Human Conditioning (36 page)

He leaned down further and
placed light kisses on her eyelids and her nose. “I want this, love,” he said,
between kisses.

“I know, but...”

“Please... I want you to be
the mother of my children.”

“And I will... but...”

His kisses ceased and he
stared down at her. He looked distressed. “I need to know that you have someone
here keeping you company. I work hard, baby. I’m not going to be here all the
time. Things are changing... they’re getting bigger and bigger. Business is
going to take me away, and I can’t have you lonely.”

“I won’t be...”

“Lily!” he chided.

She stared back at him in
shock. He was angry.
Why?
“Why are you angry with me?” she whispered.

He sat back and ran a hand
over his face. “Because I
know
you’ll get lonely. You’ll want me around
and I won’t be able to be there for you every time you need me... and I know what
loneliness can do to a person,” he tailed off and closed his eyes.

Lily suddenly understood what
this was about. “I’m not her,” she said quietly. “I always thought she was the
stronger one out of us both, but I’m stronger than her, Aiden. Aiden... please,
look at me.” She sat up and ran the tips of her nails over his cheek and he
opened his eyes. “If it means that much to you, I will think on it, OK?”

She could see by the clench in
his jaw that he was gritting his teeth. He wanted to argue with her; he wanted
to demand that she do as he said. She could tell. She knew him well. Aiden had
grown into a man who was used to getting what he wanted when he asked for it.
But this he could not demand of her.
This –
having children – was one of
the biggest decisions she would ever make in her life, and she wasn’t about to
be bullied into it.

She was well aware that Aiden held his tongue many a time
when she didn’t jump at his every command, but she truly believed that that was
why he loved her so much. It was why their relationship worked. He was brash,
impulsive and bossy, and she was calm, collected and persuasive. They made a
good team and she wouldn’t change the dynamics of that team for anything.

“Why can’t you just do as I
ask, for once...?” Aiden sighed in exasperation.

Lying by her side, he stared up
at the ceiling, his arms beneath his head. Lily turned on her side and gazed
down at him. It was as frightening as it was amusing that he ask her to have
his baby as though it was as insignificant as asking a child to do the dishes. It
was testament to a strange, childlike trait that Aiden rarely displayed. He
couldn’t bark this kind of order at her and expect her to comply. This was a
life-changing decision, one that required discussion, not instruction.

She cast these thoughts aside
and settled on tackling the real problem. “You feel guilty...” she said.

He glanced at her then his
eyes went back to the ceiling. He hesitated before answering, “A bit, yeah.”

“Because you didn’t support
Gina when she lost the baby?”

He sighed. “Yes.”

“Do you want to apologise to
her?”

“No!”

Lily tried to read him. His
eyebrows were furrowed. He was in deep thought. “Have you seen her... since...?”
she muttered, but tailed off when he abruptly turned his head to face her, his
cheeks flushing with annoyance. “I’m not accusing you of anything,” she added
with frustration. “I’m just trying to talk this out with you... it is clear
something
is eating you up, but you’re just giving me yes, no answers.”

Aiden sat up. “This
conversation is done.”

“Aiden...”

“IT’S DONE!” he yelled.

Lily swallowed back tears as she
watched him stride from the room. Swinging her legs off of the bed, she stepped
over to her little packet of pills and picked them up. She hadn’t taken her
pill today, and opening the packet, she popped one out and slipped it into her
mouth. They weren’t ready to be responsible for a child just yet. They had
their own troubles to work out first.

Aiden sat at the main bar inside the club named Turnmills,
located in the borough of Islington on the corner of Turnmill Street and
Clerkenwell Road. Apparently it had just won a 24-hour dance licence, the first
one of its kind in the UK. 

As he glanced around the dark
and oddly decorated room with its Gothic features and strange steel pipeline
decoration around the bar, he felt as if he were in a submarine. His lip curled
in disgust. He didn’t like it at all. Plus, it was apparently a club for
queers, which put it very low down on the list of places he wanted to visit.
Not that he was a homophobic – it seemed to be becoming the norm nowadays and,
in his opinion, people were free to do whatever the fuck they wanted, as long
as it was behind the closed doors of their homes or in places like this club.

Aiden had come to Turnmills on
business, to meet a man named Frankie Adams. Frankie had been so desperate to
see him that he’d sent someone to his flat last night to tell him that he had
an offer he felt he wouldn’t want to refuse. Aiden had heard of Frankie Adams.
He was one of the biggest drug dealers outside of London. Reggie had spoken of
him at length many times in the past. He had respected the way Frankie
conducted his business and, back then, he had secretly dreaded the day the man
moved in on London. Now, it seemed as though this was finally about to happen.

“Aiden Foster!” A short and
slightly emaciated man with grey receding hair, sporting a grey suit, white
shirt and red tie, strolled up to the him with a friendly smile on his not-so-handsome
face. Aiden stood and could only assume that he was looking at
the
Frankie
Adams. “Frankie,” Frankie announced, holding out his right hand, which was laden
with two oversized golden sovereigns on his forefinger and his little finger.

“Nice to meet you, Mr Adams,”
Aiden replied respectfully.

“Frankie, please.” Frankie
studied Aiden’s face for a moment then said, “Shall we go up into the office?
It’s a bit fucking garish in here, don’t you think?”

Aiden didn’t give his opinion
and followed Frankie out of the bar, through some double doors and up a flight
of stairs. Going through another two sets of double doors, Frankie finally
opened a door to their left and led Aiden into a large square office with white
walls, and a dark wood desk with a leather chair and some filing cabinets.
There were papers and files piled on top of the cabinets and at the edge of the
desk.

Frankie pulled over a chair
and gestured for Aiden to sit down, then he settled himself on the leather
chair behind the desk. “This is not my office,” he felt compelled to say. “If
it were mine, I’d have a drinks cabinet and a record player in here. I can’t be
dealing with all this new fucking house music. I think that’s what they’re calling
it. They’ve got a bloke on tonight...
Tall Paul
, you heard of him?”

“No, I’m not interested in all
that electronic shite,” Aiden replied.

Frankie laughed loudly. “Well,
you
might not be into it, but thousands of kids your age are, and what’s
more, they want to dance to it all night... and that’s where I come in. That’s
why we’re here...” He gestured around him, but Aiden knew he was referring to
the club downstairs; the club with a shiny new licence that would allow ‘kids
like him’ to get off their faces and dance all night long.

“Ecstasy...”

“You’ve done your homework,
Aiden,” Frankie smirked. He leant forward on the desk, placing his clasped
hands out in front of him. Aiden noticed he was surveying him again, almost
gazing at him, and for a brief moment, he wondered whether Mr Adams was gay,
but he dismissed the idea immediately. “I’ve heard very promising things about
you, Aiden.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I think we might work well
together.”

Aiden didn’t respond. He just
stared confidently at Frankie, awaiting his description of the offer he had
brought him to the club for – the offer that he’d sent one of his minions to
inform him of, to his home of all places. The thought sparked a question. “How
did you know where I lived?” Aiden asked directly.

Frankie finally leant back in
his chair and for some reason this made Aiden relax a touch. “I have my
sources.”

“Well, I’d appreciate it if
you didn’t do that again. I’m moving into a new place with my wife next week
and I don’t want any of my business coming to her door.”

Frankie nodded with
understanding and held his palms up in a good-humoured gesture of surrender. It
was only now that Aiden took in the colour of Frankie’s eyes as Frankie gazed at
him with amusement. They were a deep brown, almost black, small and beady,
reminiscent of a crow. “Fair enough. It won’t happen again,” Frankie ceded with
a smile.

Aiden shifted in his chair,
crossing one long leg over the other. “So, why have you brought me here today,
Mr Adams?”

Frankie moved his hands to his
face, resting the tips of his two index fingers on his lips. He watched Aiden
intently for a moment before he spoke. “I have a factory and several safe
houses, and I need someone to manage them. We, uh, lost
one of our
associates the other week.” Aiden’s eyebrows rose sardonically at the loose use
of the word ‘lost’. Frankie went on, “The factory is managed from a production
point of view. I just need you to report the quantities leaving the factory and
the amount of money going into the safe houses for counting. I need to know
that the merchandise leaving my factory is returning the right amount of
revenue back to the houses. Understand?”

Aiden frowned. “I understand, but
why me?”

“You were educated by one of
the biggest drug dealers in East London, were you not? And your association
with the KKKs gives you a certain kudos that spoke to me... plus, you’re
ruthless, Aiden, I’ve heard.” He smirked as if this fact was music to his ears
then added with absolute respect, “No one will dare mess with the likes of
Aiden Foster.”

Aiden rubbed his chin in apprehensive
deliberation. “Kamal won’t like me working so closely with another firm...”

“Who said we were a firm?”
Frankie raised his eyebrows.

“Whatever you want to call
yourselves, Kamal won’t like it...”

“Only I and two of my most
loyal associates know of your involvement with the KKKs. All the others are
merely pawns, Aiden. They don’t get too involved. They’re clueless. How would Kamal,
Kyle or Kris ever find out?”

“What’s the incentive?”

Frankie smiled widely. Aiden
noticed that his teeth were a shiny white, as if he had them cleaned regularly.
“And so we negotiate!”

“With all due respect, there
will be no negotiation, Mr Adams...”

“Frankie...”

“Frankie, if – and that’s a
big
if
– I decide to do this, I will be putting my arse on the line. My
arse is very valuable to me, and to my wife, I’ve heard...”

Frankie laughed loudly, once
more, clapping his hands together with sheer delight. “You will be earning more
money than you can ever imagine!”

“That I do already... I have
some very established clients and associates and we tick over very nicely.”

Frankie nodded with an amused
grin on his face, his dark, beady eyes twinkling. He was totally enthralled by
this overconfident, brash, good-looking youngster. “It’s not just ecstasy
leaving my factory, Aiden. We do the lot: amphetamines, cocaine, heroin.” Aiden
shrugged but this did not diminish Frankie’s enjoyment in dealing with the enigmatic
young man. He liked to be challenged and he’d been warned about Aiden’s no-bullshit
and offhand attitude on more than one occasion. But he liked it; it was
exciting to him. “Alright... what if I was to tell you that, in our first
quarter, we pulled in £15 million?” Aiden’s expression hardened. After a long
moment, he licked his lips but didn’t say a word. Frankie gazed at him, and in
all seriousness, he said, “Do you want to be a millionaire, Aiden Foster?”

A silence grew between them as
they both stared at one another. Aiden was unsure as to whether he had heard
correctly, and Frankie was enjoying the changing emotions behind the man’s deep
blue eyes. But gradually, a smile crept onto the side of Aiden’s mouth and
Frankie knew he had him.

Two months had passed since Aiden and Lily had moved into
the house in Harpenden. The summer sun was penetrating the huge windows at the
back of the house, and a radio was blaring out the sounds of Elton John’s
Sacrifice
.
Lily sang aloud to the parts she knew of the song, ducking out when she didn’t
know the words, as she painted the last room in the house that required a
re-colour. The colour was mint green, and the room was the study, located
upstairs and to the right, overlooking the apple trees in the garden. Aiden
would use the room more often than she would, but he had let her loose on it
anyway. He didn’t care much for decorating, informing her on many an occasion
that
he
would have got professionals in to do it, but, without taking
offence to his excessive use of the word ‘professionals’, she had refused. She
enjoyed the task of making her home the way she wanted it and it kept her busy
whilst her husband was at work.

Aiden worked extremely long
hours, sometimes leaving home at eight in the morning and not getting back until
3am the following morning. She missed him, but he did make a special effort to come
home by teatime on Thursdays and by lunchtime on a Sunday. Lily called Thursday
evenings their ‘date night’, which Aiden, of course, cringed at – forever too
cool for school. She would make a three-course meal, light candles and put on
some Sade, or other music to that effect, to set the mood for the inevitable
event of love-making after dinner. Lily had learned very quickly to cherish
nights like these: a night with her husband in conversation
and
in intimacy.
It was difficult finding the time to be intimate when he was out for most of
the day and night most days, but when they did find time to do it... well, he
made up for his absences.