Devil in Disguise

by Julian Clary

  Lilia released her hands and folded them in turn around the younger woman’s. They smiled at each other.

  ‘Goodness!’ said Lilia, letting Molly go, then clapping once. ‘Such kindness on an empty stomach. And you have a matinée to perform in a couple of hours. Have a cup of coffee.’

  Lilia sat while Molly ate her breakfast and the two of them talked over the previous night and what a success it had been. ‘It quite makes me long for the old days.’ Lilia sighed. ‘When I was the chanteuse du jour, a star of the cabaret. But it’s too late for me now.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Molly said loyally, though of course she could see that Lilia was now past her songstress days. The show the previous evening had been enjoyable but the old lady’s voice was quivering and rather ropy, taking a visit round the note rather than to it.

  ‘Do you really think so?’ Lilia’s eyes sparkled a little.

  ‘Of course,’ Molly said, remembering Roger’s story of the failed comeback. I mustn’t encourage her too much, or she’ll do it again, poor love, she thought. And she shouldn’t waste her money and get her hopes up all over again. She said quickly, ‘You should ask your friends round and do some little performances for them. Have some more soirées. Maybe a spot of singing in the village pub.’

  ‘Huh!’ grunted Lilia. ‘I’m not that desperate. Those old women in the village, they don’t understand me, or art, or beauty. They think I’m eccentric. They laugh at me. What they don’t know is that I am alive and they are dead. And I have lived more in a single year than they have in their entire lives!’

  ‘I want to hear more about it,’ Molly said eagerly. ‘I want to hear about your amazing experiences.’

  ‘You shall, dear Molly, you shall. Are you back late tonight?’

  ‘No — I’ll come straight home after the evening performance. I’ll bring us a bottle of wine, if you like, and we can sit down and have a good talk.’

  ‘But I’m sure you have better things to do. Drinks with your friends, a visit to Northampton’s finest club, Manhattan Nights …‘

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Molly said, waving away Lilia’s concern with one hand. ‘I’d much rather be here with you. I’m leaving on Sunday and I still haven’t had the chance to hear your story.’

  Lilia looked at her with watery eyes. ‘You’d really like that?’

  ‘Of course I would. I can’t think of anything nicer.’

  ‘You’re so kind to me,’ Lilia said, looking as pleased as a child promised an ice cream.

  When Molly left, Lilia followed her to the front door almost anxiously. ‘Do you really want to hear all about my life, Molly?’ she asked. ‘I would understand if you’d rather be with your friends.’

  Molly bent down and gave her a hug. ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear. You’ve made me very happy,’ said Lilia, bobbing up and down a couple of times with enthusiasm. This she achieved by bending her knees; a younger woman would probably have jumped lightly on the spot. ‘I will await your return.’

  Everyone at the theatre seemed a little subdued, tired out by their carousing the previous night.

  ‘Thanks for the party,’ said Peter, when he and Molly met in the Green Room. ‘Five hours’ sleep and I still look like Dale Winton. I’m a walking miracle.’

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ said Molly. ‘Isn’t Lilia fascinating?’

  ‘A game old bird,’ said Peter. ‘And she can still warble a tune, I’ll give her that.’

  ‘Lilia has soul. She sings in a way only people who have lived a life can.’

  ‘You must find out what her story is,’ said Peter. ‘She might be related to Leslie Joseph.’

  ‘I’m going to. It’s my last chance tonight. After tomorrow, I’ll probably never see her again.’

  ‘Or me.’ Peter shrugged. ‘Showbusiness is a funny old world, isn’t it? We all get thrown together in the most random of ways. Some people we attach ourselves to, others we can’t wait to let go of.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Molly.

  That night Molly left straight after the curtain call, barely stopping to take off her wig and makeup. On the way home, she picked up a bottle of good, full-bodied Chilean Merlot from an off-licence. It seemed a suitable drink, somehow.

  When she got back to Kit-Kat Cottage, the bungalow seemed quiet and dark. Then, as she shut the front door behind her, she heard Lilia call from the lounge, ‘Molly, my dear, you’re home.’

  ‘Yes, and I’ve got the wine. I’ll just fetch some glasses.’

  In the lounge, Lilia was once again wearing her silken kimono, stretched out along the red sofa and awaiting her audience. Molly poured them both some ruby-red wine and handed Lilia hers. They chinked their glasses together.

  ‘To you, Lilia!’ said Molly, brightly.

  ‘Thank you, my dear,’ Lilia said modestly.

  When Molly was settled, she gazed at Lilia, who seemed to be waiting for a question to prompt her into speech, so she said, ‘Was your childhood a happy one?’

  Lilia perked up at once. ‘It was very exciting. I practically grew up in the dressing room of the Metropole. And the Nelson and the Theater des Westens, in Berlin. My first toy was a lipstick. Yes, I was happy.’

  ‘Were your parents actors?’

  ‘Not exactly. They were a slightly different breed. Cabaret people, performers, innovators. Berlin in the thirties — you cannot imagine it. I am coy about my age, but I was there — just. I remember it in flashes, as a child would, not intellectually.’

  ‘What do you remember?’

  ‘My mother, mostly. She was getting ready to go on stage. Dark eyes, and glowing white skin. She would smoke nervously, and pace up and down. She would kiss and hug me as if we were never going to see each other again, with tears of regret in her eyes. Then she would leave me. Alone. She would only be gone for half an hour, then she’d come back in and smoke some more.’

  ‘Was your mother as famous as your father, Kurt Weill?’

  ‘Some believe my father to be Kurt Weill, but I do not!’ Lilia said emphatically.

  ‘Oh!’ Molly was surprised. Hadn’t Lilia herself said that Kurt Weill was her father? She asked reasonably, ‘Well, who are the “some”?’

  ‘Academics, musicologists. People of note. It has never been proven. In fact, I threw it in for effect. If you say Kurt Weill was your father before you sing one of his songs it heightens the experience for the audience. They think you’re channelling or something. I’d say Cliff Richard was my father if I thought it would help.’

  ‘You devil!’ said Molly, laughing at the old lady’s audacity.

  ‘Ah, an old cabaret trick.’ Lilia chuckled like a wise owl. ‘Nancy Sinatra, Liza Minnelli, Prince — everyone does it at some stage of their career …

  ‘So who is Lilia Delvard?’ asked Molly, relishing the sound of the name. ‘And who was your real father?’

  Lilia leant back on her pillows and a dreamy look came over her face. She seemed to be reaching back into the far-distant past and her earliest memories. Then she began in a soft, musical voice, her German accent more pronounced, ‘I am the daughter of Otto Falckenberg. He was the director of the Academic-Dramatic Union in the Berlin of 1901. Apart from being my father, he was the sire of modern cabaret in all its variations. Along with artists, painters and students, he was protesting against the strict morality of the time, the censorship by the government and interference of the police. With a group of like-minded artists, he formed a group called Die Elf Scharfrichter — the Eleven Executioners. They were young and ambitious and angry!’ Lilia’s voice quivered somewhat. She paused to take a breath and steady herself. ‘They hired a room at the back of an inn and decorated it with grotesque masks. To avoid harassment by the authorities, they called themselves a club and played only to invited guests. Their first performance began with a discordant song from the Eleven Executioners, during which they threw their bloody robes at the audience. Next came chansons, recitations, p
uppet plays, dramatic pieces and literary parodies, all written and performed by this innovative group. They acted vicious sketches about their betters and sang dangerous satirical songs. As you can imagine, they were all the rage. It had never been done before. No one had seen anything like it. A breath of fresh air. A tour de force. A sensation. The beginning of a new era, a new means of expression, of resistance, of liberty! ‘Lilia looked Molly gravely in the eyes. ‘But change was afoot. The Eleven Executioners were soon to become twelve.’ Lilia tapped herself on the chest. ‘And then thirteen.

  ‘One afternoon during rehearsals a beautiful woman entered the room. She was tall, with black hair parted in the middle, falling to her shoulders, framing her pale, angular face. Her eyelids were heavy, her lips full and red, and she was extremely, almost painfully thin, but with the pride and arrogance of a thoroughbred foal. She was the most bewitching creature Otto Falckenberg had ever seen.’ Lilia paused for a moment, as though fighting a strong emotion. Molly guessed she didn’t want her feelings to get in the way of the narrative — it was obvious that she needed to tell her all this. Somehow Molly felt she understood.

  Lilia went on, ‘The woman’s name was Marya Delvard and in my opinion she was the most important female cabaret artist of the twentieth century. She was also to become … my mother.’

  Molly gasped and reached across to take Lilia’s hand. Lilia sniffed, took a handkerchief from the side of her chair and wiped her eyes, even though they were tearless.

  ‘This is beautiful!’ breathed Molly. ‘It’s like a Radio 4 play.’

  ‘It is dramatic and florid, perhaps, but this is the only way I can tell it to you,’ said Lilia, regaining her self-control. ‘I have told this story to myself so many times, it is like a book to me.’

  ‘Please carry on,’ begged Molly. ‘What happened next?’

  Lilia cleared her throat. ‘The moment he clapped eyes on her, Otto knew he had to have her. He called a halt to the rehearsals, jumped down from the stage and introduced himself as the director of the Eleven Executioners.

  ‘Marya shook his hand and said, “I know who you are. I saw the performance last night and thought you were of interest. I have come to offer my services to you. My name is Marya Delvard and I am a friend of Frank Wedekind. He has written a song for me to sing. I think it will suit your show very well.”

  ‘Otto asked her if she had the music with her and called for the pianist. My mother was a sensation from the moment she stepped onto the stage. For a woman to be so bold and so powerful was a rare thing in those days. At once, Otto made her a part of his performance, and later concentrated only on her when they fell wildly in love with each other. The two of them became definers of the cabaret — they really led the way for the re-emergence of the suppressed decadence of the Berlin underworld. Otto was brilliant, talented, inspired. His stage shows drew the great intellectuals, thinkers and writers. He was one of them. Marya was a brittle beauty who personified intelligent excess, indulgence and liberation, for their own sake. She was never seen in daylight and it was said she had cocaine for breakfast and lettuce for lunch. God only knows what she had for dinner. Schapps and cigarettes, probably. Despite her slight frame it is said that no one noticed she was pregnant with me until she gave birth while singing “The Lavender Song” during a matinée.’

  They both took a sip of the ruby wine and sat in silence. Lilia stared intently at the wall. What will be next? thought Molly.

  Lilia said at last, ‘That is why I could do nothing but sing myself. You do understand that, don’t you, Molly? It was in my blood. It was my birthright. I’m a creature of the stage, just as my parents were before me. There was no other calling I could follow in life, even when they had long gone.’

  ‘What happened to them?’ Molly whispered.

  Lilia closed her eyes and said nothing for a long while. Then she sighed and opened them again, fixing Molly with her watery green gaze. ‘I cannot tell you that yet, my dear. Perhaps another time. It is too painful for me. Too difficult.’

  ‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ Molly gazed at the floor, feeling awkward.

  ‘Don’t worry, my dear, you haven’t hurt me. That particular pain is so familiar to me now, it is a dull ache that I hardly notice. I’ve had other hurts to take its place.’

  ‘Tell me about your life, your career,’ begged Molly. ‘I would dearly love to hear about them.’

  ‘Not now. Let us talk about the future,’ said Lilia, brightening suddenly. ‘Enough of the past.’

  Molly felt slightly shell-shocked. To jump from Lilia’s early childhood straight to the future was quite a leap.

  The old lady continued, ‘You see, now I find myself preoccupied with the end of my story, not the beginning. I know I am old and my life may be edging towards some kind of conclusion, but I need a final flourish. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. The last act?’

  ‘I can’t be doing with just fading away.’ Lilia seemed worried. A little distressed, even.

  ‘You have a lot of life yet to live, Lilia,’ said Molly. ‘A bang, not a whimper — is that what you want?’

  ‘Exactly. Look at poor Joey. He lies in his bed or he sits in his chair. I feed him and I clean him, until one day — what will happen? His kidneys will fail or he will turn blue or he will die in his sleep. After the life I have had it is bad enough that I now live in a bungalow — I have always despised them! This must not be my fate.’

  ‘What is it you’d like?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I will tell you this much. Old age makes me reckless. I do not stop and worry about the consequences of things any more. My mother’s genes, perhaps. I give in to my desires.’

  Molly poured more wine. She raised her glass, signalling another toast. ‘To a happy future!’

  Lilia, though, did not lift her glass to meet Molly’s. She looked bemused. ‘Happy?’ she said. ‘Spare me that. I gave up aspiring to happiness as a child. No. I see my life as a film. I only want it to be a good one, that’s all. Happy doesn’t come into it.’

  Silence fell. Lilia’s eyes drooped.

  ‘Are you tired, darling?’ asked Molly. She must remember that Lilia was an old lady, born in the nineteen thirties.

  ‘Yes, my dear. Terribly.’

  ‘I’ve been an exhausting guest, I do apologise.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Lilia. ‘It does me good to talk about it. But let’s leave it there. Suspended. The shows, the champagne, the cabaret.’

  Molly smiled and collected the now empty glasses. ‘Come on. Time to turn in.’

  Lilia looked relieved. ‘Yes, an excellent idea. Help me up, Molly, would you mind?’

  Molly offered her a crooked arm and led her out of the lounge to her bedroom door, where they said a fond goodnight.

  How much more was there to tell? wondered Molly later, as she lay in her bed. What had been the fate of Lilia’s parents? How had Lilia’s own cabaret career come about? And how had she ended up married to Joey and living in a bungalow in Northampton?

  I bet she won’t have time to tell me before I go on Sunday. How frustrating. I expect I’ll never know.

  On Sunday morning Molly awoke with a thick head and no recollection of how she’d got home the night before. She decided it was best to lie there and think for a while, without even opening her eyes. Despite her hangover, she smiled to herself. It was important to conclude a run with a good party. She hated those prissy shows where everyone rushed off within half an hour of the final curtain. A rollicking knees-up appealed to her Liverpudlian sensibilities. It concluded things properly and The Mikado could now be filed in the recesses of her mind as the show that had received a memorable send-off. She couldn’t quite remember how it had ended. She had fuzzy memories of them all dancing around the empty stage to something pounding out of the sound system, and there was even the faint recollection of Peter yelling and screaming, then some kind of punch-up with Duncan … She must ring him later and get all the gossip.

/>   Funny to think she’d never be dressing up as Yum-Yum again — at least, not in the same way and with the same people.

  And The Mikado would now be for ever associated with the extraordinary Lilia. She had grown very fond of the eccentric old woman who had lived such a vivid and varied life. But Molly also knew that in showbusiness you got to know people very well, swore undying love and never heard from them again. You were always on to the next show and the next gang. Lilia, of course, wasn’t part of the company, but she was part of the experience, and it was time to move on.

  Finally she opened her eyes.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ she said involuntarily, her voice croaky and not at all ready to be used.

  The first thing she saw was a body lying next to her, and a mop of brown hair on the pillow.

  Of course. That was how she had got home. There was the battered leather jacket on the end of the bed. Marcus, the cute, teenage, stagehand, had offered her a lift on the back of his motorbike. Or had she demanded one? Oh dear. She had a sudden recollection of screaming at the top of her voice as they drove through the sleeping village of Long Buckby.

  Then once that had found a chink through the armour of her hangover, several others came busting through. Her arms round Marcus’s slender waist, reaching down to his crotch as they drove through the darkness, Marcus parking outside and helping her to stagger up the gravel path. Molly reached down and touched her knee: yes, there was the fresh graze from where she had fallen over. And then — oh dear. The next bit was truly mortifying. She had refused to let him go until he had given her a kiss. No, not a peck on the cheek — that wouldn’t do. She wanted a proper French kiss. Right now, or she’d scream her tits off — that was what she’d said. And poor, embarrassed Marcus had obliged. His lips had been cold from the ride home, but they were soft and tasted of cider and cigarettes. She had held the back of his head, pressing him towards her, and her tongue had explored the depths of his mouth as if it was trying to lick her palm through his skull.