by Julian Clary
‘How, though?’ said Molly. ‘She’s unstoppable. She had me fetching her slippers yesterday. And nothing I do is right — I’m a disaster round the house at the moment. I seem to leave a trail of burnt food, broken china and crying children wherever I go.’
Simon raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re hardly Mrs Beeton, Molls, but that sounds extreme.’
‘She’s eighty-two but she’s the one up a ladder hanging the Christmas decorations.’ Molly sniffed, wiping her eyes. ‘I don’t mean to cry, but I feel so useless. As if I’m just in the way all the time. She’s taking the children to a carol service on Saturday and I’m not allowed to go. It would be a good chance for me to wrap the presents, Lilia told me.’
After Molly’s tearful goodbye, Simon sat and worried. One of the things he relished about his new alcohol-free life was the ability to think clearly. There was something mysterious and sinister about the overbearing old lady. He needed to find out what secrets she was hiding.
He called Roger. ‘You know where Lilia’s old house in Long Buckby is, don’t you?’
‘I think so. Just along the lane from Costcutter’s.’
‘Are you busy today? Could you drive me there?’
‘Well, I did pass my test eventually, and I drive a rather depressing Polo, but my diary appears to be clear. What are you up to?’
‘There’s something I don’t quite trust about Lilia. My hackles rise whenever I’m in the same room as her. I have a feeling it would be worth knowing a bit about her. Let’s go back to when she first appeared in Molly’s life.’
Roger said he was doubtful how much they could learn from staring at Kit-Kat Cottage but he’d take Simon there if he wanted to go. By two o’clock that December afternoon the intrepid pair were travelling up the M1. ‘This is very Miss Marple, if you don’t mind me saying so,’ remarked Roger.
‘It’ll be dark soon,’ said Simon. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’
‘Don’t start whining. I’m doing you a favour here!’
Finally they peeled off the motorway and wound their way along picturesque roads to the village of Long Buckby.
‘Turn right here, and there’s Costcutter’s!’ exclaimed Roger, triumphantly, driving into a narrow lane. ‘Jesus!’ he exclaimed, as they parked outside the bungalow. ‘Her bush needs a trim.
‘It’s deserted,’ said Simon.
They climbed over the gate, which didn’t open any more, and walked up the overgrown garden path.
‘It’s like Miss Havisham’s gaff,’ said Roger, peering through the grimy windows. ‘So they never did rent it out.’
‘I’m going round the back,’ announced Simon.
‘That’s not like you,’ quipped Roger. ‘Wait for me. This place is giving me the creeps.’
At the back of the bungalow they waded through thigh-high brambles stiffened with frost to the back door.
‘Look at that,’ said Roger, reaching down to the moss-covered doormat. He lifted up the dry skeleton of a bird by its feet and slung it into the dense mass of undergrowth.
Simon knew how to pick a lock from his days as a squatter, and within a minute he had the door ajar.
‘Girlfriend, this is illegal!’ hissed Roger.
‘We’re not going to do any harm. I just want to have a look round, see if Lilia’s hiding any secrets.’
Simon was in the kitchen now, shining a torch he’d produced from his pocket on a Welsh dresser stacked with plates, dishes and cereal boxes, now covered with dust and strings of cobweb.
‘We’re in a scene from The Avengers,’ said Roger. ‘Is Emma Peel going to leap Out of the larder?’
‘Which way is the lounge?’ asked Simon, ignoring Roger’s schoolgirl excitement.
‘It’s through there. At the front on the right.’
The room smelt musty and sweet. Simon swung his torch round, illuminating it with the beam.
‘I don’t want to spoil your fun, but wouldn’t it be easier if we turned on the light?’ Roger flicked the switch. Now the room was a lot less eerie, if still grimy. Two empty brandy glasses, covered with dust and fungus, stood like candelabra on the table.
Simon picked up a dry, yellowed TV Times and blew on it. ‘April 2001. Nicky Campbell’s on the cover.’
‘No wonder they left.’ Roger sniffed.
Simon looked about. So this was where Molly had spent all those months learning to be Mia Delvard, locked behind those pink curtains and sitting next to her teacher on the chenille sofa to receive her lessons. Everywhere he looked, he saw old show posters and photographs. The room was dominated by a dusty oil painting of a foxy redhead holding a cigarette. Was that supposed to be Lilia? It didn’t look much like her — for one thing, the woman in the portrait had blue eyes. And a much bigger nose.
‘Let me get this straight. Lilia claims she was a big singing star in the sixties.’
Roger nodded. ‘Oh, yes. She sang at the Café de Paris, toured London, Paris and Vienna. She met everybody, all the greats. She gave it up for love when she met her husband.’
‘Really?’ Simon shook his head. ‘Then how come I’ve never heard of her?’
‘The world’s full of forgotten stars,’ Roger replied. ‘Look at Mike Smith. All right, the old bird milks it a bit, but you know what these girls are like: they can’t quite accept that it’s all over, can they? Besides, look what’s she done for Molly. Silk purse out of a sow’s ear or what? You can’t deny Lilia knows her onions.’
Simon reached up to a shelf in the alcove and pulled out a photograph album. ‘This should be interesting, then.’
He opened it and flicked through the pages. There were dozens of black-and-white photographs, mostly of glamorous, well-dressed showbiz types at parties. Nearly all had Lilia, bat-dark of eye and backcombed of hair, somewhere in them.
‘Well, well. Maybe you’re right,’ he said. He took the album to the sofa and sat down with it. Roger perched next to him.
‘Isn’t that her with Peter Sellers?’ said Roger, impressed.
‘Yes, but she appears to be wearing Britt Ekland’s coat.’
Roger pointed at another photograph. ‘Here she is with Grace Kelly!’
‘Let me have a look. This light’s rubbish,’ said Simon. He switched on his torch and shone it directly on to the image so that he could inspect it even more closely. There was Lilia, aged about twenty, standing alongside Grace on the set of Rear Window.
‘How remarkable!’ said Roger.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Simon. He began to pick at the middle of the photograph.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Roger. ‘I can’t be party to vandalism.’
‘There,’ said Simon, suddenly lifting Lilia’s head up from the picture and proffering it on his fingertip as if it were the body of Christ.
‘Ugh! What’s that?’ asked Roger.
‘Salome — I give you Lilia’s head!’ said Simon, triumphantly. ‘The woman is a fake. Look there,’ he said, eyes shining brightly. ‘Who do you see? Whose face was underneath Lilia’s?’
‘Thelma Ritter’s,’ said Roger, the penny dropping at last. ‘Oh, my God! You’re right!’
‘And this isn’t her with Katherine Hepburn, either. Wondered why she was wearing a suit and tie. That’s because it’s Humphrey Bogart. The deceitful old bag! And this! It isn’t Lilia with Peter Purvis at all, it’s Valerie Singleton,’ said Simon.
‘That’s too much,’ said Roger.
Simon put the album down crossly and moved into the hallway to look at the posters and framed playbills of Lilia’s glittering career. ‘Fakes. Every one of them.’
‘My God,’ said Roger. ‘I always had my doubts, but I thought she’d been more of a chorus girl than a leading lady. More Stephen Gately than Stephen Fry, if you catch my drift. Fancy going to all that trouble with scissors and Pritt Stick!’
‘I don’t think she ever stepped on a stage in her life.’
‘Wait till Molly hears about this,’ said Roger, relishing the thought of Lili
a’s exposure.
Simon shook his head. ‘No, we can’t tell her. Who knows what it would do to her confidence if she learnt that her whole career is based on fraud? I have some more detective work to do first. Lilia’s harmless for now, but if she’s exposed, we’ll have to watch out. There’s no knowing what she might do.’
‘Get me out of this madhouse,’ said Roger, who was pale with shock. He shuddered. ‘It’s all beginning to feel distinctly spooky.’.
‘One final snoop in each room and then we’ll go,’ Simon said grimly.
That Christmas, there was little evidence of the recession in Bond Street. The rich were spending their cash with reckless abandon and Molly was one of them, the Bentley kerb-crawling along the street beside her, ready to receive the various packages as she left each shop. She bought Rupert a gold Rolex, the boys a mountain of toys and expensive clothes, and Lilia a delicate string of seventeenth-century black pearls from Asprey’s. For Simon, she found a signed first edition of Muriel Spark’s Memento Mori and a diamond-encrusted friendship ring by Cartier.
Satisfied with her afternoon’s shopping, she checked into Claridge’s to freshen up for the smart party hosted by her record label at Century, a private members’ club. It would be fun to dress up and forget her domestic woes for an evening.
Molly was taking a rare visit to her old life and, for a few short hours, it was pleasant to be fêted, spoilt and treated with deference and respect. There was precious little of that at home, these days. She got a bit drunk on champagne and was pleased to be able to snuggle down with a blanket on the back seat of the Bentley while her driver steered her expertly home.
By the time they got back to Kent, it was just past midnight.
The driver dropped her at the main gates and, to avoid waking the children, she walked up the frosty lawn rather than across the gravel driveway. The front door had been left on the latch and she slipped silently into the hallway. She deposited her black-and-silver pashmina on the hall table and walked over to the drawing-room door. She had seen smoke rising from the inglenook chimney and hoped Rupert would still be up, maybe asleep on the sofa, so she could snuggle up to him and tell him how much she loved him. It seemed ages since they had had any time alone together.
As she got to the door, which was ancient pockmarked oak with creaky black hinges and a big iron latch, she heard Lilia’s voice: ’I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I thought it best to tell you what was on my mind.’
‘But I don’t understand. How do you know all this?’ said Rupert, sounding deeply shocked.
‘Some of it I have deduced from Molly’s behaviour. You must have seen her scattiness, her remoteness. Her mind isn’t here even if her body is. And some she has told me. But it is only now that I know you and, if I may make so bold, like you that I feel compelled to share my fears. I believe that lately Molly has got much worse — I’ve seen such signs in the past, of course, before her previous breakdown.’
‘Breakdown?’ said Rupert.
‘I assumed you knew.’
‘What breakdown?’
‘Did she never tell you about her psychotic episode seven years ago? Oh dear. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’
‘I’m glad you did, Lilia.’ Rupert sounded weak and tired. ‘It’s just so much to take in. It’s a shock. But you’re right — Molly has been behaving oddly recently. She does seem distant and she can’t manage the simplest things.’
As Molly listened she had no real idea what they were talking about, but instinct told her to stay put and listen on for a few moments. What she heard next left her in no doubt.
‘I’m afraid that the truth is Molly doesn’t love you any more. It is not her fault, she is just incapable. She is fond of the children, of course, but her first love is herself and always has been.’
‘But she seems so loving most of the time!’ Rupert said, bewildered.
‘No. You are just a stepping-stone to her. You have a five-year shelf-life, to my mind, and you’ve already enjoyed four of those. I don’t think she realised quite how costly your divorce had been and you are simply not wealthy enough for her. She’ll be wanting someone along the lines of Damien Hirst or Richard Branson next — the big guns. No disrespect.’
‘It’s still so hard to believe,’ Rupert said sadly.
‘I may be wrong,’ Lilia said quickly. ‘But where is she now? Cavorting about London like Eliza Doolittle. Leaving her precious children in my care. Me. An elderly, disabled, not to mention unpaid and unqualified friend. Are these the actions of a devoted wife and mother?’
‘But what would I do without her?’ cried Rupert’s anguished voice.
‘I will take care of everything for you,’ said Lilia, in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘We must do what is best for those dear, dear children.’
Molly, her hand clasped over her mouth to stop herself screaming, backed silently away from the door. She wanted to burst through the door and yell at Lilia, slap her and tell her get out of her house. She wanted to throw herself into Rupert’s arms and reassure him that of course she loved him and Lilia was the mad one. But wouldn’t a hysterical reaction just confirm everything Lilia had just told him? Would such actions make her look like a fit and dutiful mother? No. She needed to get Rupert on his own, away from the evil serpent Lilia was showing herself to be. She would try and explain everything to him then. She must be calm. Then she could confront Lilia later.
She took a few moments to get control of herself, then she entered the drawing room where Lilia and Rupert were sitting in silence together.
‘Hi’ said Molly, smiling broadly at them. ‘Did the boys go to bed all right?’
‘Yes, fine,’ said Rupert. ‘Did you have a good time?’
‘Lovely, thanks, but it’s nicer to be home. I think I’ll go up and look in on them. You coming up?’ she asked Rupert.
‘Yes. Let’s go,’ said Rupert.
‘I will turn the lights out and put the fireguard in place.’ Lilia stood up.
Molly couldn’t bring herself to say goodnight to Lilia. She just turned and left the room.
Upstairs she kissed her boys’ foreheads and stood in the doorway for a few minutes, watching them sleep, illuminated by a soft orange night-light.
By the time she entered her own room, Rupert was already in bed, his big form turned away from her, the duvet pulled up round his shoulders. Nevertheless, when she climbed into bed beside him she couldn’t resist slipping an arm round his waist and pressing herself to his bare back. But Rupert remained as still as a statue, his breathing steady, and while she doubted he was asleep she could tell he wanted to give that impression. ‘Rupert?’ she said softly. She longed to explain that he’d been told a pack of lies, and to offer her side of the story. ‘Rupert? Please, can we talk?’ But there was no response.
Lilia, what are you doing? she thought, staring into the dark. I thought we loved each other. Why do you want to destroy my marriage? What is it you want?
She woke with a start and looked at the clock beside her. It was just after eight a.m. She had had the old dream of her mother being dragged off screaming, calling her name. Breathing deeply to calm herself, she noticed that Rupert’s side of the bed was empty. Suddenly filled with foreboding, she got up, stumbled out of the room and ran the short distance along the landing to Leo and Bertie’s, but they were gone, their unmade beds staring at her accusingly. She gasped, then told herself that of course they would all be downstairs at this hour, having breakfast. Except that the house was eerily quiet.
She ran down to the kitchen. No one was there. Next she raced to the front door and flung it open. Rupert’s black Land Rover was gone. The gate was open.
Oh, my God! thought Molly, horrified. Could he really have believed what Lilia said about me last night? Has he taken my babies away?
Desolate, she returned to the kitchen, terrible thoughts racing through her head. On the table, she spotted a folded piece of paper with her name on it in Rupert’s handwriti
ng. She snatched it up.
Molly,
I have taken the boys to the zoo for the day.
See you later.
R
She breathed out with relief. The note was curt, but that was to be expected — no doubt Rupert wanted time away from her to think. She had to act quickly — get to him before Lilia did any more damage and explain herself. She saw it clearly now: Lilia had become her enemy and was working to destroy her. But why? Right now she could only deal with facts and solutions. Too much was at stake. She would tell Lilia she had to go, she decided. Tough action was called for. Like vermin, a parasite or fungus, Lilia had to leave the house as soon as possible — today.
‘Good morning,’ said a familiar voice behind her. ‘Still in your nightie? You must be cold. Winter draws on, as they say.’
Molly turned slowly towards the door and saw Lilia standing there. It was like looking at a vision of herself: the bright red hair, the makeup exactly as she did hers, the grey cashmere dress identical to the one that hung in her wardrobe, the breasts exactly her size. As she looked at Lilia, she felt fear for the first time.
‘Good morning, my dear!’ said Lilia, cheerfully, coming into the room. ‘No children to worry about today — what a relief for you.’
‘Morning,’ replied Molly, with equal brightness. ‘Yes. They’ve gone to the zoo with their father.’
‘Port Lympne, I expect,’ said Lilia. ‘They have a baby giraffe. Most opportune for their fund-raising activities.’
Molly went to make herself some tea, aware that her hands were trembling. Could this be the same sweet old lady she had heard telling such wicked lies to Rupert, making him believe she didn’t love him, causing a terrible rift between them? Was divorce what Lilia wanted? Did she intend to tear Molly away from her children? As she thought of these things, she contemplated throwing the kettle at Lilia. She restrained herself, but kept her fingers on the handle just in case. ‘What are your plans today?’
‘How funny. I was about to ask you the same question.’ Lilia came round the kitchen table and stood inappropriately close to Molly. ‘I want to ask you again about whether you’re willing to go to Toronto. Think carefully. This will be the last time I ask you.’