Playing Dead

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.