Playing Dead

by Jessie Keane

  And right now, how she hated him, her father.

  Whatever he said, she was going to get her revenge on Rocco, one way or another. If her father refused to punish the bastard, she would. She was going to find a way to do it. She thought of Rocco and his fag lover, and vowed that Frances Ducane was going to pay for this. She wasn’t Constantine Barolli’s daughter for nothing.

  Chapter 12

  1960

  ‘What you need, my boy, is an arsenal,’ Rick Ducane told his son over and over again.

  Frances was thirteen when it first occurred to him that his father was . . . well, more than a little screwy. He missed his mother. He couldn’t talk to his father about anything.

  When they’d come back to England, Rick had become a bitter recluse. He’d bought a house called Whereys, an old red-brick Victorian pile with a big cluster of barley-twist chimney pots soaring high above its gabled roof. It was impossible to heat – Frances always felt cold there – and it was deep in the Kent countryside, miles from anywhere. Secretly, to himself, Frances called the house Where-The-Fuck, Kent.

  He could still remember that wild night when his mother had been drunk, reeling, strange men drinking on the sofa, cavorting naked with her in and out of the bedrooms in the house; and then the next thing, Dad was home and there were police and ambulance men and press swarming over the place like ants.

  That was the last time he ever saw his mother. Now, all he had in the world was dear old Dad, and Frances strongly suspected that Dad was Looney Tunes. Had a screw loose. Was barking mad.

  That worried him.

  And this thing his dad had about weaponry. He’d built up a vast collection of arms. A bayonet knife that – he never tired of telling Frances – he’d taken off a dead Nazi during the war.

  ‘Rigor mortis had set in,’ said Rick. ‘Had to break the bastard’s fingers to get it off him.’

  Nice, thought Frances.

  There was also a Prussian officer’s dress sword. And guns, he was a maniac for guns.

  ‘People will try to hurt you in life, people will pull you down,’ he told Frances.

  Yeah, you got that right, thought Frances. No one could ever hurt him as his dad did, mocking his efforts at amateur dramatics, saying he didn’t have ‘the ear’ when he attempted accents, telling him that stardom was a false mistress and would always break your heart, grudgingly listening to Frances’s readings of Shakespeare’s soliloquies and then telling him that his diction was poor, that he didn’t ‘enunciate’ or ‘project’ enough.

  Oh, Frances knew he could never be the star his dad had once been. He knew he was lacking. But he tried hard, and he hoped he could get somewhere – with or without his dad’s blessing. And it would be without, he knew it.

  ‘So what you’ve got to do, son,’ said Rick, his eyes wild with enthusiasm, ‘is protect yourself. Get a store like I have. Because if you’ve got anything worth having, people will resent it and try to snatch it away from you. Friends, colleagues – even loved ones. You can’t trust a living soul. You understand?’

  Frances nodded. Sure he did. He understood his dad was cuckoo; he understood that all right. He understood that he was always delighted to get back to school, away from the crazy old coot. He understood that he preferred to huddle in his freezing-cold bedroom listening to Elvis Presley crooning ‘It’s Now Or Never’ on his Dansette, rather than spend time with him.

  Jesus, he so missed his mother. There was no way he could tell Rick that he was getting these feelings for boys and not girls. Maybe his mum would have understood, maybe not. All Frances knew was that he had to keep his particular sexual leanings to himself. He’d read Oscar Wilde’s ‘Ballad of Reading Gaol’ and knew Wilde had been put in the slammer for consorting with men; and if any of his friends knew or even suspected he was homosexual, he knew they wouldn’t be his friends for much longer.

  Now it was a dreary Saturday morning, raining hard, and Frances was dreading the weekend to come, closeted here in the backside of fucking nowhere with his dad when he would rather have been somewhere – anywhere – else.

  But he couldn’t escape. Dad had said he had something to show him, something exciting, and Frances had thought, yeah, big news, another fucking handgun.

  But it wasn’t a handgun this time.

  Maybe a sword then?

  No. His dad’s eyes were dancing with merriment as he made Frances guess, over and over, as they trudged out to the workshop. Frances saw that his dad had hung a horseshoe over the door. Rick saw his son looking at it.

  ‘For luck,’ he told him with a grin. ‘Go on then. Keep guessing.’

  ‘A Buffalo Sharps?’ hazarded Frances. His dad had enthused about the rifle; it could pick off a target a quarter of a mile away.

  ‘No. I said. Not a gun.’

  ‘What then?’ asked Frances, slightly intrigued despite himself.

  His dad was going to give him a demonstration of something he’d picked up during the war, he told him. Something really exciting.

  ‘Come on then. What?’

  Frances was smiling so hard his jaw was aching. And his dad said he was a bad actor? He thought he was good. After all, he acted as if he could stand the loopy old goat. And he couldn’t.

  Frances had already decided that once he left school he was off, back to America. He was half-American after all; he loved it there. But his dad’s dire warnings about the toughness of Hollywood had penetrated, and his mum had been desolate and lonely there, he knew she had; so he’d decided he was heading for New York, and Broadway. Just as soon as he could.

  ‘So come on,’ he said to his dad. ‘Give. What is it?’ Like he cared.

  Dad winked. ‘Explosives,’ he said, and showed him a box full of . . .

  Oh shit. Were those live grenades?

  Yes. They were.

  It was then that Frances really knew his dad had flipped.

  But it wasn’t going to happen to him. No way. He was sane.

  Chapter 13

  1971

  Cara stood alone in the hall while Nico and the others filed back into the study. The door closed behind them, and it was like a door slamming shut on Cara’s damaged heart. She felt diminished, dismissed out of hand. She went outside onto the drive, feeling thwarted, furious, bitter; she walked until she found herself outside the multiple garage block.

  That idiot Fredo was there in his shirtsleeves, polishing the bonnet of the limo in the hot midday sun. It was a huge, heavy, armour-plated car, bulletproof and grenade-proof. Her father’s car. Sometimes – not often – Fredo drove Constantine; but more often it was Nico who took the wheel when the Don was in the car. Still, Frederico was as proud of this large heap of black metal as a mother with a new baby, cleaning it – and the other cars in which he ferried various members of the family around – constantly.

  He didn’t see her standing there, but Cara watched him, and slowly she began to formulate a plan. She walked over and tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Oh!’ He whirled round, startled.

  Cara smiled. ‘Sorry, did I surprise you?’ She came in closer, close enough for him to smell her perfume. She saw his eyes dip to the deep V neckline of her white cotton shirt. ‘I think I left my purse in the other car. Is it in the garage?’ she asked, walking that way.

  Frederico followed her, frowning; he was thinking that she was beautiful and that he adored her. He found his eyes resting on the enticing swell of her buttocks beneath her tight-fitting cream-coloured pencil skirt. Ah, if only . . . but she was married; she was the Don’s daughter; she had no feelings for him. It could never be. And he had cleaned the car two or three times since her trip to Central Park; if the purse had been there, he would have found it.

  ‘I don’t think it’s there,’ he said as they passed from the hot glare of the sun outside into the cool, dark shadows of the garage.

  ‘Oh, maybe I’ve just put it somewhere,’ she shrugged, then looked at him intensely. ‘Fredo,’ she said, using the baby-name
that everyone used for him, the name she had never used, not once. ‘I’ve got to talk to you about something,’ she told him.

  ‘Oh?’ Now Fredo was confused. Cara never wanted to talk to him; she barely grunted a civil word to him in passing.

  ‘Yes, something important. Can you close the doors? Lock them?’

  ‘What is this . . .?’ He was frowning.

  ‘Please, Fredo.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, and turned away and went to the doors. He locked them and turned back.

  His mouth dropped open.

  Cara was standing there wearing only her skirt and high-heeled shoes. She had removed her blouse and her bra and was clutching both garments in her hands in front of her tits. He could see the soft upper swell of her skin there, paler skin, not tanned. Fredo’s eyes bulged in his head.

  ‘Wha . . .?’ he started to say.

  ‘Do you want to see them, Fredo?’ she asked him.

  ‘I . . .’ Fredo was lost for words. He’d adored her for so long, and now she was here, flaunting herself in front of him. It was like a miracle. He felt so unbearably aroused that he was afraid he was about to come in his pants.

  ‘I’ll show you, if you want,’ said Cara.

  If he wanted? There was nothing on God’s earth that he wanted more.

  ‘Only you have to say please. And . . . you have to promise to help me with something, something special.’

  Fredo gawped at her. ‘I would do anything for you,’ he said at last. ‘You know that.’

  ‘You promise?’ Suddenly Cara’s eyes were sharp as they rested on his.

  ‘Of course I promise.’

  Cara seemed to relax then. ‘Say please.’

  ‘Please,’ said Fredo unsteadily.

  Cara gave a small, secret smile and tossed her shirt and bra onto the grubby garage floor, while keeping one arm across her chest to conceal her treasures.

  ‘Please,’ said Fredo, a little more desperately.

  ‘You give your word,’ said Cara sternly.

  ‘I swear.’

  ‘Then . . .’ said Cara, letting her arm fall to her side, exposing her voluptuous naked breasts to his view. They were much fuller than he had imagined – and he had imagined Cara’s breasts a lot. The skin there was as silken and white as snow, giving a startlingly erotic effect against her slender tanned arms and belly. Her nipples were small, hard and rosy-pink.

  Fredo made a half-strangled noise in his throat.

  ‘Next time,’ said Cara, putting her hands brazenly on her hips, ‘I’ll let you touch them. Would you like that?’

  Fredo could only nod. The front of his trousers was tenting up so much it was painful.

  ‘And when you’ve helped me with the secret thing,’ said Cara, ‘I’ll let you do more. Touch me anywhere. Here on my breasts, or even down there. Fredo, I’ll let you have sex with me. When you’ve done it. You understand?’

  Fredo nodded again, then clutched desperately at his groin. He came in his pants.

  Chapter 14

  Rick told Frances about blowing up German emplacements with the grenades, then he set up a little demonstration and blew up an old tree root in the garden.

  The noise of the explosion was one Frances would never forget. The old tree had rocked and then collapsed sideways, revealing a tangle of blackened root.

  ‘See? Easiest thing in the world,’ said Rick.

  It was. Frances could see that it was, but he wasn’t greatly interested. He just wanted to be gone. His father was a deranged egotistical monster, twisted first by fame and then by a spectacular fall from grace.

  As soon as he’d finished school at eighteen, Frances picked his moment and told his dad that he was going to New York to try to get an agent, try to get some parts on Off Off Broadway if he could.

  ‘You’re going back to that place?’ said Rick, hearing his son’s words with disbelief. ‘It’ll kill you, boy. I’m telling you.’

  ‘I’m not talking about Hollywood, I don’t want to go there. I was never happy there, I don’t have good memories of it. I’m talking about the Big Apple. Broadway.’

  Rick was watching him, his mouth moving querulously, his eyes astonished.

  ‘But do you think you have the talent?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah. Actually, I do.’ Frances felt his face colour as his father smashed his ego yet again, with his usual casual indifference.

  But this time he was fighting back. He did have talent; he knew he did. It wasn’t as great a talent as his father’s, but what could you do? Stay at home and weep? He wanted to act. He was going to do it.

  ‘I’d like to think I have your blessing,’ said Frances.

  ‘Well you haven’t,’ said Rick, eyes darting. ‘I think you’re mad.’

  Ha! Coming from the fruitloop of the year!

  ‘Next time I come home, I’ll show you. I’ll prove you wrong.’

  And maybe even make you proud of me, thought Frances, but he doubted such a miracle could ever occur. Frances knew that he could come back here with a bunch of plaudits from the critics, with a sodding Oscar, and his father would still dismiss his son’s achievements with a shrug of his shoulders. In Rick’s eyes, Frances knew that he would always be a failure.

  Broadway wasn’t an easy nut to crack. Frances had to work long hours in delis and restaurants to make ends meet, to pay for the modest – actually pretty tatty – apartment in Lower Midtown.

  He loved New York. He found an agent – not the best, but Solly was the first agent in a list of twenty who would even meet him. He told him he was Rick Ducane’s son. He didn’t want to, but he knew that agents and PR firms always craved an angle and, if you had one, you’d be damned stupid not to use it.

  Solly’s hawklike eyes sharpened to pinpricks over his squashed nose.

  ‘You’re Rick Ducane’s boy? Hey, that’s good.’ Solly wrote it down. Then he looked up with a frown at his new client’s face. ‘Wasn’t there a scandal with him? A dead woman, something like that?’

  Frances nodded. ‘My mother.’

  ‘Oh – hey, sorry.’ Solly paused and delicately cleared his throat. ‘Would you mind if I mentioned it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘After all, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Did you see anything . . .?’

  ‘No. I didn’t.’ Hey, why don’t you just cut a hunk of flesh out my arse, you fucking hyena?

  ‘I have to ask these things,’ said Solly.

  ‘Of course.’ Frances smiled.

  Solly worked hard for him after that, pushing the name forward, Rick Ducane’s son, getting him bit parts. It was a start. It was the most fun he had ever had in his life, although it was – admittedly – tough. He worked the years away and tried to believe he’d make it big one day. And he had his admirers: the critics were kind and people loitered at the stage door sometimes, pretty young girls, hormonal matrons, stylish young men, to say how much they’d loved his performance, he had pitched it just right, and would he just sign this . . .?

  When Frances signed his first batches of autographs at the age of twenty-four, he felt powerful, delighted. The two-week run was slow to start, but eventually packed out by people who’d read favourable reviews. He’d even got a mention from one of the critics best known for his harsh, unforgiving words. So what if all the posters proclaimed him to be the son of Rick Ducane, the once-great Hollywood star? He had got a good review.

  Time went on. The admirers still came, and he was easy now about signing the autographs – he was casual, he smiled and was charming. He noticed the tall, thin, sallow-skinned and handsome young man waiting outside the theatre for three evenings on the trot, and when he moved forward to shake the man’s hand, he said: ‘Good grief, you must really like this play.’

  The stranger went red in the face. ‘I do like the play,’ he said earnestly. ‘But your performance was the thing that drew me back. You were wonderful in it.’

  ‘Oh! Well . . . thanks. You’re very kind to say so.’
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br />   ‘Just truthful,’ said the man. He looked down. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t . . .’ said Frances nervously. He’d met his fair share of crazies since coming to the city; he didn’t know this man from Adam.

  ‘Just a drink,’ the stranger persisted, and he looked up and smiled straight into Frances’s eyes.

  He was very handsome, almost Latin in appearance. Frances distinctly felt his stomach do a little back-flip of excitement.

  ‘Well . . . I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said the man. He held out a hand. ‘I’m Rocco Mancini, by the way. Is it true you’re Rick Ducane’s son?’

  Within days they were lovers, meeting up at every opportunity. Frances even found he could forgive Rocco for the Rick Ducane question. It seemed to Frances that Rocco avoided the more populated areas of the city whenever they were together. But he didn’t care. They were together, and delighted in the time spent strolling in quiet places, or eating bagels bought from a street-corner vendor. When they were in bed together, it was as if it was always meant to be.

  It was bliss.

  ‘I love you,’ said Frances, as Rocco and he lay entwined in a hotel room one afternoon.

  ‘I love you too,’ said Rocco, although he didn’t.

  He had a real weakness for beauty both in men and women. His own wife Cara was exquisitely lovely and he’d fallen in ‘love’ with her on sight. Only later had he discovered what a spoiled, controlling bitch she was.

  If he saw another beautiful boy, another lissom woman, in the next week or so, then – Frances or no Frances – would he have the willpower to turn it down?

  Rocco didn’t think so. He knew he was weak. He knew he was an emotional lightweight. He hoped Frances wasn’t expecting too much. Frances had told him about his uncaring father and his mother’s unfortunate death.

  ‘That’s so tragic,’ said Rocco, thinking of his own doting mother and how awful it would be to lose her.

  ‘If you love someone, you’re open to all sorts of hurt,’ said Frances. Dad had been wrong about nearly everything else – he was crazy, after all – but he’d been dead right about that. But Rocco had said he loved him.