Beauties and the Beast (9 page)

Chapter Ten

It was Diana who opened up Mickey's can of worms. She worked the mouse and pulled up a file on screen. She studied it while Mickey sat, apprehensively clutching his ukulele. She clicked the ‘print' icon and the printer whirred into life again. Two sheets of paper spewed out. She picked them up and studied them while Angela studied him.

“My records show you lived with a lot of dishonesty in your life,” she said.

Mickey gave a short, brittle laugh. “You have to shoot a few lines don't you? You can't always get by on good looks and charm.”

“No Mickey,” cut in Angela. “We don't mean the lies you told your women. They were almost white.”

“Then I don't get you.” Mickey was genuinely puzzled.

“We're talking about the lie you call your life.”

“You've lost me,” said Mickey, exasperation creeping in.

Angela gave a clear, bell-ringing laugh. “You lost yourself, Mickey.” She exclaimed.

Diana cut in. “Once you create a lie that big, you have to keep on creating new ones to cover up the old ones until they take over your life completely. Remember Pinocchio's nose?”

Mickey's hand moved involuntarily to his nose. What were they on about?

“You stole another man's act - your friend from the Gang Show. That was the lie that started small and snowballed until it took over your life. Who is Mickey Finnegan?”

“You've got it all wrong,” protested Mickey. “I made the act work. It's not just material that makes a comic you know. You have to know how to deliver it. He never could have made it work the way I did. The words would have been wasted.”

“But he never got the chance to try did he?”

Mickey stopped. His eyes dropped. “No,” he murmured. Then he looked up again. “But I looked after him. I always looked after him. Nobody could say I didn't. He got more from me than he would have earned as a comic. He had no timing you see. No timing. If it wasn't for me he probably would have starved. I looked after him.”

Diana studied the printout. “Is that what you'd call it?

Mickey sighed. “I wish you'd stop talking in riddles. I haven't a clue what you're on about.” And he didn't.

Diana honed right in. Her voice was the crack of thunder, the crack of doom. “If you want it straight,
Mr
Finnegan,” she barked, you helped your friend to become an alcoholic and then kept him in a semi-permanent state of drunkenness. You let him out when you needed his brain.”

“He did it to himself,” protested Mickey. “I didn't have to teach him to be a drunk. He was one. Yes he sobered up enough to write some good material. That was the deal. I paid him good money and he wrote me good gags.”

“You see?” There was more mental thunder. “The constant lie; they were
his
words. It was
his
words that took you to the top. And you let the people think they were yours. You never gave him a credit did you? Who knew who he was?”

Mickey snapped. “What do you want me to say?” He exploded. Face red, lips quivering. “He was a weak bastard.” He paused and then said, sneering. “If I'd have been as weak as him I'd have spent my life working smokos and stag nights.”

“Like you do now?” Angela's beatific smile belied the words.

Mickey leapt to his feet. “That's a lie. I'm still a big name. I only work the big clubs. You know that. I get top money. The public remembers me. I'm still a star.”

“The booking are getting thinner though aren't they, Mickey? There was one stag night wasn't there? And won't there be more?”

Look,” said Mickey desperately. “That stag night, as you call it, was a men-only night at the biggest sporting club in Sydney.”

“Who wrote your gags?”

“Nobody, I just used old jokes, like I always used to. But if I wanted to I could go back on TV. They're always begging me to star in a new show.”

“Not since your writer died.” Diana's voice was soft.

“Okay, okay, so I've been struggling a bit for material. Maybe I do need a good writer. But if I'm such a basket case, why am I here? You want top names for this smash hit show, you said so, and you asked for me. Why?”

“Because our records show you are right for the part.”

The reply mollified Mickey. “Right then; what's it all about?”

“First we discover what
you
are all about. Then we talk about the play.” Diana consulted the computer sheets. “Now, what next? Ah yes. Your extra-marital affairs ...”

“Give us a break,” said Mickey with a touch of humour in his voice. He was proud of the way he once held sway over women. “I'm only human.” He sighed. “I was a star then, a real star, not like that young mongrel Billy Winter. Twelve years old! That was disgusting, its wonder he didn't get life; he bloody well deserved it. He'd have paid for it inside. They don't like child molesters. I know I haven't been perfect, but I never did anything as disgusting as him. All I did was have a few girlfriends - and they usually gave me something my wife couldn't.”

“A
few
girlfriends?” Diana gave a tinkle of a laugh. “You're being modest Mickey. You had a good many more than a few girlfriends. In fact I'd say at times you got a little bit greedy don't you think?”

Mickey laughed expansively. “It was just circumstances.” He leered at Angela, who looked demurely down. “It's hard to say ‘no' when it's thrown at you.”

Angela lifted her golden head and suddenly the lust shone from her eyes like a beacon of dark light. “Isn't it though,” she growled. She lowered her head again when she received a reproving glance from Diana, who then continued her interrogation.

“You treated women pretty badly, on the whole,” she said.

“No worse than anybody else. No women's lib back then. We all had a good time. We all knew what was what, none of that New Age rubbish. Men were men and women were women.”

“There to be subjugated?”

“Come on, you two have been around,” protested Mickey. “What can you do? They hang around - even young Billy knows that. You can't knock ‘em all back. It gets lonely on the road. It's
showbiz
.”

“Ah,” Diana took her eyes off the paper and stared at Mickey. Deep, questioning, unsettling. “Showbiz, where have I heard that before?” Angela tittered. “That's the reason why you handed out all the hurt to your wives is it? Showbiz?”

Mickey again began to feel uneasy, the undercurrent of camaraderie dissipated. What was she up to now? Bloody women, the moment you start to trust them they kick you in the balls. “Look,” he said. “Showbiz is a hard life. You have to keep moving. When I got married the first time, she never believed I'd make it. Then when I started to get good bookings, she got fed up and was always whingeing. I didn't have time for that crap. None of the others ever loved me anyway. They liked the money. They knew how to spend it as well.” He paused, remembering, mentally backtracking, but he pulled himself out of it. “Look”, he said with an air of resignation. “I'm a comic, not a method actor. I don't need all this.”

“Oh, but you do Mickey, and so do we,” said Diana. “You see the role for which we have you in mind needs a deep understanding of suffering. We have to find out if you could cope with the mental anguish such a tortuous role would create. There are people who have a masochistic enjoyment of suffering ...”

“Tell me about,” said Mickey. “My mother was a Catholic.”

“You didn't follow the religion yourself though.”

Mickey shook his head. “I never had time. I've never been one for God and the Devil. We're born, we live, do what we can with life and then die. Only genes are immortal.

“You have an interesting view of life.”

“It's a personal view. I believe in a good time. Suffering's for the sick. It's not something I enjoy.”

“So maybe you understand now, why the questions. We need to know if you have the stamina for such a powerful role.”

Mickey sighed. “If I pass I will get the chance to play a dramatic role?”

“More dramatic than you could ever realise.”

“Okay then,” said Mickey brightly. “For a chance like that you can ask me anything and I'll co-operate. Shakespeare eh? Okay, fire away, I can take it.”

“I'm so pleased,” said Diana. The beatific smile again. “So why don't you start by telling us about the wife who killed herself?”

Mickey slumped into the chair again. “You pair of bastards,” he said.

“Wasn't she a little innocent and you a poisonous heap of corruption?”

“Corruption, what's that?”

“You taught her to love and then corrupted that love.”

“Absolute bullshit,” protested Mickey. “I liked sex and she liked sex, and I was never one to be prudish.”

Angela glided quickly over to him. She stood over him, dominating. “Didn't you beat her? Force her into very humiliating situations?”

“No!” Mickey shouted. “I never did anything. She loved every rotten minute of her sex life. God she invented some games I never thought possible. She was a nymphomaniac. She couldn't get enough from me or anybody else - and I never beat her. I gave her backside a tickle every now and then because she liked it. I never hit her hard enough to bruise her. She was a nut case and I didn't find out until it was too late. She was a crazy bitch, always on heat.”

“So you don't have her suicide on your conscience?” Diana's voice was gentle, encouraging.

Mickey's “No,” was defiant. “Balance of mind was disturbed. That's what the coroner said.”

“But my record shows that you actually instructed her to do it.”

“Now that's stupid,” protested Mickey. “Oh sure, I told her drop dead sometimes, but everybody does that. It's just a figure of speech”.

“The actual words were: ‘Why don't you do yourself and everybody else a favour and wipe yourself out.'”

“I never said that,” cried Mickey.

“Oh yes you did,” said Diana. “And she did just that. I wonder why if her life was so good, so exciting, and deliciously perverse. She
did
enjoy it all didn't she Mickey?”

Mickey bit his lip in consternation. Unhelpful memories flashed unasked into his mind. “She did and she didn't,” he muttered softly. “Sometimes she was sexy as, wanted to do all sorts of crazy things with me and my mates. Sometimes ...” he hesitated.

“Yes?” coaxed Diana.

“She sometimes took three men at the same time, one in each body hole. Back, front, head.”

“And were you one of them?”

Mickey shook his head. “She liked to make me watch.”

“And you married a girl so perverse?”

Mickey shook his head sadly. “No. Who could fall for a whore like that?

Diana took his hand and led him to the computers. He stood there, nervous while she clicked on an icon.

Suddenly there he was in the park. It was around noon, Mickey's pre-breakfast time. The trees were lush, the sky blue and birds sang. It was warm enough to put on a sweat as he ran over the grassy banks that were scattered with riotously coloured flower beds. The leaves rustled in odd musical cadenzas. The there
she
was, an animated beauty, a character out of someone's imagination. She had long blonde hair - what was it about blondes? She had beautiful green eyes, long legs, curves built by an expert animator. She was 18 years old and the sweetest virgin he'd ever seen. He knew the scene: the park; the time. It was ten years ago. His TV show was still rating.

There he was, brightly animated too and painted in primary colours in contrast to her pastel shades. He had put a bit of weight. More than he needed to keep him a figure of fun on stage. Excess had started to show. The black painted rings under his eyes and the sagging jaw line bore witnessed to this. But then, his smile a sharp black line from the animator's pen, and the twinkling eye hid the decline. He was jogging because the doctor advised exercise. Not much, just enough to get the heart beating a bit faster. It beat faster all right when he ran into the girl.

She turned the corner of the pathway that ran through the park. Which park? Any park, all parks. They collided; she flew in the air and settled back in slow motion. She sat on the ground as he stood and watched as the animators settled her down on the grass, immaculate.

She looked up and her huge eyes opened wider, a doe's eyes filled with the wonder of the world. “You're Mickey Finnegan,” she gasped in a high, musical voice.

Mickey's own eyes twinkled as he held out his hand and helped her to her feet. “Finnegan's the name ...”

“... and comedy's the game.” She finished off his catchphrase for him and he laughed.

“You watch the show?”

“Never miss it.” She turned to brush down her dress and piece of bright emerald green cartoon grass floated into the air and disappeared.

“You're not hurt are you?” asked Mickey.

“No,” she said. “Just a bit shook up at meeting you in the park. I heard you sometimes run here, but I never expected to bump into you like this.”

“Bump being the operative word,” said Mickey, with a rueful smile.

“I'm sorry,” said the girl.

“Don't be,” said Mickey. “It was my fault. I should have been looking where I was going.” He stepped back and appraised her. She was so beautiful it made his mouth water - especially when he saw the innocence in her eyes. “Look, let me make it up to you. Why don't you let me buy you a drink?”

The girl wavered. “I... it's a bit early isn't it?”

Mickey consulted his watch. “The sun is over the yard arm,” he said.

Mickey was suddenly aware of a group of people standing by. Real people and they were staring. “Oops,” he said. “I've been recognised. If I don't start moving now I'm going to be mobbed. Come on.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her as he set off at a slow jog. The girl hesitated at first but then laughed and floated along behind him. He stopped when they reached the cover of trees.