Playing Dead by Jessie Keane

lot of style, but he knew in his heart that he had no real substance at all.
    His mother came in, carrying a tray of verdure fritte , arancini , olives and cheese. She set the appetizers down on a low table in front of them, along with strong coffee laced with anisette, tweaked Rocco’s pallid cheek once more and left the room.
    ‘So, what’s the news?’ asked Enrico. ‘You don’t phone home much. It upsets your mother. Now suddenly you do, so what’s the beef?’
    Rocco swallowed. This was very delicate, very embarrassing; he wasn’t quite sure how to start.
    ‘I’ve . . . been having an affair,’ he said.
    Enrico looked at him. ‘And this is news?’
    Rocco paused. Both his elder brothers were married, and both had their fair share of little popsies on the side: it was expected. What the hell, they were men, weren’t they?
    ‘Cara found out about it,’ said Rocco.
    ‘And? You telling me you can’t keep control in your own household, Rocco? Give her a sweetener or two and lay it on the line; you do what you do. Who’s the man of the house, you or her?’
    Rocco was sweating; this was even more difficult than he had imagined it would be.
    ‘She found out and she had this person worked over – really badly – as a warning to me.’
    Now he had Enrico’s full attention. ‘ She did?’
    ‘Her name was mentioned when it happened.’ And so was mine , he thought, but didn’t say it.
    Enrico paused for a beat. Then he picked up an olive and popped it in his mouth. Chewing, he looked at Rocco and said: ‘Don’t sound like any woman I know, to do that. And for sure this ain’t Constantine.’ Then he spat out the stone.
    ‘We can’t know that.’
    Enrico gave a laugh. ‘You kiddin’? I’ve known that man thirty years. He’s a good friend to this family. A thing like this, over his son-in-law having a little fun outside wedlock? He wouldn’t stoop so low.’
    ‘Cara wouldn’t act without his approval.’
    ‘You think so?’ Enrico’s old eyes stared at his son in disbelief. ‘I think you’re wrong. She’s been overindulged since her mother died – she’s become too headstrong. I told you so when you married her, but would you listen? You would not. Now you see the sort of woman you married. She thinks she’s too special to have her husband playing around. I did warn you. I told you you’d be pussy-whipped for the rest of your life if you married her.’
    Rocco thought about that. His father was right; but it was Cara’s looks that he had fallen for. He had been stricken by her blonde beauty and, before they married, she had curbed and concealed the worst excesses of her spoiled and dominating nature. Once they were wed, she had dropped her guard, let it show who was the boss; and that was her.
    ‘Men have women on the side,’ Enrico shrugged. ‘We all do it. Why should the girl take offence at an affair? It don’t affect her standing as your wife and that’s what matters. You got to keep the wives sweet, Rocco, that’s what I’m telling you.’
    Rocco’s heart was thumping in his chest. His mouth was dry. He knew Cara had taken the whole thing badly because it was a man he’d slept with; had it been a woman, she would probably have ignored the situation, even accepted and eventually maybe welcomed the focus of his sexual attentions being elsewhere.
    ‘It . . . Papa, it wasn’t a woman,’ he managed to say.
    Enrico was silent. The teams were rampaging around the pitch to the cheers and shouts of the crowd. Slowly, Enrico levered himself out of his armchair with an elderly grunt of effort. Then he leaned down and struck Rocco, very hard, across the face.
    Rocco recoiled in pain and surprise. His cheek stung. He sprang up, furious.
    Enrico looked him dead in the eye.
    ‘Oh, you think you want to hit me back, uh?’ he scoffed, his eyes running over his son with contempt. ‘You ain’t hard enough to even try it. Now I understand. You deserved that. And Rocco, you deserved to