Human Conditioning (23 page)

Gina scrutinised Aiden for a
long moment. He had settled down in the armchair opposite her and was rolling
himself a joint.
What was he really doing with her?
And out of the silence,
before she could even contemplate the words that escaped from her mouth, she asked,
“Why are you here, Aiden?”

Aiden looked up with a bemused
expression on his handsome face. “You asked me to come here,” he replied.

She sat forward, resting her
elbows on her knees, determined to voice her concern now that she had broached
the subject. “No. I mean, why me? Why not Lily?”

His eyes narrowed and he
stared at her impassively for a long moment. Then, leaving his unrolled joint
on the coffee table, he relaxed back in the armchair and wiped his hands
together, dusting off the remains of tobacco on his fingers. He looked deep in
thought, as if he were actually considering her question. She was surprised by
this. He finally announced, “Lily and I would never have worked out.”

This was not the answer she
desired. “So I was second best?” she retorted, wounded by this revelation.

Aiden’s lip jerked up into a
smirk. “Am I likely to win, whatever answer I give?”     

“Not everything is a
competition, Aiden...”

“Well, I think you won the
competition between you and Lily,” he added teasingly, presenting his
fabulously alluring white-toothed smile.

Gina tried to ignore how that
smile affected her. “It seems that way, though I don’t quite understand why...”
she said.

He laughed. “What’s to
understand?”

And, suddenly, Gina’s lips
were mimicking his good-humoured smile, his serene mood – a rarity in Aiden – gradually
dispersing her annoyance. She stood, walked around the coffee table, and straddled
him, wrapping her arms around his neck and nuzzling her nose just below his earlobe.
He smelled different; he smelled good – like some expensive aftershave they
advertised in those glossy magazines.

Aiden’s hands moved around to
her backside and he began to caress her buttocks, as always. “So, you’re
not
mad at me now?” he asked, light-hearted sarcasm pouring from his gruff voice.

“No,” she replied, but he felt
her lips form a pout against his neck.

He inhaled deeply. “Gina,
Gina, you are such a little madam sometimes...”

Gina sat bolt upright, a look
of mock horror on her beautiful face. “No, I’m not!” she whined, then resumed
her pouting.

Aiden lifted a hand to her
face and traced her bottom lip. He took it between the tips of his fingers and
tugged on it gently. “What’s this, then?” he said.

“My lip,” she answered
grumpily.

He laughed. “And why is it
pouting?”

Gina frowned in thought and, once
more for her, the joke was over. She gulped. “Because you never tell me you
want me...”

Aiden’s fingers hovered over
her mouth. His eyebrows furrowed and he pressed his index finger lightly over
her lips, as if telling her to say no more. They both stared at one other for a
long silent moment and Gina’s anxiety came back with a vengeance.
Would he
leave now?

Aiden exhaled a long, slow
breath and, closing his eyes, he whispered, “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to tell me that
you want me.”

“I always tell you that,” he
replied, but when he opened his eyes, they were jaded and despondent.

“Only when we’re in the
bedroom...” Gina whispered, so quietly that he wouldn’t have heard her if she
hadn’t been straddling him. “And you didn’t respond when I... announced what I
announced this afternoon.”

Aiden licked dry lips. “No, I
didn’t.”

She gazed at him with
expectation, but he was giving her nothing. Abruptly, she got to her feet, her
mood shifting once more. “Am I just kidding myself, thinking that we have
something, when really we don’t...
Really
, I’m just an easy lay?”

“For fuck sake, G, will you
give it a rest!” Aiden barked in exasperation, leaning forward to finish
rolling his joint. Tears began to stream down her face. He glanced up and his
lips pressed into a hard line. “Don’t... start,” he growled. He wasn’t up for
emotional blackmail tonight.

Gina couldn’t stop her sobbing.
She stood in the middle of the room, watching him as he licked the Rizla casing
of his joint and rolled it into a cone between his fingers, a deep paralysing craving
spiralling within the pit of her stomach – a craving for him to love her.

Aiden pulled a lighter from
his pocket and lit the end of his joint, toking on it appreciatively. Falling
back against the armchair, his eyes finally met Gina’s. Forming large, floating
smoke rings on his exhalation, he watched her intently. She got the feeling
that he was challenging her, but she wasn’t sure what he was challenging her to
do – or not do, which was probably closer to the mark. His scrutiny was
unbearable and she dropped her eyes to the floor. “Say something, Aiden,
please
.”

Taking another pull on his
joint, he replied, “What do you
want
me to say?”

She glared up at him. She
could feel the overwhelming need to subject him to her natural malice when she
was again being deprived of the one thing she most wanted in the world. It was
her way of shying away from the reality of their situation. Self-preservation,
some called it. “You know, my dad told me you were a fucked-up ponce and, for
once in his whole worthless existence, he was right!” she spat.

“Careful..., G,” Aiden warned.

His challenging glare returned
and Gina gulped down any further retort. Turning on her heels, she stormed from
the room. Charging into her bedroom, she slammed the door and allowed the internal
dam of emotion to burst inside of her, sending her spiralling into a chaotic frenzy
of tears and screaming.

Her mother, her father, Aiden...
the only people she had ever loved unconditionally, and they had all
disappointed her time and time again. They’d all thought it was acceptable to
leave her, to neglect her, to abuse her mind and her body. First her mother and
now her father, both gone! Her father had ended his life, left her with a huge
debt hanging over her head and a flat she would eventually be thrown out of by
the authorities. Aiden would be next. When was he going to leave her behind
like her parents had? Enough was enough! She couldn’t take any more!

Running her arms across the
top of her dresser, she launched all objects upon it across the room with a rip-roaring
bawl. Then, turning her sights on her bed – the bed she had only shared with
Aiden – she dragged off the pillows, duvet and the fitted sheet, then, with one
huge tug, dragged the mattress off the bed frame, screeching profanities at the
top of her lungs.

Aiden burst into the room, his
eyes wide with shock. “What are you doing?” he yelled.

“
Get out
!” she
screamed.

She dropped the mattress and,
ripping the lamp from the bedside table out from the plug socket, she launched it
at him. He expertly ducked out of the way and the lamp smashed into pieces
against the wall. “Jesus Christ, Gina! You’re fucking mental, do you know
that?” he sneered, demonstrating the universally known gesture for ‘crazy’ by spiralling
his index finger against his temple.

“Crazy for putting up with
you
!”
she screamed. “
All
of you, you’re all the fucking same!” she went on,
turning to the posters on her walls and ripping them down one by one. “All
selfish... pieces... of...
shit
!” Aiden watched her with mock
fascination, not having one clue what or who she was going on about. When he’d
seen enough, he casually stepped over the clutter and, taking her arms, he
pulled them around to her back to restrain her. “
Get off me
!” she
screamed, kicking out her legs as he dragged her out of the room.

Taking her down the hallway
and back into the living room, he finally threw her onto the couch. “
Now,
calm the fuck down
!” he bellowed.

Gina was panting, and she blinked
up at him, her large green eyes red-rimmed and puffy. The growling authority in
the tone of Aiden’s voice was one that she’d heard only a few times before, and
she knew he wouldn’t take any more of her shit without getting really
antagonistic himself. He’d had enough for one night and, in truth, so had she.

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

Aiden lay awake with Gina wrapped tightly around him. He
had made her tidy her room before they had gone to bed together, and everything
was back to normal – minus a lamp. He thought about the week he’d had. Roy’s
death had come as a shock initially. Now, however, he couldn’t give a toss It
was one fewer drunken lout to have to contend with, in his book. He just wished
his own father would have the bottle to do himself in.

He never thought he’d be
capable of hating Duggie any more than he had when he had severely beaten him on
his sixteenth birthday, but he was capable alright. He hated him so much now, that
he even daydreamed about doing him in himself. He was glad to get out of it. He
would rent the flat by Ricky’s place and be free from his father once and for
all.

Gina stirred and he placed his
hand on her head to calm her. She settled instantly beneath his touch. He
peered at her pretty face, lit gently by the dim light of the dawn behind the
dark purple curtains. She was a beautiful young woman with her little button
nose and her large green eyes, now concealed behind her heavy lids.
What was
he to do with her?
Her revelation that afternoon had come as a surprise to
him, but now, as he thought about it, he wondered why it had. It was clear she
adored him. But he just didn’t feel that deeply for her.

His mind wandered to Lily
Summers and Gina’s question earlier of, ‘Why me? Why not Lily?’ In truth, Lily had
been the only person he’d been remotely close to loving the way Gina loved him.
He had had his reasons for calling it off with Lily, and he idly wondered
whether he regretted that decision now, whether he could have made it work if
he’d bothered trying. 

He forced Lily’s beautiful
eyes and her warm smile from his mind. He wasn’t sure how long he had been
lying awake, but eventually he came to the conclusion that he needed to put
some distance between him and Gina. He had bigger fish to fry – bigger fish
than attempting to keep a girl by his side. But he wasn’t looking forward to
the aftermath of this decision. Gina Watson was one problematic young lady...

He sighed in reflective
satisfaction at how his life was turning out. Not yet eighteen and he was making
an average of two grand a week – quite the accomplishment for a kid who had brought
himself up from fuck-all! He smiled to himself. With the car business ticking
over, his debt collections with Reggie and his employment as an enforcer with
the KKKs, he was gradually climbing the ladder to a greater success and, he
knew, if he kept on working his arse off and kept on the right side of the
right people, he could become a major player of criminal activity in London,
just as he aspired to be.

His association with Kamal
Kamar was a major factor in his achievements, but he’d like to also make a name
for himself on his own terms. He wanted to earn big, and the only way to do
that was to become the chief in all his endeavours. Grant had taught him that, though
probably unwittingly.

Grant had always wanted him to
work
for
him, not with him. But Aiden saw that Grant earned big by being
the boss in his chosen schemes. Like Grant and Kamal, he wanted to become his
own boss eventually. He wanted riches beyond what a mere employee could attain.
He wanted out of Hackney, and out of the clutches of the welfare abusers, the
addicts and the underachievers. He wanted more, much more. And he would get it.
All he needed to do was let his natural acumen explore the opportunities, play
around with some new ideas, and come up with some new enterprises – his
own
enterprises.
That’s what he did best. A brawler he may be, but he liked to think of himself
as a businessman. He had a criminal mind and an industrious quality, and he planned
to use those talents to achieve everything he knew he was capable of.

Two months had passed since Roy’s suicide. In that time,
Gina had become somewhat of a recluse, relying on alcohol to obliterate the
lonely nights she had not yet become accustomed to. Aiden had disappeared into
thin air. She couldn’t contact him through Ricky Finn, Reggie, or even Kate.
She’d tried. She’d even shown up at his new flat several times, but to no
avail. He hadn’t been there.

The last time she’d heard from
him, he’d come to inform her that he had found out who Roy had owed and had
paid them off, with interest, so that they wouldn’t seek any retribution on her.
So at least she didn’t have to look over her shoulder. She was thankful to Aiden
for that, more than he knew, but it had obviously affected their relationship.
She thought he was probably angry with her. He had never liked his money being
spent so frivolously when he worked so damned hard to earn it. It was therefore
a complete surprise when he strolled into her bedroom that evening as if he’d
never left.

She downed the dregs of her
cider, stifling the urge to tell him to piss off, despite the fact that, deep
down, she was elated to see him. She wouldn’t show it, though, not after his
disappearing act. “How did you get in?” she asked coolly.

“Well, fucking hello to you an’
all!”

She added, “I’m going out...”

“No, you ain’t. I’ve got a
proposition for you.”

Gina stepped around her bed
and allowed her dressing gown to drop to the floor. Beneath it, she wore just a
t-shirt, no knickers, and she knew Aiden would admire her from afar whilst she
got dressed. It was petty, but even so she craved his attention, as always.