“Yeah, your mother said it enough…”
She stamped her foot in frustration. Roy wasn’t paying any attention to her now. “Dad!”
“YES, FUCKING COME ON!” he suddenly bellowed, flying out of his chair and punching his fists at the ceiling: 1-0, West Ham.
“Dad!”
“What, for fuck’s sake, girl?” He slumped back into his chair and sighed in surrender. He just wanted rid of her now. Plunging his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a five-pound note. He had two more where that came from but he wasn’t about to tell her that. “Here, now leave me alone will you? You’re doing my head in!”
Gina snatched the note from his hand. “Twat!” she spat before storming out of the pub.
Roy sat back and enjoyed the rest of the match and opted to stay until later that evening to celebrate his team’s unchallenged glory.
It was 9pm when Aiden swaggered into the same pub alongside Reggie and Reggie’s cousin Connor Bailey. Connor was younger and a more handsome version of Reggie, with the same mint-green eyes and tightly wound dreadlocks sticking out from his head. Aged twenty-six, he worked in a taxi rank covering the Hackney borough. He also helped Reggie with the occasional drop-off of merchandise to the outskirts of the area during his night shifts.
Damien greeted them from behind the bar in his usual reserved manner and immediately began to pour out Reggie’s usual: a pint of Abbot Ale and a tequila shot. “Five more shots, Damien!” Reggie sang cheerfully. It was Aiden’s seventeenth birthday and Reggie was on a mission to get him shit-faced.
Reggie ordered two lagers to go with the shots, and he and Connor left Aiden at the bar to bring the drinks over whilst they took a table in the corner. All drinks went on Reggie’s tab.
Aiden had been working under Reggie for five months. In that time, he had earned a good wage and, through Reggie’s introduction, had gained an expanse network of ‘acquaintances’ in the right places, who provided for their every need.
Above all, he was being recognised in the business and, finally, he felt like he was respected in their small community, even if it was mainly because of his close association with Reggie. Yet Aiden was not merely a pawn in Reggie’s small empire. That had never been his plan. With his car theft business on the up, he was more acquainted with the workings of living life on the wrong side of the law, he was making good money, and he was thriving and zealous. He got a natural high from it all – the cars, the drugs, the underworld as a whole – and he planned to acquire more, much more. In the meantime, however, he would continue to learn and network and gain the trust of his contemporaries and superiors. All in all, right now, life was good!
Aiden took the drinks over to the table and sat down next to Connor. “Ah, shit,” he whispered as he settled into his seat.
Reggie frowned. “What’s up?”
“Roy Watson’s in…” he grumbled.
“The drunk?” Reggie sniggered. That Aiden’s father had the same reputation as Roy for being a drunk was no secret to anyone who lived round their way. Reggie grimaced. “Sorry, lad, I didn’t…” he trailed off.
Aiden rebuffed his apology with a shake of his head as he took a sip of his pint. In truth, he was utterly ashamed of his father but he wasn’t about to get all upset and defensive about it. That ship had sailed a long time ago.
“Why do you care about him?” Reggie pressed.
“I’m sleeping wiv his daughter, ain’t I?”
Reggie and Connor both smirked. “Is she as fucked up as her old man?” asked Reggie.
“Sort of…”
“Oh, shit, he’s coming over!” Connor announced excitedly, bringing his hand to his lips and sniggering into the tips of his fingers.
Aiden didn’t acknowledge Roy as he approached. “You messing about with my girl, Foster?” he slurred incoherently.
It was the same old fanny he’d heard over and over for months. He took a large gulp of his lager then turned in his seat. “What of it?” he replied contemptuously.
Roy was about to do something, though Aiden wasn’t sure what, when he acknowledged the large Rastafarian beside him. He opted to point a stiff finger near, but not too near, Aiden’s face. He was unsteady on his feet and he swayed a little as he attempted to stand tall. “You jus’ treat her right, you ’ear?” he slurred.
“Like you do, you mean?” Aiden retorted, his cheeks flushing with anger as he recalled the time he had first discovered the bruising on Gina’s body. There had been a few more since, but they never discussed it.
Roy’s eyes narrowed. “Look ’ere, you little shit…”
“Alright Roy, I think that’s enough,” Reggie intervened, standing up to reveal all his six-feet-five inches. “About time you went home, don’t you think?”
Roy’s lazy eyes tried to focus on the large man before him. He knew he shouldn’t say what he said next, but drink can do that to a man: give him a confidence to do things he wouldn’t even think twice about doing had he been sober. “Fuck off back to Brixton, nigger…” he retorted.
Reggie hated that word. He didn’t even accept it coming from a fellow black man. To him, it was derogatory to his race, whoever’s mouth it came from, derived from slavery and suffering.
It took only a second for Reggie to be in front of Roy and landing him a punch right on his nose. Roy collapsed immediately, his nose gushing with blood. Aiden jumped up with a massive grin on his face, laughing loudly. No doubt Gina would come looking for him tomorrow, and he would get it right in the neck, but he didn’t care. He hated Roy.
Reggie’s large, ringed fingers curled around the shoulders of Roy’s shirt and he dragged him across the wooden floor, opened the door and threw him out onto the pavement. Aiden and Connor followed on his tail. Roy groaned and gargled as he started to come back to consciousness. His eyes widened when he realised Reggie was standing above him. “If I see you in this pub again, you cunt, I’ll break your fucking legs, got it?” he bellowed, pointing a stiff finger at the drunken ponce on the floor.
Roy groaned again. His nose was broken for sure. Aiden stepped to his side. “I’ll take him back,” he offered with a reluctant sigh.
“No, you won’t. You might be fucking his daughter, but you can let the cunt find his own way home!” Reggie spat, and at that he, Aiden and Connor went back inside, leaving Roy to do exactly what Reggie had instructed.
************
Roy awoke late the next morning with the reminder of the night before painted over his face and shirt. As he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, he realised he couldn’t quite remember why Reggie had gone at him and, naturally, he convinced himself that he had been the innocent victim.
Rage boiled inside of him. He’d never liked Reggie Driscoll. So he dealt drugs? Why the fuck did that make him God of the Hackney council estates?
As he ran the memories he could conjure in his mind, he came to the conclusion that it had all been Aiden’s fault. He had been there, smiling like a fucking Cheshire cat whilst he got a pasting. He would recognise that cocky white-toothed grin anywhere.
As the minutes passed, he began to remember little snippets of what had happened. He recalled that he’d gone to talk to Aiden about Gina… fucking Gina. His daughter had always been the root cause of all his problems.
His temper was getting the better of him now, as it always did, and now everyone else was to blame other than himself, especially that Aiden and his dirty whore of a daughter. Where was she now? Probably at his flat, servicing him, thanking him for sorting out her old man.
He stormed out of the bathroom and burst into his daughter’s bedroom. She wasn’t there. He slammed the door shut, his fury recharging his energy and allowing him to forget the pain he was in.
Gina was sitting at the kitchen table eating toast and reading the local newspaper when Roy stormed in. She saw his face and gasped, “What happened to you?”
She wasn’t prepared for the fist that slammed into the side of her head. She fell to the
side, hitting her head on the table before she was dragged from her seat. Throwing her to the floor, Roy pounced on top of her and forced her wrists above her head, against the lino.
“You and your fucking whoring!” he bellowed as she began to struggle beneath his grip.
“Get off me!” she screamed. “Get the fuck off me!”
Roy spat in her face. It was less than she deserved. Everything that had gone wrong in his life had been because of this little slut and now she was whoring herself with that little prick who thought himself as something special because he hung out with niggers. She was out of control, she always had been. He’d been happy before she’d come along. He and his wife had been in love; they’d had a life. Then Gina had been born and it had all got fucked up! “I’ll show you how to behave, girl!” he bellowed into her face.
All Gina could see was her father’s wide eyes glaring down at her, his nose bloodied and bruised. She tried to struggle beneath him, but as ever he was too strong for her. She attempted to buck him off, but he was kneeling between her legs, leaning over her, pinning her to the floor like a lion would pin a deer.
“Dad!” she screamed. He swiped her hard across the cheek then immediately swiped her again. “Get off me, Dad!” she cried hysterically. She could taste her own blood. Her mind raced with possibilities as to why her father was so enraged. He had been assaulted, that was as clear as day, and instinctively she knew it had to have been something to do with Aiden, otherwise why would he be so incensed? Had Aiden done this to him?
It was clear what her father’s intentions were when he pulled her dressing gown up over her thighs. As she felt his thick, rough fingers scramble over her flesh, a familiar stir of resignation and habitual compliance washed over her. She knew it was wrong, she knew, and when her father slipped himself inside her, she questioned her reasons for not fighting him off, but she was numb again – always the same numbness, always reluctant to struggle because to struggle would contradict her innate reaction to treatment that she had been conditioned to accept all her life. Like a robot programmed to comply, she just lay there and allowed him to take her until he was spent.
Roy pulled on his boxers in silence and left the room. He would take a shower. He always did, and he wouldn’t talk to her now for the next couple of days. It was always the same, as if he was too ashamed to communicate with her, as if only time could repair what he had done. Her father was once again on a shame spiral and she would be left out in the cold once more, and a creeping realisation clawed its way into her clouded mind. Roy was jealous: jealous of Aiden and her love for him.
Chapter eight
Sid Foster was a younger and leaner version of his brother with less hair on his head and face, yet side by side you’d know he and Duggie were related. Aged thirty-six, Sid had spent most of his life going in and out of prison. For the past five years he’d been serving time for possession of drugs and with nothing else to do other than think, shit and sleep, he’d devoted his time to working out in the prison gym.
“Fuck me!” was Duggie’s reaction when he found his brother on his door step a couple of weeks before Christmas. “What did they feed you in there? Fucking spinach?”
Sid smiled widely. His blue eyes were far paler than his older brother’s, but unlike Duggie, whose eyes, though beautifully blue, were bloodshot and almost bulged out of his head from too much booze, Sid’s eyes gleamed with zeal. “You gonna let your kid bruvver in, or what?” he laughed playfully. Sid’s voice filled a room and vibrated the walls when he spoke. He had that natural deep tone that could always be heard over a crowd.
Duggie welcomed him inside with joyfulness so alien to the rest of his family and Sid took off his coat and threw down his bag in the hallway. “What a merry fucking Christmas, eh?” Duggie beamed at his brother and hugged him close, thumping a fist on his broad back. Pulling away, he turned and yelled up the stairs, “Vivien! We got a visitor! Get the kettle on!”
Vivien heard her husband’s orders through the bathroom door. Stepping up to the mirror, she stared into her own grey eyes and sighed. She could hear who had just arrived with no prior arrangement. Duggie was never enthusiastic about anything other than his little brother. They had all been expecting Sid at some point that week, as he’d been released just two days ago, but still nothing could ever prepare her for his spontaneous visits.
Sid was a fucking nightmare – another drain on the few resources they had, and another mess they would inevitably have to clean up. He was a whirlwind in everyone’s lives. He came out of prison, caused a whole lot of bother, then found himself back inside quicker than a Protestant fleeing a Baptism.
Sid was a magnet for trouble. Having never earned an honest living in his life, he relied solely on skulduggery for a livelihood, to the usual expense of his closest family. Their mother, old Martha Foster, had croaked a few years back, and Duggie Snr hadn’t lasted long after that. The two brothers had no one else – not anyone who wanted to associate with them, anyway. Vivien was sure there was an aunt somewhere, but wherever she was, it was a long way away from her crooked nephews.
However much of a nightmare Duggie could be, Vivien had always believed Sid was the instigator in most of what her husband had got wrapped up in over the years. At the very worst, Duggie was a drunk and a free-loader, but Sid was a criminal through and through. He didn’t believe in paying his way, and there had been several occasions when her own money had bailed him out of a sticky situation following yet another arrest.
Vivien’s theory on Sid was that he purposefully got a tug from the Old Bill, just so he could get another free ride in the nick and hide away from the shitstorm he had caused on the outside. To Sid, jail was a far better option than attempting to make something of himself in the real world. Sid’s last little venture, which had resulted in his five-year stretch, had been a drug deal with a dealer located in North London, named Billy Wyatt. Billy was the worst kind of dealer. He preyed on young kids and was personally responsible for half of the teenage population in Neasden being hooked on heroin.
Vivien heard the stirrings of Aiden in the bedroom next door. He had always got on well with his Uncle Sid, whenever he sporadically reappeared in their lives. Hearing him descend the stairs to greet his uncle, she quickly sprayed her bob to ensure not a hair fell out of place, pinched her pre-bronzed cheeks then, taking a deep breath, she headed downstairs.
“Hello, Siddy.” She greeted her brother-in-law with a wide, forced smile and an awkward hug. She felt his hands slide around her back and he pulled her tight to him. He was copping a feel of her well-kept body, but, as ever, she didn’t complain. Whatever her reservations were about her husband’s brother, she could never express them in front of Duggie. The last time she’d done that, she had gone to bed with a black eye and a broken finger. Duggie worshipped the ground his little brother walked on. He loved the bones of Sid, and God help anyone who said a bad word about him.
Respectfully pulling herself out from his embrace, she immediately trotted off into the kitchen. She filled the kettle, switched it on and hovered around it until it boiled, so that she wouldn’t have to go back into the living room and make polite conversation.
Aiden plodded into the kitchen and lit a cigarette. “Do a tea for me.”
Vivien nodded reluctantly, and took another mug from the cupboard. Aiden couldn’t prevent a quiver of a smile. He understood well and good that his mother would have to be on her best behaviour now that Sid was there.
Pouring hot water into each mug, Vivien asked, in a low, clipped voice, “You gonna go down the job centre today?”
She was on one and Aiden knew it. He replied casually, “I don’t need a job… not from some job centre, anyway…”
“Oh, yeah? So how are you gonna start earning a proper keep? We can’t provide for you forever, Aiden.”
Aiden smirked at her audacity. “I didn’t think you’d ever started…” he muttered before taking a long draw on his cigarette and opening the newspape
r that had been left on the table.
Provide for him? She and Duggie didn’t know the meaning of the word. Consequently, his parents hadn’t a clue how much money he actually earned through Reggie and the cars, so they hadn’t seen a fraction of what he could really give them for his keep.
Aiden knew his mother was taking Sid’s arrival out on him. She was worried that Sid would, once more, persuade his brother to give him bunce that they couldn’t afford. Since Grant had gone walkabout, which his mother held him solely accountable for, she felt it was his responsibility to cover what he had lost them. What he did give was barely enough, but he wasn’t giving them any more, not with Duggie spending his social money left, right and centre.
Indignant now, Vivien spat, in an even quieter voice, “So, you’re going to continue stealing cars and end up a frequent visitor of the local nick, like your uncle? Where would that land your family, eh?”
Aiden looked up from the newspaper with narrow eyes. “Shall I go and tell Duggie what you think of his brother? If I remember rightly, he didn’t appreciate it the last time you voiced your opinion.”
Vivien gulped and glared at her son, but her eyes fell before his did. Taking the mug she had got out for him, she poured its contents down the sink and stormed into the living room with the two other mugs for Sid and Duggie.
“Bitch…” Aiden muttered as she passed him, but Vivien chose to ignore him.
“So, Vivien, how has the old man been treating you whilst I’ve been away?” Sid sang loudly as Vivien entered the living room and passed him his drink. “I always said you’d chosen the wrong brother!” he jested.
Vivien looked at her husband and thought it best to keep her mouth shut. Duggie spoke for her. “She couldn’t be happier,” he said, then immediately changed the subject. “Where’s the whisky? My little brother’s home. We should be celebrating!”
“You wanted tea!” Vivien snapped reflexively.
Ignoring his wife, Duggie turned back to his brother and announced, “Right, Sid, I reckon I need to get you down the boozer!”
Human Conditioning Page 7