Human Conditioning (44 page)

“Aiden, my friend!”
Marcellus’s voice boomed inside the small room. Aiden grinned at him. He had
worked with Marcellus several times over the past six months and he liked him.
Tonight, Marcellus was going to help him offload the gear. It was more than
they usually offloaded in one night, so a helping hand was appreciated.
Standing, Aiden stepped over and shook Marcellus’s beefy hand. “Long time, no
see,” said Marcellus.

“We’ve been busy,” Aiden
replied, gesturing to the ludicrous amount of drugs that littered the floor
around him.

“I can see, son, I can see!
Well, rack ’em up, Aiden, there’s a good lad!” Aiden smiled and sat back at the
table. Marcellus joined him, and the others, initially distracted by the big
man’s arrival, got on with the job of unpacking the boxes and setting aside the
correct amount of packages for each dealer who would eventually come knocking
to pick them up. Marcellus dropped his voice. “I need to talk to you,” he said,
as Aiden began preparing the lines.

Aiden’s blue eyes peered up
from under his thick eyebrows. Getting the impression that they required a bit
of privacy, he turned to Carl. “Carl, take a break in the kitchen for five
minutes, will you?” He flicked his head towards the kitchen door, just off the
living room. Carl stood immediately and in his own language he ushered the
others into the kitchen and closed the door.

Aiden snorted a line then
pushed the placemat over to Marcellus. “What is it?” he sniffed.

“Don’t get all fucking uppity
about it, but I thought you should know...”

Aiden frowned, “Know what?”

Marcellus regarded him for a
long moment. The man looked really uneasy all of a sudden, and Aiden suddenly
began to fear that Marcellus had something dreadful to tell him. Marcellus
finally announced, “Frankie’s gay.”

Aiden stared at the big man
for a moment, then leant back in his chair, raising his arms and linking his
hands behind his head. His lips quivering into a shrewd smile, he replied,
“Well, that explains a lot.”

Marcellus’s eyebrows rose for
a moment. He didn’t miss the twinkle of amusement in Aiden’s deep blue eyes.
“That’s not all,” he announced. Aiden cocked his head to one side, regarding
Marcellus thoughtfully. He found it highly amusing how much this troll of a man
was being affected by the news he felt obliged to tell him.

“There’s been some talk...
well... it seems clear to some, not me, I don’t really give a shit either way,
but...”

“Spit it out, Marcellus...”

“There’s been some talk
that...” He pulled a face. He’d said he didn’t care, but he couldn’t disguise
his disgust. “That you and him... you know...”

Aiden burst into laughter and
his reaction seemed to ease the tension in Marcellus’s shoulders. “That’s
brilliant! People think I’m a shirtlifter? Really?” He laughed again. “Carl,
Carl!” Carl appeared around the kitchen door. “Am I gay?” Carl frowned with
bemusement.

“I don’t understand the
question, Mr Foster...” he replied.

“Do you think I’m gay?”

“You are married...” His
bemusement did not wane.

“I’m very much aware of that,
Carl!” Aiden laughed. “Bring the boys back and let’s get this shit offloaded,
yeah?”

Carl nodded and immediately
the small workforce got back to the job in hand. “So you’re not, then?”
Marcellus asked quietly, as if there was some chance that Aiden might admit
that he was.

“No, ’course I ain’t!”

Marcellus sighed and fell
against the back of his chair. “Thank fuck for that! I don’t think I could have
handled that ...”

Aiden grinned. “What happened
to you not giving a shit either way?”

“Well, I didn’t wanna be
rude...”

Aiden laughed again, shaking
his head as the big man finally enjoyed a line.

Lily approached a small café in the heart of Hampstead
and stepped inside. The building was slim in width, but long. Located to her
left was a small, streamlined kitchen, while the rest of the space was filled
with small square tables lining one side of the wall, enough to seat two
persons per table, all the way to the end. She glanced up to see Grant
O’Donoghue sitting at the back of the café. The rest of the café was empty.

“What can I get you, love?” a
large-breasted woman with wiry hair asked politely from behind the counter.

“Um... a coffee, please...
black,” Lily confirmed distractedly.

“I’ll bring it over.”

Lily nodded and headed down
the café. When she approached Grant’s table, he smiled warmly at her. “Lily,
love, please sit.”

She smiled shyly back at him,
the memory of her latest departure from his house at the forefront of her mind.
“Thanks,” she whispered.

Grant quietly watched as she
took her seat. She looked nervous and slightly embarrassed. “Lily, please don’t
feel uncomfortable around me. I’d like to be your friend, if I can... you can
confide in me if you want to,” he announced, then added with a grin, “I am,
after all, the outsider.” She sighed, relieved that he had broken the ice so
early on, and nodded, placing her small leather handbag on the floor by her
feet. She wanted to confide in this man. She had no one else, no one to offload
the burden of her life with Aiden onto. “Would you like something to eat? It’s
on me.”

“No, thank you.”

Grant surveyed her for a
moment, then, as was in his nature, he got straight to the point, “You asked me
to meet you today and I’m glad you did. I could tell from our last meeting that
you have a bunch of questions you want to ask me about Aiden. My question to
you is: why not ask Aiden yourself?” Lily was a little taken aback by his
directness, but it didn’t prevent her from seeing the irony in his question.
She raised her eyebrows and twisted her lips to express this. Grant cleared his
throat. “I know he’s a... difficult man.”

“
Difficult
being the
operative word,” she muttered scathingly, running a delicate hand through her
silky hair.

Grant frowned. “If you don’t
mind me saying... your derision is somewhat unsettling. Are you and Aiden not
getting along?”

Lily gulped and found herself
lying. “Yes, we’re fine...”

“But?”

“But... he’s so closed off all
the time. He doesn’t like to discuss anything about his past... or his present
for that matter...”

“And that’s why you’re so
eager to talk to me?” Lily nodded and Grant continued, “You say he’s closed off
about his present... in what way do you mean?”

Lily hesitated, uncertain
where to go with this. It suddenly dawned on her that she was about to divulge
all her deepest reservations about her husband to this stranger; a stranger who
claimed to know Aiden very well.
Would this all get back to him?

As if Grant had read her mind,
he said reassuringly, “I haven’t spoken to Aiden for five years, Lily. As I
said, I am an outsider. I’m not likely to run to him now and inform him of your
uncertainties.”

Lily took a deep breath and
replied, “He doesn’t tell me anything, and anything I ask him, I get a one-word
response. It’s so frustrating.”

Grant smiled with
understanding. “It’s a Foster trait, I think... or, at least, a
Duggie
trait. Vivien used to have similar frustrations to you. She’d say getting any
information out of Duggie was as likely as getting the Pope to admit he’s
Protestant...” He smiled sympathetically, then, serious again, he added, “You
say Aiden’s reticent about the present... what is it you need to know that he’s
not telling you?”

“I need to know what he’s
getting up to,” she whispered, as if just her desire to know more was betraying
Aiden somehow.

The wiry-haired waitress
bustled over with Lily’s black coffee. She placed it on the table and Lily saw
her flush when she peered down at Grant. Grant was unaware, because his eyes
were still on her. “Anything else for you, sir?” the woman asked.

“No, thank you, Gail,” Grant
replied, glancing up at her briefly before he laid his eyes back on Lily.

Lily’s eyebrows furrowed.
“Does everyone call you sir?” she asked curiously when the woman had returned
to the front of the café.

Grant smiled wryly, “Not
everyone.”

“I think she likes you,” she
announced, taking a sip of her coffee, her lips quirking into a smile around
the rim of her cup.

Grant’s eyebrows shot up,
conveying an expression of sheer horror, and Lily chuckled. It was a lovely
sound and Grant was thrilled that this woman was finally at ease. He continued
inquisitively, “You were saying you want to know what Aiden is
up to
?”

Lily took another sip of her
coffee, pursing her lips, and replied, “He’s so secretive... but I know there’s
something afoot...” She took another sip.

“In what context? Do you think
he’s having an affair?”

Lily spluttered. Placing her
cup back in its saucer, she answered, “No,” with amusement. She cleared her
throat and explained, “I know he loves me, Grant. He’s made that very clear and
I believe him. I am curious as to how he earns all his money. I mean, it’s
clear that he started off earning from illegal activities. Now he says he has
investments that are paying off, but I’m not convinced... how can somebody so
young earn so much? We live like grown-ups!”

Grant smiled, enchanted by the
sweet little thing before him. “You
are
grown-ups.”

“Barely, Grant,” she scoffed.

“You’re married; you have a
child. I would say that was pretty grown-up. In fact, it’s a bigger step into
adulthood than I ever made. No wife, no kids...”

“How come you never married?”

He shrugged. “My career always
came first.”

“Do you have any regrets?”

Grant sighed and placed his
hand over hers. “Do you?”

Lily frowned in thought and pulled
her hand away, curling both of her hands in her lap, her head bowing under the
strain of his inquisitive gaze. She sat in silence for a long moment,
considering the question that he had expertly reversed back onto her.

Grant waited patiently for
Lily to answer him, eager for her to unveil the truth of her suffering. It was
strange. He felt a deep sympathy for this young lady along with a deep need to
help her. Only one other person had held the key to awakening such fatherly
affection within him, and that had been Vivien – first the mother of Aiden and
now the wife. This was history repeating itself. His calling was clear once
more. He needed to protect this girl from her husband, the same way he had
attempted to protect Vivien.

This was father and son, one
generation then the next, both similar in nature and both unable to see what
they had in front of them: a beautiful wife, unreservedly in love,
unconditionally loyal and totally vulnerable.

Lily peered up at Grant and,
finally, she replied, “Yes... I have regrets. I regret the day I returned for
him. I should have stayed away, got a degree, got a good job... met a good
man.”

Grant’s eyes glistened
pensively. “Aiden isn’t a good man to you?”

“To me, yes...” she croaked and
gulped hard, the secret she was keeping lodged in her constricted throat,
prohibiting her from speaking of her husband’s double life. She shook her head,
slowly and sadly. She couldn’t do it; she couldn’t tell him what she knew.
Grant leant forward in his chair. “Lily, let me help you.”

“I don’t think you can.” She
peered up at him through wet lashes but her expression all of a sudden became
serious and detached. “I’m sorry for wasting your time once again. But I think
I know how to handle this now.” She picked up her bag and made to leave.

Grant bolted to his feet. “I
know!” he said.

Lily turned back to him, her
face draining of blood, as if she already knew the answer to her following
question. “Know about what?”

“What you want to know.”

Lily slowly lowered herself
back into her chair. “What do you know?” she whispered, her large blue eyes
staring up at him.

“Everything.”

She gulped. “Everything?”
Grant nodded and sat down again. In a quieter voice, she asked, “The girls?”

Grant nodded again. “How?” she
pressed.

He stared warily at her. “I
just do.”

The adrenaline of declaring
her secret coursed through Lily’s veins and she began to tremble. This man
could be a part of it. She choked, “Are you...?”

“I told you, I haven’t seen
Aiden in five years...”

Her eyes burned into Grant’s
face. Her disgust was suddenly clear in her expression. “One of them is my
friend...” she quaked.

“Lily... I...”

“All those innocent girls,
suffering every day, and you know about it and choose to do nothing?” she
seethed. Grant remained calm, the antithesis of Lily right now. “Is this
because of Aiden... you’d turn a blind eye to his cruelty out of some loyalty
to him?”

“Yes,” Grant replied simply.

He closed his eyes. Lily
stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. She couldn’t comprehend his thinking at
all. She was Aiden’s wife, but she couldn’t stand around and pretend that this
wasn’t happening. She couldn’t stand back and allow Aiden to take advantage of
young, misguided women – young vulnerable women like Gina! This wasn’t a case of
loyalty: this was a case of what was right and what was wrong!

She stood so hastily that she
knocked her chair backwards, sending it clattering to the floor. “I know what I
have to do,” she announced.

Grant was on his feet in an
instant. “Lily, don’t do anything you’ll regret!”

“
Regret
?” she repeated,
then with a glance around the café she lowered her voice to a seething whisper.
“Oh, I have plenty of regrets, Mr O’Donoghue, but what I am going to do won’t
be one of them!”

She then stormed out of the café,
leaving Grant staring after her.