Devil in Disguise (8 page)

‘Yes,
you’re all loaded,’ said Molly, enviously. ‘You’re never seen in the same
cap-sleeved T-shirt twice.’

‘None
of that’s true!’ Simon sounded agitated. ‘I’m not out every night to interact
with our gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender brothers and sisters. I’m out
every night because I’m a sex maniac.’

‘Always
out on the sniff,’ said Molly.

‘It
rules my life.’

‘I know
it does. From an outsider’s point of view it seems like torture.’

Simon
sighed. ‘I’m so glad. It would be awful if no one noticed how much I suffer.’

Even
through his jacket Molly felt Simon’s shoulder muscle tighten. She lifted her
head and peered at her friend. Simon, nostrils flared, was staring with the
intensity of a gun dog towards a shadowy area under the bridge. ‘What is it?’
she asked.

‘A man!’
said Simon, incredulously, as if this were an endangered species. ‘Tracksuit
bottoms, a tattoo on his neck and he seems a bit drunk.’

‘Oh,
Lord, no,’ said Molly, wearily. ‘Not at this time of night, surely?’

‘I’m
going over to investigate,’ announced Simon, resolutely, never taking his eyes
from the target. ‘You stay here.’

‘Simon!’
said Molly, indignantly. ‘It’s half past three in the morning! You can’t leave
me here. It’s not safe.’

‘I’ll
only be a few yards away,’ said Simon, over his shoulder, by this time already
several steps from her.

‘Simon,
no!’ shouted Molly, but he carried on, disappearing into the shadows under the
bridge.

The morning sunlight came
streaming in through the faded cotton curtains of Molly’s bedroom in Kit-Kat
Cottage. She had slept comfortably and woken up happy, until she remembered her
conversation with Simon the night before. She’d been shocked and hurt when he’d
hung up on her. He must have been drunk, she thought, or well on his way to
getting there. He was such a worry. She’d seen his drinking getting heavier and
heavier over the years, but she was convinced it was entirely because of his
consistently tragic love life. They were so close that it made her almost as
miserable as it made him.

If only
Simon could restrict himself, as Molly knew some gay men did, to furtive,
fleeting encounters with these allegedly heterosexual alpha males, it would be
all right. But in the years Molly had known him, Simon had got himself into a
repetitive cycle of intense excitement followed all too swiftly by wrist-slashing
misery. Now she dreaded hearing about his latest love because she knew for sure
exactly where it would lead. She knew that she’d got over-involved with
relationships herself in the past, and been depressed when things didn’t work
out, but at least her affairs of the heart were in with a chance. Simon only
lusted after the unattainable. If, as had happened once, the man of his dreams
fell for Simon too, and decided to give up his ‘straight’ ways and embrace a
committed relationship, then Simon, of course, went off him instantly. The men
he desired had to be straight and be seen to be straight. A wedding ring was a
particular turn-on, a child seat in the car a plus. A sniff of homophobia in
the mix and Simon was in heaven.

Quite how
it all worked — how Simon managed to get into these men’s trousers — was a grey
area. As far as Molly knew, there were two methods of attack. Sometimes Simon
would target a particular man, slowly but surely seducing him, igniting his
curiosity, then pouncing once the grooming process was complete and sufficient
alcohol had been administered. The other, less time-consuming option seemed to
involve relieving men already in a state of some arousal, be it in cinemas,
saunas, toilets or parks, the any-port-in-a-storm scenario. Darkness seemed to
help things along.

In
either case the outcome was always doomed. Love could not flourish in such
circumstances. Simon was aware of this. As he had told her himself, with
infinite sadness in his voice, love grows towards the light, and the glow of a
Benson & Hedges behind a rhododendron did not suffice.

Molly
sighed and put her worries about Simon Out of her mind. She would deal with all
that when she got back to London next week. In the meantime there was the
weekly challenge of working out how the shower operated. Some she’d come across
seemed more complicated to master than flying a helicopter.

She
took her faded avocado-green towel from the chair where it was neatly folded,
put on her dressing-gown and padded across the hall to the guest bathroom. It
was a tiny space, with only a lavatory, a miniature basin the size of a
sandwich box and a plastic shower as narrow and claustrophobic as an upright
coffin. After several attempts, Molly managed to open the door, which suddenly
folded in two like a trouser press. Squeezed inside, she looked at the various
buttons and levers, mystified. After several exploratory jabs, she pressed a
small frosted orange button and, with a sound like a lawnmower, the shower
churned into action. Several lukewarm jets fell like light rain. She moved an important-looking
lever downwards and the flow increased until it hissed and steamed, scalding
hot. It seemed that in this particular model of shower, the temperature was
inextricably linked with the water pressure, so if she wanted to shower, the
only answer was to stand patiently under the equivalent of a dripping umbrella
or lose her skin under a boiling torrent. She chose the umbrella. Washing the
soap off took ages, but she managed in the end, dried herself and got dressed.

It was
nine o’clock — exceptionally early for theatre folk — when Molly ventured into
the kitchen. It was empty, with no sign of Lilia or her husband. A selection of
breakfast cereals was lined up on a shelf-like library books, each one decanted
from its cardboard box and put into secure see-through Tupperware containers,
and the labels from the original packaging Sellotaped to the tops. Molly chose
Somerfield’s own-brand muesli, and poured some into a bowl. She saw the milk jug
on the table and went to pick it up, then noticed an envelope, with her name on
it in sweeping handwriting, propped against it. Inside she found a tasteful
retro drawing of a black-headed seagull with the words
‘Bonne Chance!’
printed
underneath. On the reverse was written, ‘Wishing you the greatest of success in
Northampton, and a happy stay at Kit-Kat Mansion, Lilia xxxx’.

Ah,
that’s nice of her, thought Molly, smiling. She was touched by the old lady’s
thoughtfulness. She would take the card with her and stick it to her
dressing-room mirror. There weren’t many on it — one from Simon, a lovely big
one from Daniel, a small white one from her agent, which had been stuck to a
bunch of flowers on the first night of the run, and a few from actor pals who remembered
these things. But where other people had cards from their family, Molly had
none — just a good-luck charm on a leather band from her favourite social
worker that she always draped round her dressing-room mirror.

She
finished her breakfast alone. By the time she left Kit-Kat Cottage, there was
still no sign of Lilia and the house was silent. Even the huge dog seemed to
have vanished.

The drive to the Derngate
Theatre in Northampton took about twenty minutes through pleasant countryside,
affluent villages and past the Althorp estate, home to the Spencer family.
Molly was there by nine forty-five, ready to start rehearsals at ten. She
parked her battered old Nissan by the loading dock at the rear of the theatre,
took a small plastic holdall from the boot and walked round to the stage door.

Just
inside, a man sat in a cosy little room with a sliding-glass window on to the
corridor. He was in jeans and a faded Sex Pistols sweatshirt, reading a
magazine with a steaming cup of tea by his side. Molly knocked on the glass and
he got up, came over and slid back the panel.

‘Hello,
chuck. I’m Molly Douglas. You must be Roger. We spoke on the phone the other
day and you were good enough to get me those lodgings at Kit-Kat Cottage.’ She
gave him a big, warm smile, the one that always seemed to win her friends. It
was important to be friendly — the stage-doorman was a personage of great
influence and importance. He would gossip about her to the other theatre staff,
and any rudeness or diva behaviour could result in deep unpopularity. A
stage-doorman who was on side, though, oiled the machinery of life. He would
pass on any letters and messages she might receive, send up flower deliveries
and tell her, via the Tannoy, if visitors or admirers were seeking admittance to
her dressing room. Best of all, he would relay the spiciest gossip and the best
titbits of scandal.

‘Oh,
yes, Molly Douglas,’ said Roger, consulting a list of names. ‘That’s right, I
remember,’ he replied, polite but wary. ‘How are you getting on there?’

‘Very
well, thanks. No problems so far, anyway.

‘Good.
Welcome to the Derngate. Dressing room four is on this level, just down to the
left.’ He passed a key, with a battered wooden brick attached to it, through
the sliding-glass window. ‘That’s to stop you taking it home with you,’ he
added.

Molly
judged him to be in his mid-forties and of Mediterranean origin, although he
spoke with a north-London twang. His hair was short, and speckled pleasingly
with grey just above his ears. His eyes were like an eagle’s, large and brown
and darting around, taking in everything about her.

‘The
dressing rooms are nothing special,’ he continued. ‘You’d think they’d spend a
bit of money on them but it’s a dump, love.’ He shook his head wearily.

‘Oh,
never mind. I’ve got some incense with me,’ said Molly, lifting her suitcase.

Roger
wrinkled his nose. ‘Can’t stand incense. Makes me retch.’ He shut the sliding
window, picked up
Take A Break,
buried his nose in it and paid no
further heed to the leading lady. I’d better tread carefully with that one,
thought Molly. She pushed her way through a couple of fire doors and walked
down a narrow, windowless corridor made of breeze blocks. Dressing rooms one to
five were on the left, the doors painted navy blue. Access to the stage was on
the right and the toilets were between rooms one and two, and four and five.

No
en-suite, then, thought Molly, grimly, stopping outside dressing room four. She
turned the key, left it in the lock and went in.

Her
very first entering of a new dressing room was always an important moment for
Molly: she felt it was vital to her performance and to the emotional fabric of
the coming week. She put down her bag and stood in the middle of the room,
looking about her, inhaling the previous occupant’s stale perfume and a whiff
of disinfectant from the sink in the corner. There was a sagging metal single
bed against one wall, its thin mattress covered with a tired pale-blue
candlewick counterpane. Opposite this were two mirrors, a white Formica counter
that ran the length of the room, and two grey plastic chairs. At the far end,
opposite the sink, there was a long, narrow window. The curtains were rough and
woolly, a
mélange
of messy grey and dirty turquoise. Ventilation could
be achieved by pulling a lever at the side, which, Molly noted, would tilt open
the louvred glass slats.

She
lifted her holdall on to the counter and set to work, personalising the
cell-like room, as she did every week on tour, to give consistency and comfort
to her travelling lifestyle. First she pulled out a dark-green Indian throw,
heavily embroidered with beads and tassels in bright orange and purple, and
laid it over the bed. She added a small, matching satin pillow, then set her
incense holder on the counter and lit two sticks of sweet and sultry Nag Champa
to give the room a thorough spiritual cleaning. She rang a little silver bell,
waving it elegantly to tinkle across the floor, then as high up as she could
reach and, most particularly, in all the dark corners where unhappy spirits might
linger or bad vibes lurk.

Next
she took out a very small wooden electric lamp, hand-painted with tiny roses
and topped with a camp fringed vanilla shade, which she plugged in and turned
on. She placed her small portable radio in the middle of the bench and turned
that on too. The sensible tones of Radio 4 filled the silence. It was the last
five minutes of
Book of the Week.
Molly listened with half an ear while
she set out her makeup just so in front of the mirror. Then she turned off the
harsh overhead strip lighting and switched on the bulbs round the mirror. The
room was transformed: the lighting was now soft and harmonious, it smelt
delicious and looked homely and cheerful.