Devil in Disguise (42 page)

Her
desire to be close to Molly was stronger than ever. Whenever she went shopping
with Molly in Bond Street, it had become her habit to order two of everything,
one in each of their sizes. Lately she had even taken to appearing in the
identical outfit that Molly was going to wear that day, though how she could
predict it so accurately, Molly had no idea.

‘Not
again!’ Lilia would say, with mock exasperation. ‘It must be a psychic link
between us. Like twins!’

But
Molly found it irksome to have a much older German double alongside her each
and every day. The relationship had become stifling, and the truth was that
Molly didn’t want it any more. She appreciated what Lilia had done for her, but
she no longer needed her. She had Boris to negotiate her deals, a publicist to
look after her image, and she was perfectly capable of managing herself. If it
was her lot in life to look after the old lady and humour her until she passed
away, then she would do that, but she didn’t feel the attachment to her that
she had in the old days and was irritated by Lilia’s constant presence and
interference.

She was
married now, with two sons, and she wanted to make her own decisions, call her
own shots. It might not have been so annoying if Lilia had fulfilled the role
of sweet old grandma, but with her new looks and her ever-more ferocious
ambition, it was like having a discontented teenager in the house.

It was
an awful thing even to think, but Molly was beginning to daydream about life
without her old friend. She was not as obsessed with her career as she used to
be. She had enjoyed phenomenal success but now she wanted a break. Her children
were still very young and they needed their mother. She didn’t have the heart
to leave them constantly in the care of others. What was the point in that?
Hadn’t she earned the right to take a couple of years off?

She
knew Lilia would never agree. She seemed to feel that unless they toured
constantly, continuing to perform and record a new selection of heartrending
songs every six months, the public would forget them and move on to someone
else. Things had come to a head one morning a week ago, as soon as Rupert had
left for the office.

‘Lilia,
I’ve come to a decision. I don’t want to work for a while,’ Molly had
announced, as they sat drinking their breakfast coffee together. Michelle had
taken the children down the garden to the trampoline. ‘There’s only a week left
of the world tour — just five more London dates. Once it’s over, I’m taking a
break. I need to spend more time with the children.’

Lilia
stared at her, aghast. ‘What sort of talk is this? A break? We are just at the
beginning of our journey. We cannot stop now, just because you are consumed
with nauseating maternal feelings. What about nurturing
me?’

‘I’ve
been working flat out for eight years,’ Molly said softly. ‘I’ve done
everything you’ve asked of me. I’ve made us both rich and successful. Surely
I’m entitled to some time off.’

Lilia
put down her coffee cup crossly. ‘But Boris is in talks with Paramount! We
would be mad to throw it all away now.’

‘Hollywood
can wait. The boys are growing up so fast. I don’t want to miss it.’

Lilia
narrowed her eyes. ‘How can you be so arrogant? I have sacrificed everything
for you. Now you throw it all back in my face. Ingrate!’

‘Please
calm down, Lilia. I have other responsibilities. You are not the only person in
my life.’

Lilia
got up with slow, wounded dignity. ‘I see. You’ve made yourself quite clear,
Molly—’

‘Oh,
Lilia, I’m sorry — you know I love you… Lilia held up a hand. ‘No, no, Molly,
I quite understand.

Others
come first in your heart now. I cannot compete with a silver—haired husband or
vomiting children.’

There
was a pause. Then Molly said, ‘I need a rest, that’s all. A little time off.
I’ll be ready to start again soon, I promise.’

‘I beg
you to think about this seriously. We have poured everything,
everything,
into
your career. Do not abandon it now, I beg you. Please, Molly, think about it
before you do anything you may regret.’

Molly
had promised she would. But then, last night at the Palladium, she had been
possessed by something greater than herself that had spurred her on to make her
announcement. She had felt calm and liberated afterwards: now she was free to
live a real life for a while. Today it had been all over the papers that she
was retiring for good, and she’d not seen or heard from Lilia since.

Molly
sighed. No doubt she was furious. Well, they would sort it out in good time.
They always did.

On the way to hospital
Roger had held Simon’s hand and kept repeating, ‘You all right, girl? You all
right?’

‘Am I
going to die?’ Simon had asked weakly. The pain-relieving drugs administered by
the paramedics were already taking effect, but he knew that he was very ill.

‘Well,
we’re all going to snuff it one day, let’s face it, said Roger. ‘I’ve always
fancied a brain haemorrhage. Dead before you hit the ground. Not yet, though.
You’re only in your thirties. Pull yourself together. You’re not going yet, do
you hear?’

But
some of us will die sooner than others, thought Simon now. He was lying in his
bed on the ward, curtained off from the other patients and awaiting Roger’s
return. The fresh-faced consultant, wearing an expensive shirt with rolled-up
sleeves, had paid a visit that morning, and after he’d examined Simon
thoroughly, had taken Roger into a side-room to talk through his treatment.
Simon had been in hospital for five days now and had rather surprised Roger by
naming him as his next-of-kin on the official forms, which meant that Roger was
kept abreast of his progress and medication.

‘I
simply refuse to take on the responsibility,’ Roger had said, when Simon told
him what he had done. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got enough on my plate. Visiting is
one thing, getting the results of your stool samples quite another.’

‘Go on,
Rog. The consultant’s a dish. This way you’ll get lots of one-on-one time with
him,’ said Simon, persuasively. ‘They earn good money, you know…’

‘He
hardly looks old enough to operate a Bunsen burner,’ said Roger, but he went
off all the same to hear the latest verdict on Simon’s health.

He had
been gone for such a long time that Simon was beginning to wonder exactly how
much the consultant had to confide when the curtain round his bed was pulled
back and Roger came through.

‘So —
am I dying after lunch or before?’ quizzed Simon, as Roger sat on the chair
next to his bed.

‘If you
can get through
Loose Women,
you have a very sturdy constitution,’ Roger
mused. ‘I spent most of the time mentally undressing the dear doctor. Dreamy,
intelligent eyes and a very trim waist, but the upshot is he seems to think
you’re rather ill. That was the gist, anyway.’

‘Go
ahead. Make my day.’

‘You
have cirrhosis, hepatitis and ascites — that’s dropsy to you. It’s why your
stomach’s so swollen — full of retained liquid. You also have an inflamed
pancreas, glycogen deficiency, high blood pressure, damage to your nervous
tissue, and alcohol dependency, obviously. Not to mention an overload of
poisons and toxins in your system and mental-health problems. Apart from that,
you’re fine. They can’t do anything about your vile personality, unfortunately.
I did ask.’

Oh,
well, thought Simon, philosophically. That’s my life, then. It really hadn’t
turned out to be as spectacular as he’d expected. Like many a tortured queen,
he had simply drunk himself to death. He had sacrificed everything for the
dubious pleasure of getting smashed. The eternal, fervent need to forget, to
get out of it, was giving him, finally, what he craved. Death would be the
ultimate oblivion, the night of nights to remember.

What
would I have changed? Simon wondered. What
could
I have changed?

But he
knew the answer to that.

Simon had always drunk to
excess, but after the night Molly had discovered him with Daniel, his drinking
had taken on new gargantuan proportions. If the answer to life’s problems
before had been to drink, now it was to drink much, much more.

He’d
got home, bedraggled and befuddled, and immediately consumed almost a full
bottle of vodka. He drank until he passed out. He knew all too well that he had
very probably just shattered his friendship with his soulmate — the look on
Molly’s face when she saw him and Daniel together was burnt on to his consciousness.
Her utter despair had frightened him like nothing else in his life ever. He
drank to blot that picture out of his mind, but no matter how much vodka he
poured down his throat, he couldn’t forget it.

He woke
up full of self-loathing. How could he have risked the trust and love of the
only person who really understood him? A future without Molly was unthinkable.
What on earth was he to do without her? The answer had been to drink.

He had
drunk all that day too, desperate to call Molly but too scared of the pain he
had caused her and of what she might say to him.

So he
had gone out and got drunker still.

The
next night he was booked to perform as Genita L’Warts at the ICA. It was a very
high-profile gig, and Boris, the excitable agent, had invited television
producers and commissioning editors to view the startling new talent everyone
was talking about.

‘This
is your big chance,’ he’d told Simon, when the gig had been confirmed. ‘I mean
it. This is your stepping-stone. to the big-time. Get this right and we’re
made.’

In a
bid to show how upmarket his star turn now was, Boris ordered the sardines from
Selfridges for the performance.

It was
three o’clock in the afternoon when Simon woke up, feeling sick and dehydrated.
There was still so much alcohol in his system that he also felt unsteady and
uncentred. Shit, he thought, staring at his watch through bloodshot eyes. I’ve
got a sound check in two hours.

He
tried to roll on to his side and ease himself into an upright sitting position,
but ended up lying in a heap on the floor. ‘Oh, bollocks,’ he said. ‘I can’t
even stand up.’ He reached up to the overcrowded bedside table and blindly
grasped whatever he could reach in the hope that it was a glass of water.
Instead his hand clutched a vodka bottle.

‘Oh,
well,’ said Simon. ‘Why the fuck not?’ He put it to his lips and drained the
remnants. Then he flung it across the room. It smashed against the wall,
spraying the room with shards of glass. His head rolled back on the dusty
carpet and Simon fell into another deep, impenetrable sleep.

He
slept through all of Boris Norris’s frantic phone calls and never heard the
incessant ringing of his doorbell. When he next opened his eyes it was midnight
and he had missed his important gig. After he had staggered into the kitchen to
drink a gallon of water straight from the tap, he phoned Boris’s number.
‘Boris, it’s Simon. I—’

‘Where
in the name of Jesus have you been? Abducted by aliens?’

‘Er,
well, I … I …’

‘This
had better be good, Simon. I’ve had to deal with four hundred angry punters,
theatre management, unimpressed journalists and photographers, and more TV
executives than you could fit into a toilet cubicle at Soho House. Where the
fuck were you? Tell me.’

‘I was
asleep.’

‘Okay.
That’s not great. I phoned and rang your doorbell for two solid hours.’

‘I
remember having a dream about Santa and I thought I heard sleigh bells,’ said
Simon, stifling a yawn. ‘I’m sorry about the stupid gig. Sorry you were left in
the shit. I messed up.’

‘You
most certainly did,’ said Boris. ‘What am I supposed to do? Employ some kind of
minder to ensure that you’re able to fulfil your contractual obligations?’

‘Oh, I
like the sound of that,’ purred Simon. ‘Maybe an Eastern European with ice-grey
eyes and a tattoo of his girlfriend’s name on his torso.’

‘This
is no joking matter.’