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.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “But I can’t stand still for too long. People recognise me and then its bedlam. So how about it are you coming for a drink?”

The girl hesitated. “I was on my way to uni,” she said. “I’ve got classes.”

“Is that all?” said Mickey. “Can’t you turn up late for once? Are you going to pass up the chance of having a private drink with Mickey Finnegan?”

She laughed. “My friends would think I was crazy to do that. Okay.”

“Come on then.” He grabbed her hand and they jogged along together until they reached Mickey’s hotel. They stopped outside, panting a little and faces flushed.

“Won’t you get mobbed in here as well?” she asked.

“Not in the private bar,” he said. “It’s for guests only. The people in this hotel are so snobbish they wouldn’t recognise the Queen if she came in for drink. Come on.”

She followed him through the opulent foyer of the hotel, with its marble columns and richly carpeted floor, into the glass fronted elevator. He pressed the button and elevator soared silently skywards. It stopped on the 18th and they walked out into a wide floor space than tapered off into the suite area on one side and into a quiet, wood panelled bar on the other.

Mickey was right. The handful of people who sat at the bar or at the low set tables with large rounded chairs placed round them didn’t even look up when they walked in. He sat her down and ordered a bottle of champagne. He sat beside her and smiled. “Here we are then, as the actress said to the bishop.” The girl laughed. “Well,” said Mickey. “You know who I am, but I have no idea who you are.”

The girl shook her cartoon curls. “I’m Juliet,” she said.

“What light from yonder window breaks,” said Mickey with a mocking impression of Shakespearian dialogue.

Juliet laughed again. “That’s what they all say.”

“Really?” Mickey’s reply was on the edge of sharpness. He liked to be original.

Juliet didn’t pick the pique.

And the arrival of the champagne precluded further discussion on the subject.

The champagne went down, the girl became giggly, and Mickey became quietly amorous. His hand strayed to Juliet’s knee. He felt her body tense and changed his squeeze into a friendly pat. He withdrew. This was a prize worth waiting for, a fish worth playing. A student? Well, Mickey would be a fine tutor for her.

Juliet talked and, for a change, Mickey listened. The golden girl was studying fine art and the law, which seemed to be a strange mix of imagination and logic. They stayed for an hour before Mickey’s mobile beeped. Always the mobile dependency persisted.

She was his guest at the show that night. He was between marriages. She sat at a table close to the small stage self-consciously alone, sitting in the reflected glow of the stage lights.

Mickey was on form. He could feel the power. He held the audience in the palm of his hand. If he’d have told them to drink poison they would willingly have done so. The laughs flowed thick and fast and the faster they flowed, the stronger Mickey became. He could see the sparks flying, the raw energy creating patterns in the smoky darkness. It was a power he felt he could reach out and touch, grab it by the handful and fill his pockets to overflowing.

Juliet, the golden girl, basked in the reflected glory, eyes wide and shining, the Finnegan-created energy flowed into her. One glance at her through the crackling atmosphere and Mickey knew that the power he had would bring him anything he wished for and what he wanted most at that moment was Juliet, sweet Juliet.

He left the stage to thunderous applause and did not return. No encores from Mickey Finnegan. He gave the punters what they paid for. Leave ‘em panting for more. He treated his women the same way. He gave them something to remember before he left.

The party afterwards was charged with liquor and excitement. Juliet was overwhelmed by the heady atmosphere of life at the top. She was living a dream, but it was a dream that would turn into a nightmare in less than three years.

That night, Mickey discovered that not only was Juliet a virgin, but a trusting innocent as well. Her experience was amazingly small and she had a demure sweetness that was incredible in a modern girl.

Mickey stared into the computer monitor mesmerised by the image of her life; the suburban doctor who was her father, the stability, the security of being a beloved only child, her beauty, and the academic abilities which led her to university. She was alone in the city, but confident in her ability to survive. She was a lovely, intelligent, trusting, but unworldly girl who should have gone through life unhurt and untouched by the humanity-created mire of corruption. But she happened to be in the wrong park on the wrong day.

Then the vision changed and he was staring into the grime of pornography, the grainy unfocused darkness of a hidden video camera. The one he kept in his room and the one he’d recorded the sowing of the seeds of corruption in Juliet. Filming his own fouling was Mickey’s belated hobby. He watched himself gently seducing the girl, using his command of the craft of sex to bring her body awake. It was a beautiful body, even in the gloom of the dimly lit room, it shone.

Juliet was one of Mickey’s willing victims. She was no passionless ice-beauty. She had a strong sexual drive that had been suppressed until Mickey expertly released it in a tide of wetness and quivering. She did whatever he asked of her and each time was a new experience.

She felt for the first time the throb of a man in her mouth, probing at her throat, following the whispered instructions: lick, suck, nibble, faster, slower. She felt the passion rise in Mickey and discovered her own power as she played a natural game until she felt his rotund body tense and thrusting, felt the outpourings, the urge to swallow and then Mickey’s fast return to flaccidity and the slow withdrawal.

Mickey himself could not believe the experience, or the rest of the night when he took her virginity in every possible way. In the morning he awoke with a start. Memories of the night flooded back. He looked at the sleeping figure beside him and his heart leapt. It was not a dream.

As the relationship stretched on Mickey was constantly amazed at the inherent sexuality of Juliet. Her demure sweetness hid a carnal appetite and he revelled in the experience. She gave him new life and boosted his flagging performance to peaks he hadn’t reached in years.

Other men envied him and tried to grasp a piece of Juliet, but she was constant. The reason for her carnality was based simply on her complete love for Mickey. This love shone like her hair and glowed in her eyes. This adoration convinced Mickey that marriage to this girl might be the one that worked. She said she’d do anything for him and for once he believed the words, so often so emptily pronounced.

Show business as usual stamped its insidious mark on the ceremony. Ratings were dropping suddenly and they did it live on TV. But it was a temporary boost. Within a season the show was cancelled and with it half of Mickey’s life.

He didn’t suffer financially at first. He could still pull in top price for his live appearances and the golden girl he married was still a curiosity on the floor of the rooms he worked. But more rapidly than he ever imagined his popularity waned. The fans that mobbed him in the street stopped recognising him. Once, where he never bought a drink, he found himself doing the buying, just to keep someone talking to him.

Where the popularity waned, the craving for approval never did, nor did the inability to unwind after a show.

The parties that were part of his life dried up. And so did his desire. The confused Juliet tried everything to make him happy, but Mickey’s self doubt was so strong that the attempts at sex became a torturous failure. The more he tried, the less he succeeded and Juliet drank more to hide her own shame. She thought she was no longer attractive to the man she loved body and soul.

Where he once refused most party offers each night now, it was he who put out the feelers. ‘How about a few drinks in my suite?’

The lecherous stares at Juliet that he would once have crushed he now encouraged. It helped to bring some life to his sleepless night. It was the combination of fear, loneliness and the torture of sexual failure that pushed him deeper into the bottle to the point with rational thought was a rare occurrence. His self-loathing he turned into an insane hatred of Juliet and the more she tried to help him, the more he punished her.

The lowest point arrived when she cried and desperately told him of her love. “I’ll do anything for you,” she sobbed. And he took her at her word. In a fog of alcohol he forced her, stumbling drunk to have sex with one of his ‘friends’; on the floor in full view of the party. He watched and saw the expression of sexual enjoyment that was once his own private property. Dam the bitch. She was enjoying it.

He was unable to tear himself aware from the perverse images on the screen and he felt the tide of nausea swill round his stomach. The scenes became worse. First there was one man, then two, then three, then two at the same time and finally the three. Mickey drank himself insensible. Occasionally the smell of sex and the erotic tableaux he saw brought him to erection. When this happened he threw himself on Juliet, piteously anxious to gratify himself.

Even then Juliet, his victim, gave everything to him. She was so far down the ladder to degradation that she was grateful for even those small attentions. Whatever she did was because she loved him, even when Mickey finally had to use her body to attract any friends at all. And despite the life, the body, the hair, and the sweet innocence of her beauty were unspoiled. Even after close to two years of degradation, she still looked like a sweet virgin and was actor enough to convince Mickey that doing what he wanted her to do made her happy.

The monitor suddenly went blank and Mickey blinked.

“So she used to love it did she Mickey?” Angela purred he question.

Mickey stayed silent.

“If she enjoyed it so much,” asked Diana in a conversational way, “why did she opt out?”

“I don’t know.” Mickey’s reply was sullen. “She went nuts. I couldn’t cope with a nutty wife. I had enough problems. We had a row and I told her I was leaving her. I didn’t mean it. It was just words.”

“Why don’t you do you and everyone else a favour and do yourself in?”

Mickey’s face paled and he looked as haggard as he had in the video replays. “I never meant it like that. Anyway I went down to the pub and when I came back she was lying on the bed with an empty bottle of pills on the floor.”

“And how did you feel, Mr Finnegan?”

“About what?”

Angela’s eyes glowed green. “About the young virgin you married?” She hissed, “The sweet little innocent who killed herself after two short years of total abuse?”

Mickey was not about to accept the blame. “Come off it.” His reply was contemptuous. “You can’t pin it on me.”

“So,” said Diana. “It was entirely her fault.”

“I didn’t say that.” Mickey felt a rising tide of fear and self loathing creeping under his skin. “It just happened.” The pictures recurred in his mind and he retched. He looked despairingly at the women. “I hated it all,” he cried.

“You what!” Angela was incredulous.

“I hated what was happening. I only did it to keep the others happy. I needed friends. I hated it.” His voice reached screaming pitch.

“No Mickey.” Diana was a stern schoolteacher. “You enjoyed it.”

“I did it for them,” was the tormented reply.

Diana sighed and studied the computer printout. “Now I’m confused. You said you enjoyed it all for your own sake. ‘I like sex and I was never one to be prudish’.”

Mickey walked slowly to the chair and sat down. He held his head in his hands. He was drained and had nothing left. “That was at first, while I was drunk and it was happening, but after.” he paused and looked up with an agonised look on his face, “after I didn’t like it so much; once the booze wore off. You see we all used to booze on. I wanted to stop, but I felt as if I was being pushed. Everybody was at me. Everybody wanted a piece. There were people on all sides. Then the more we did it the more I hated it, and yet the more we did it. I couldn’t stop.”

Diana’s face showed a brief whisper of concern. “It’s not easy to stop, especially when the run is down a deep and slippery slope. We understand - don’t we Angela?”

Mickey saw a gleam of lust sweep across Angela’s eyes. “Indeed we do,” she said.

Diana then placed the printout onto the table and turned her attention to the computer screen. A few movements of the mouse and the screen blinked on. There was a moment of silence. Then she turned and smiled. “Thank you Mr Finnegan, that will be all for now.”

“Didn’t I get the part?”

Diana laughed. It was loud, brassy. “You still have to read for us. Nothing has been decided as yet.”

“I could kill for a cuppa.”

“You’ll find everything you need in the Green Room.”

“Turn right down the corridor,” added Angela.

“I usually finish with a song,” said Mickey with a feeble attempt to rescue his credibility.

“Thank you,” said Diana. This time the tone was completely dismissive.