Human Conditioning (42 page)

She hadn’t revealed any of
what she had found out about his second life. Gina had been right to question
her courage to confront him. Ever since she’d discovered Aiden’s violent
conduct towards Gina, she had felt an unequivocal fear for her husband.

She had been, foremost, a
compliant wife. She wasn’t sure whether it was through force of habit or force
of will, but she wondered now whether her compliance and will to please her
husband had all along been her shield against his bad temper. On the one hand,
she was quite certain that Aiden would not harm her. He loved her, in his own
way. She was his wife. Yet, on the other hand, she was now acutely aware that
her husband operated on the edge of his temper most of the time. She hadn’t
recognised the signs before, hadn’t realised how often he ran at his limit, but
now she understood and it frightened the hell out of her.

Aiden, so far, seemed none the
wiser about her feelings, and it was disconcerting how he breezed through life
as if nothing untoward was going on at all. These were surely not the actions
of a sane person? Aiden Foster had a piece missing in his make-up, and Lily was
sure it was a conscience...

It was all one big mess. She
didn’t know herself anymore, and she certainly didn’t know Aiden. There had
been a time, not so long ago, when she had prided herself on knowing him better
than anyone else, but she had been monumentally wrong and unreservedly tricked.
It was a bitter pill to swallow, but she had to admit to herself that Gina knew
Aiden better than she did.

He strolled back into the
lounge with a tumbler of whisky in hand. The day was done, and this had become
his routine. His presence provoked a hot dread in the pit of Lily’s stomach, a
dread that had become so familiar over the past few months, and she watched him
warily as he slumped into an armchair opposite the television. Plucking up all
her courage, she asked, “Has Grant O’Donoghue always been a friend of the
family?” then added, “He seemed to know a lot about you as a child,” as if this
would somehow explain the reason for her question.

Aiden hadn’t been happy when
she had told him who had picked her up from the hospital. He had been even more
annoyed when she had told him that Grant and Vivien had stayed for lunch and
that the topic of their conversation was predominantly him.

But she had a motive for
asking about Grant. If the man knew Aiden as well as he had suggested, then
maybe he could shed some light on Aiden’s life growing up and how and why he
had become a criminal and the man he was today. She certainly wouldn’t feel
comfortable asking his parents, or Kate.

“Mum shouldn’t have got him
involved. I don’t like that he held Amy,” Aiden replied. He switched on the
television with the remote on the table beside the armchair and stared vacantly
at the screen. Lily knew he wouldn’t be watching it. He never did. It merely
gave him something to look at whilst his mind whirled with whatever business he
was keeping from her that day.

Lily asked, despite his
palpable reluctance, “Why did you fall out?”

Aiden tore his eyes away from
the screen and gazed at her, surprised that she knew anything of this, but the
penny quickly dropped: she would have found out during her conversation with
Grant and his mother the previous day. His lips thinned and he replied flatly,
“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Amy had fallen asleep during
her feed. Lily adjusted her clothing and turned the child over to burp her as
Aiden concentrated his gaze back on the television. She tried to keep her tone
light and unaccusing when she pressed, “Why don’t you want to talk about it?”

Aiden sighed, though he tried
to disguise it. He lifted his tumbler to his mouth and took a gulp, then set it
back down on the arm of the chair. He proceeded to untie his black tie and pull
it from his neck, dropping it to the floor, then he unfastened the two top
buttons of his shirt. Taking another gulp of whisky, he finally announced, “He
interfered too much.”

Lily’s eyes went back to him
as she settled Amy into the cradle of her arms. “Interfered in what?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Lily. My
life, I expect...” he replied, now exasperated.

She hesitated, then asked,
“Did he interfere in your work?”

She watched Aiden carefully.
His eyebrows twitched, but his expression remained impassive. He took another
gulp of his drink, acting as if he hadn’t heard her, but she knew him better
than that. He was thinking over her question, working out the best way to
answer whilst he too attempted to rein in his frustration.

“Let’s just say, I wanted to
make my own way,” he announced, evidently narked.

Lily nodded. She wouldn’t get
any more out of him now. Like Gina, his full guard had come up and she had
learned a hard lesson dealing with Gina that day a few months ago. The key was
not to push them too far. People like her husband and Gina didn’t talk unless
they were happy to. She needed to choose her moments carefully and unearth
whatever information she could at the time. Every attempt would give her
something; provide another piece of the puzzle. And one day, she would piece
together the truth and...
then what
? She wasn’t sure.

She wanted to speak with Gina
again and she was now determined to speak with Grant O’Donoghue some more. She
was sure he was the key to whatever she felt she needed to discover. She just
needed to find out how to contact him without raising suspicion.

Aiden rose from his chair,
making Lily start, but, again, he didn’t seem to notice. He stepped over to
her. “How are you feeling?” he asked, his blue eyes gazing down at her
intently.

Lily blinked up at him,
pulling Amy closer to her chest. “I’m fine.”

“You’re well?” he pressed, and
Lily nodded. He crouched down and, placing his hands on her knees, he began to
move them slowly up her legs. She had to prevent herself from shuddering. “Why
don’t you put Amy to bed and meet me in the bedroom?”

A carnal smile crept onto his
lips. It was a gesture that would have floored her not so long ago, but now it
only bred anxiety. She felt the tight band in her chest as she watched him
leave the room.

She peered down at Amy, the spawn of Aiden Foster, and,
not for the first time, she silently thanked the Lord that the child was a
girl. A boy, she feared, would turn out just like his father.

When Lily entered the bedroom from the ensuite, dressed
in a short white nightdress, Aiden had already removed his jacket, shoes and
socks. His belt buckle was loose, and he was unbuttoning the rest of his shirt.
Lily felt sick with apprehension, but he wouldn’t take it lightly if she denied
him this. He had missed her during her time in hospital. That had been evident
the previous night, but she had been able to put him off then, having just got
home. He had understood and let her be. But tonight he would know something
else was wrong.

Slipping off his shirt, he
stalked over to her, his ripped abdominal muscles responding to each step, his
trousers loose around his waist showing the perfect ‘v’ of his oblique muscles.
He looked divine, and his beauty conjured an acute longing in Lily: a longing
for everything she had discovered not to be true. Her inherent love for this
man had not waned despite her fear of his sins.

Henry VIII had been bewitched
by Anne Boleyn and had consequently fallen victim to the tragic circumstance of
loving her as much as he grew to hate her. Had their roles now changed? This
was
her
circumstance now. A love that could not be eliminated by will or
reason stirred deep inside her as she peered up at her husband, yet an ominous
thread of revulsion and hatred wound around her heart with such conviction that
just the thought of him touching her sickened her.

Aiden took her face in his
hands. His skin was hot. She could feel the heat emanating from him. Placing
his forehead on hers, he closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose,
breathing her in. “I’ve missed you, Mrs Foster.”

Lily gulped. “I’ve missed you
too.” She lied and spoke the truth, all at once.

He pressed his lips on her
forehead and placed his finger beneath her chin, tipping her head back so that
their eyes met. Lily felt a hand grope her backside. She knew it wasn’t as
perky as it had been before she had fallen pregnant, and she made a mental note
to get back into shape as quickly as possible. She would join a gym somewhere –
a place with a nice pool for little Amy.

By the time she had mentally
gone through the process of who she would need to speak to in order to find the
best gym in close proximity and what type of exercises would best suit the
different parts of her body she needed to tone, she had been lowered onto the
bed and Aiden was pulling off his trousers and boxer shorts.

She glimpsed his manhood as it
sprang free, hard and ready for action, and averted her eyes to the ceiling. He
climbed above her and ran the tip up her inner thigh. This little gesture had
once driven her wild with passion, but now it only sent cold shivers up her
spine.

When Aiden’s lips found hers,
he was rough and filled with need, and Lily instinctively knew the act they
were about to perform wouldn’t last long. When Aiden wanted to make love, he
made the process excruciatingly slow, but when Aiden wanted to fuck, it was
rough and it was quick. And luckily for her, tonight he desired the latter.

“Vivien, it is Lily.”

“Hello love!”

Lily could hear the warm
affection in her mother-in-law’s voice as she answered her unexpected phone
call. “Thanks for the other day...” she announced, as politely as ever.

“No problem.” Vivien replied.
“Sorry for getting you in trouble with Aiden over Grant. My boy doesn’t change
in his old age, does he?”

“No,” Lily replied. “Listen...
talking of Grant, I’d really like to thank him properly for taking the time to
help. It was nice meeting him, seeing as he and Aiden had been close once. I
don’t suppose you could give me his address... I was thinking of sending him
some flowers.”

“Well, that’s a nice idea, but
I don’t think Grant is a ‘
flowers
’
type of man.”

Lily bit her tongue.
“Something else, then...”

“He loves his whisky. He lives
in Hampstead, the flash git... on Sheldon Avenue, number forty-six. I’ll have
to pop up and see him at some point. It’s been ages. I can admit it now: he was
my rock when the kids were younger.”

Lily could tell Vivien was on
the verge of reminiscing about a past she had learned so much of over the past
months, and in her limited experience, she knew that it was difficult to get
Vivien to stop once she got started. She interrupted the flow. “Forty six,
Sheldon Avenue, Hampstead. Thanks, Vivien,” and she was successful in diverting
Vivien's attention.

Vivien asked, “How are you
getting on?”

“I’m good. Everything’s fine
now...”

“You scared us. We thought we
were going to lose the both of you... Aiden was in bits!”

“I’m sure... look, Vivien,
sorry to cut it short, but I’ve got loads to do.”

“’Course you have! You’re a
mum now, Lily... I’ll let you go, but stay in touch, OK?”

“Of course...”

Lily placed the phone receiver
down and sighed. She was suddenly nervous. What would Grant think of her
turning up at his door and how would she get the information she wanted from
him without it being obvious that she knew something?

************

A few days later, Lily turned her car into Sheldon Avenue
and searched for house number forty-six. The houses in the street were large
and well-kept. They reminded her of her own home in Harpenden. She pulled up
outside Grant’s house. It was one of the larger in the street with a mowed lawn
and shrubs beneath the windows. A pathway cut through the garden and led to a
wide, green front door. It was one of the prettier houses on the street, which
surprised her. She had been told that Grant had never married, yet the house
had the elegance that could only be achieved by a woman’s touch. She pushed
Amy’s pushchair up the garden path, clutching the bottle of Glenlivet whisky
she had brought with her, and pressed the brass doorbell. 

She had no idea whether he was
in. She glanced at her watch. It was 7:15pm. When the door swung open, a tall,
attractive brunette with dark olive skin and brown eyes, around her age, smiled
down at her. “Can I help you?” she asked in a genteel European accent, the
sight of the pushchair subsequently causing her to frown with confusion.

“Uh... my name is Lily
Foster.”

“Lily?”

Grant’s large frame appeared
in the doorway beside the young woman and he discreetly pushed her aside with
the palm of his hand against her hip. She didn’t vocally oppose her dismissal,
but her heavy eyelids narrowed as she scowled up at him, conveying her
annoyance. She left them alone.

“And what do I owe this pleasure? Is Aiden with you?” he
asked, scanning the street behind her.
Was everyone wary of her husband?

“I wanted to thank you for
your help the other day.”

She held out the bottle of
whisky and Grant stepped out onto the path and took it from her. “You silly
arse, you didn’t have to do that! Please, come in.” He pulled the door wide
open and Lily directed her pushchair into the large hallway. Abutting the
hallway was a grand set of stairs that separated at the top, winding round to
the left and right. It was a show piece. “How is the child?” he asked.

“She’s fine. And sleeping,
which is good,” Lily answered politely. “You have a lovely home.”

“Thank you, Lily.” He shrugged
his large shoulders. “Natalia takes care of the décor and the help keeps it
tidy. Please, come through to the kitchen,” he added.

As Lily, with pushchair in
tow, followed Grant down the long hallway towards the kitchen, they passed a
door revealing a lounge and Lily noticed the young woman who’d opened the door
to her, who she presumed was Natalia, sitting cross-legged in an armchair,
eating popcorn out of a large glass bowl. Entering the kitchen, Lily directed
Amy’s pushchair into one corner of the room.

“Is Natalia your daughter?”
she asked. She didn’t recall the mention of a daughter during their
conversation the other day, and she had been told that Grant had never married,
but it was still feasible for him to have a daughter around her age.

Grant let out a puff of
laughter and closed the set of double doors that opened onto the hallway they
had just come in from. “No, darlin’,” he replied, then whispered jovially,
“She’s what they call my ‘
bit on the side
’!” He winked.

“Oh!” Lily’s faced flushed
crimson.

Grant grinned and pulled out a
bottle of wine from the fridge. “I don’t drink wine, and Natalia only drinks
white.”

“That’s fine,” Lily replied,
still recovering from her embarrassment.

“Take a seat.”

She checked Amy (she was still
sleeping soundly) then pulled herself onto one of the ten high stools
surrounding the long breakfast bar located in the middle of the room. Grant’s
kitchen was beautifully designed, everything either in the colour ivory or
black, with light wood worktops. It was extremely modern and she thought to
remind herself to ask who had designed it. But she had some prying to do first.

“Vivien holds you in high
esteem. She said you were her rock when Aiden and Kate were younger...” she
announced, watching Grant closely as he poured out her white wine.

“She shows too much gratitude,
considering it was my fault in the first place,” he replied.

“Your fault?”

He placed Lily’s glass on the
worktop and proceeded to pour himself a tumbler of the
Glenlivet
.
He
did this silently and Lily wondered whether she had already provoked his guard.
When he came to sit opposite her, however, he replied, “Duggie Foster used to
work for me... illegal boxing matches. He was a great boxer. We used to clean
up wherever we went, for a time. Unfortunately, Duggie allowed his natural
greed to affect his judgement and he tried to fix a match against me... let’s
just say I ended his career and his ability to walk without a limp.”

He winked again and Lily found
herself staring at her hands, which were clasped tightly in her lap. “Oh.”

“After that, I helped Vivien
out. Duggie had no interest in working after what had happened. I think he
resented Vivien and wanted to make her suffer... but that’s just my opinion.”
He paused then announced, “I would say, ‘I’m surprised Aiden hasn’t already
told you this’, but... he was never one for opening up about family affairs.”

Their eyes met again and they
stared at each other in deep contemplation before Lily gulped and asked, “Why
would Duggie want Vivien to suffer?”

Grant hesitated. “If it hadn’t
been for Vivien convincing me otherwise, I’d have killed Duggie that night.
He’d always been too proud to admit that it was Vivien who saved his life.”

Lily lifted her glass and took
a large gulp of wine. She already wanted to change the subject. The thought of
Duggie deliberately allowing his wife and children to struggle on the account
of pride and resentment did not sit well with her and, she wondered whether
Aiden would do the same to her if he knew where she was right now, if he found out
that she knew what he was. She also wasn’t sure whether Grant was being literal
when he said that he would have killed Duggie, which heightened her anxiety all
the more.
Who were these people?
They talked carelessly about violence
and suffering as if it were part of everyday life.

“So, you helped by financing
the family?”

“Yes.”

“That was nice of you...”

“It was the least I could have
done. Vivien had just given birth to Aiden, and they were skint. I owed
her
,
if not Duggie. I bought them the flat in Carlton House.”

“You seem very fond of
Vivien...”

“I am. She was once a lovely
young lady, much like yourself, but... she changed dramatically, especially
after having Aiden.” Grant frowned. He seemed to regret his opinion of Vivien.

Lily pressed for more information.
“What changed?”

He shrugged. “Life, I guess...
Duggie, mostly... and Aiden. She didn’t take to Aiden. I was the one who adored
him, but when Kate came along, Vivien seemed to be genuinely happy. She doted
on her little girl, but...” he tailed off then added, “I had hoped that Kate’s
arrival would rejuvenate Vivien’s relationship with Aiden, but it only seemed
to make her more determined to cast him out. It was strange... when we first
met, she had seemed so desperate to have children...” he tailed off once more,
his eyebrows furrowed in his own confusion.

“Aiden sometimes expresses
that he didn’t get along with Vivien...”

Grant shook his head, still
bemused. “He could be difficult, don’t get me wrong...” Lily smiled,
sardonically. Grant noticed and smirked in response. “He hasn’t changed, has
he?”

Lily shook her head, her eyes
falling to her glass. “So... what happened to make you and Aiden stop talking?
You said you had been like a father to him...”

“I had been funding the family
all the way through Aiden and Kate’s childhood, up until they were teenagers. I
paid for their schooling and activities they wanted to take up outside of
school. Aiden used to box, but Kate was always very indecisive as a child.
First it was the violin, then it was ballet, netball, gymnastics...” He rolled
his eyes and smiled at the memory. “But I couldn’t keep Vivien financially
protected forever. I initially thought that if Duggie insisted on being a
useless bastard, pardon my French, then
I would get Aiden working for
me, so he could keep the family.”

“But he rebelled against that
idea?” Lily guessed, relaying the recent conversation with Aiden about Grant
‘interfering too much’ in his life.

Grant smiled, but it was a
pensive smile. “Yeah,” he replied and shrugged, adding, “You know Aiden...”

Lily took another sip of her
wine. She wasn’t sure she did, but she didn’t express it. “So, what kind of
business are you in, Mr O’Donoghue?”

“Grant, please,” Grant smiled
and stared at her for a long moment, hesitating before he answered, “All kinds.
I have many fingers in many pies, Lily.” The way he smiled convinced her that
he was hiding something and she wondered really how much she would be able to
get him to reveal today.

Lily changed tack. “And
Aiden... what did he end up doing after he’d refused to work with you?”

“Oh, you know... the usual...”

Lily sighed, a sweet smile
rising on her lips. “No, unfortunately I don’t know.”

Grant reciprocated her smile.
He wasn’t too sure what to say. He didn’t want to paint a bad picture of this
woman’s husband, and he was bemused as to why she didn’t know all this already.
He shrugged and replied, “Car theft.”

She had, inadvertently, found
out about Aiden’s car-theft business from Kate on their wedding day. What she
hadn’t realised then was how long it had been going on. A flickering memory of
Aiden turning up in a blue Nova in the school car park entered unwanted into
her mind. That was the day he had left her to pursue a shady career, free from
the constraints of her and her parents – or ‘Filth’, as Aiden sometimes labels
them. “And he worked for Reggie Driscoll, didn’t he?” she muttered into her
glass as she took a large gulp of wine.

“Yeah... Aiden loved Reggie.
Did you ever meet him before he was... before he died?”

“No, no I didn’t.” Lily didn’t
want to go into the night Reggie had been killed. It had been the night she’d
sealed her fate with Aiden. The memory was a painful and depressing one. 

Grant took the liberty to
continue, “Reggie seemed to gain Aiden’s trust. In fact, I think Reggie was the
only man to do as much. Aiden doesn’t trust easily, but I’m sure you know
that.” He took a long gulp of his Glenlivet, his eyebrows set into a frown once
more. “Reggie and Aiden’s relationship was one that I’d hoped to have had with
Aiden myself. But I guess I was too driven by the need to protect him and the
family. I pushed him away...” He tailed off as if this was the first time he’d
considered this possibility.

“What happened then?”

Grant took another gulp. Lily
could sense that he was summing up her question and trying to stitch together
an adequate response without giving away whatever he was evidently hiding from
her. He finally replied, on a shrug, “We went our separate ways. I regret it
now, but I let my anger at Aiden affect mine and Vivien’s friendship. The money
I had been slipping her over the years stopped. At the time, because I was
angry, I had insisted that Aiden needed to take responsibility for his family.
But it was an unfair request...”

“How old was he then?”

“It was around the same time
he started working for Reggie, just after he left school...” Lily’s stomach
lurched at this prospect. It would have been just after they had broken up.
“...Part of me wanted him to fall flat on his arse, if truth be told. I had
been looking after the boy practically since he had been born. I guess I wanted
some recognition. I never had me own kids... I suppose I wanted him to see me
as his dad. He certainly didn’t see Duggie as anything but a pest. Duggie
hasn’t been a great father to either of his kids. Aiden had a rough time with
him. He couldn’t bear being in the same room as him most of the time. In the
end, though, Aiden couldn’t stand the sight of any of us.” Grant drained his
glass, and for a moment he stared down into it, deep in thought.