf?’ exclaimed Molly. Lila’s extraordinary life never ceased
to astound her.

‘Yes,
my dear, I did. In the Grand Hôtel de Clermont, way back. We were like sisters.
It was I who named her “Little Sparrow”, as a matter of fact.’

‘What
was she like?’ asked Molly.

‘Rough.
Always crying over one man or another. She stole Charles Aznavour from me.’

‘Wow!
Charles Aznavour!’

‘I
inspired him to write that dreadful song — “She”. According to him, I could be
the famine or the feast, the beauty or the beast — I’ve never been so insulted
in my life!’

‘Is
that about you?’ asked Molly, open-mouthed.

‘I’m
afraid so. Not that I get any royalties. Anyway, my point is that you must
smoke a lot more if you are going to make progress.’

‘Right,’
said Molly, determinedly. ‘I’ll go and have a couple right now.’

‘Excellent,’
said Lilia. ‘It is for your own good. Mucus is nature’s honey. We shall
increase your brandy consumption too, I think. And less food. You are not
nearly thin enough.’

Molly
stood in the garden and lit a Gauloise. It felt like sandpaper on the back of
her throat but she didn’t mind. Lilia’s anecdote about Edith Piaf had inspired
her to try harder. She smoked with gusto, and before she put out the cigarette,
she lit another from the stub. She steadied herself on the wall as the strong
cigarettes made her giddy and a little nauseous. But no one had ever said being
a successful singer was easy. Lilia was teaching her so much. She must channel
all the emotions and heartbreak of the Daniel and Simon affair into her
singing, just as Edith had done. Lilia was a severe and demanding tutor but at
least she had faith in Molly, had a vision. It was important to give herself
over to her, to allow her mentor full access and to obey all her instructions.
Lilia was going to mould her into something out of the ordinary. Otherwise she
would just plod along, working in third-rate musical theatre all her life. What
could be worse than that? This was a time of transformation and eventually,
with Lilia’s help, she would emerge from Kit-Kat Cottage a better person. A
star in waiting.

Molly
allowed herself to daydream for a minute or two. She saw herself on a big stage
in front of several thousand wildly enthusiastic people, who clapped and
whistled their appreciation. She was thin and beautiful and she bowed
graciously several times as the applause went on and on. She sang songs of lost
love and hard times in a husky, hauntingly melodic voice. She sang for all the
sadness and heartbreak in the world and touched everyone in the audience. Tears
ran down her cheeks, glistening in the spotlight, and rose petals rained down
from her devoted fans up in the gods.

Eventually, all the
cigarettes and brandy paid off While Molly was singing her scales one afternoon,
there was another sudden break in her voice, more dramatic than the last. This
time, the note gurgled and shuddered. Molly was so alarmed she stopped singing,
but Lilia rapped her knuckles on the piano and told her urgently to continue.
Molly tried the same note and again her voice vibrated with a new, sticky tone.

Lilia
clapped with delight. ‘Yes! That is what I have been waiting for!’ Her eyes
shone with joy.

Molly
clutched her throat and laughed, shocked by the sound that had emerged. Her
voice had dropped a full octave. It was as if Aled Jones had changed,
mid-sentence, into Joe Cocker.

‘Again,
quickly!’ commanded Lilia.

Molly
sang all the scales through twice, and the new voice became stronger and more
resonant. When she finished she flung her arms round Lilia. ‘Oh, thank you,
Lilia, thank you!’

‘At
last,’ said Lilia. ‘Listen to the richness of your voice now, the depth of
expression, the soulful pitch. Now we can put ,,vintage” on the label.’

‘I have
found my voice?’ said an emotional Molly.

‘The voice
you need to express your inner self,’ said Lilia, solemnly.

‘Yes,’
whispered Molly.

Lilia
stood up and paced the room. ‘I have such plans for you. It is all a question
of alignment. We start with the broken heart. This is essential for any great
artist. We cannot experience the true depth, the divinity of human experience
without it. I could not break it for you. It is a man’s job. You came to me
primed and ready to evolve. Now we have the voice, the rest is easy.’

‘What
is the rest?’ asked Molly, eagerly.

‘Aesthetics,
mostly. Presentation, let’s call it. Image.’

‘Hair,
makeup and costume, do you mean?’ asked Molly.

Lila
stopped pacing and studied Molly from a few yards away. ‘Not exactly,’ she
said. ‘Although it is very quaint of you to think so.’ She opened the Chinese
cabinet and took out the brandy bottle. ‘We have a way to go yet, I can see.
This is not a theatrical role we are discussing. A great singer is not an
actress, paid to deliver someone else’s lines while simulating emotions for the
riffraff in the auditorium. A singer of the calibre I fully expect you to
become is giving of themselves. It is a major difference. When I sang at the
Café de Paris, when I serenaded my public at an open-air concert in Central
Park, even when I sang in the bath, I cried real tears of blood. It was a cry
from the soul. We give and we give until it hurts, and then we give some more.’

‘What
happens now, then?’ asked Molly, wide-eyed. She was aware that a crucial stage
had been reached and it was time for something new.

‘We
shall begin work on a suitable repertoire of songs for you.’

‘I love
that idea,’ said Molly, excitedly.

‘I have
already been in touch with Roger. I explained to him what our plans for your
future are, and as he owed me for the pleasant afternoon he spent at the
crematorium, he has given me the number of an excellent pianist who is
available for the next few weeks. His name is Geoffrey. I hesitate to bring a
man into the house, but needs must.’

‘Why?’
asked Molly, with a laugh. ‘What are you worried about?’

‘First,
letting someone in on our secret,’ replied Lilia. ‘The golden goose could be
stolen from me. Second, there is the danger of you forming an unsavoury liaison
with him. He is a man, after all. According to. Roger, Geoffrey is pig ugly,
though. Forty-nine and balding, too. That should put you off, for a while at
least.’

‘He
doesn’t sound my type,’ said Molly, with a shudder. ‘Although,’ she said
impulsively, ‘I’d like to think I’ll meet a man one day and be happy again.’

Lilia
looked worried. ‘Happiness is always a great danger. It could ruin everything.
Luckily for Edith Piaf, the great love of her life was killed in a plane crash.
That kept her going for decades. Her misery vaults were full to bursting. Even
so, she had to top them up with a couple of car accidents and the suicide of
her best friend.’

‘Do I
have to be unhappy to be a great singer?’ asked Molly, contemplating Lilia’s
words. ‘Can’t I just have an unhappy experience and move on with life? Maybe
get married and have children.’

‘Yes,
that is scheduled,’ said Lilia, matter-of-factly. ‘But it is years away. You
will marry someone interesting and rich one day.’

Molly
smiled, pleased at the prospect. ‘Oh, good!’ she said.

‘Put it
out of your mind for now, though. We have work to do. Geoffrey will start
tomorrow, and we will test your voice with some Jacques Brel. Now go for a
smoke. Roger has also provided me with the telephone number of young Marcus.’

Molly’s
eyes widened with surprise. ‘Marcus? What do you want his number for?’