I was there myself, covering the story. During his lifetime, of course, Felipe had done everything he could to build himself up into a legend. There were all the tales about his lavish public life, his fabulous clothes, his beautiful friends, and the bare room where he hid himself when he went home, like a monk’s cell, with a fine ebony coffin standing beside the bed. His fans refused to believe this was a publicity stunt. They said he was sincere, a religious mystic: it was the other side to his profession as a great cosmetician. They found him in that coffin, lying composed and quiet, in evening dress as he’d come home from his last party. He’d been having trouble with his heart for some time, it turned out; this time he must have felt it coming, and lain down there to wait for it. Round the window in Bond Street, the noise was like keening, only rather more ladylike. Sophistication will out. Believe it or not, that scene and the noise that went with it were quite something, even in a reporter’s life.
What do You think about The Lily Hand And Other Stories?
