Playing Dead

Constantine rose to his feet in one swift movement. The look on his face shut her up in an instant. She’d gone too far; she knew it.

‘I understand this. My domestic arrangements are my business,’ he said coldly. ‘And if your friends laugh, then d’you really think they’re friends at all? And I also understand that only a fool shits on his own doorstep. Do you? The Mancinis are good people and I will not be damaging their youngest son to gratify your injured pride.’

Trembling, Cara nodded. She brushed angrily at her tears and glared at him. Why couldn’t he see that she had every right to be affronted? But she knew she’d hit a nerve; he was so totally absorbed with that English whore and her brat that he was neglecting his own family, his true family.

She felt that no one was on her side now, that everyone was more appreciated, more valued, than she was. Lucco was getting married to a girl of his father’s choosing and so he was, for once, very much in favour. Alberto was always in favour – that went without saying. And now – and this was the worst thing of all – the English bitch was going to present Constantine with a brand-new child. And as for Cara . . . well, she used to be the apple of her father’s eye. And then along had come Annie Carter, and all that had changed overnight.

God, how she hated that bitch.

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.