Devil in Disguise Read Free

how to ask what Joey’s complaint was.
    ‘He had
a stroke, the doctors say, two years ago. He’s been like this ever since.
That’s why I call him Joey. It’s a bit like having a budgerigar in the room.
His real name is Michael.’
    ‘Oh. I
see.’ Molly couldn’t decide if naming your husband after a budgie was an act of
cruelty or simple desperation. Was Lilia unkind or just trying to make light of
a sad situation?
    ‘Of
course, you do not wish for life to turn out this way but marriage is, as they
say, for better or worse. I just get on with it. It is not easy at my age, but
there it is.’ Lilia gave another world-weary smile.
    Molly
felt a wave of sympathy for her. ‘You’re doing a fine job. It must be
difficult.’
    ‘I
married Michael in the seventies. There is our wedding picture, up on the
shelf. You can see for yourself we were a gorgeous, glamorous couple. I was a
star then, and he was my partner, my manager, my lover and my friend. But he’s
Joey now,’ said Lilia, her voice quivering. ‘I had to separate the two. Michael
was a fascinating man: erudite, smart, inspiring. And Joey? Silent, staring…
incontinent. Locked in his own head. Michael would have hated such a fate.’
    Lilia
gazed fondly at her husband, who continued to stare, motionless, into space.
Molly shifted awkwardly, wondering how to fill the silence. She placed her
empty cup and saucer on top of the plate, put them back on the tray, and said
brightly, ‘That was lovely, Lilia, thank you.’ By way of concluding things, she
wiped the corners of her mouth with her middle finger and smiled.
    ‘I will
show you your room now,’ said Lilia, tipping her teacup to slurp out the last
drops.
    ‘Okay,
then,’ Molly said, relieved. She was keen to get settled in and have some time
to herself. She needed to phone Daniel and let him know she’d arrived safely,
and Simon would be waiting to hear from her too. It was her custom to ring him
on the first night in new lodgings and tell him what they were like. He loved
hearing about her landladies, the more eccentric the better. Lilia would be
right up his street. ‘Now, I’d better—’
    ‘There
is one more thing,’ interrupted Lilia, raising her hand to silence her new
lodger. ‘There is someone else I want you to meet. The real man of the house.’
    ‘Who’s
that?’ asked Molly.
    ‘My
boy. My best boy. Heathcliff.’ Her eyes sparkled. She raised her voice and
called towards the door. ‘Where are you, Heathcliff? Come to Lilia!’
    The
door opened and a large, muscular Rottweiler, the size of a lion, pushed his
way hurriedly into the room and headed straight for Lilia, panting with
excitement. With his rear legs still on the ground, he raised himself in the
air like a stallion, his front paws as big as table-tennis bats, one on each of
Lilia’s shoulders. His impressive tongue licked her ravenously from chin to
forehead as she cooed and giggled girlishly. ‘There, there! My love puppy, my
baby, my gorgeous, handsome man!’
    ‘He’s…
beautiful,’ Molly said, trying not to recoil at the sight of the enormous
tongue lapping the old lady’s face, taking the powder and paint with it.
    ‘Yes,
he is! And gentle as a baby, so don’t be frightened. Down, Heathcliff, down.
Now. Come along, Molly, we will go and find your room.’
    Heathcliff
sat down on the hearthrug, two syrupy spindles of saliva escaping from either
side of his mouth.
    ‘Good
boy,’ said Molly, tentatively, but Heathcliff never took his eyes from Lilia.

 
     
     

     
     
     
     
    Somewhere in his mind
Simon realised it was risky to pour himself a third glass of vino rosso di
Sicilia. It was only five o’clock in the afternoon, after all. The first
mid-afternoon ‘snifter’ had seemed harmless enough. He told himself he deserved
it. It was a pick-me-up, no less, after a traumatic sleepless night. Pick him
up it had. It had given him such a spring in his step, he’d decided without
much ruminating that a