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.
Chapter thirty-seven
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.
On the back of their first, somewhat heated, conversation about having children, Aiden had triumphed in persuading her to come off the pill just a couple of weeks after they had moved in, but Lily had insisted they use condoms until she was ready to discuss children again. As Elton John sang about ‘sacrifice’, Lily rolled her eyes at the memory of succumbing to her husband’s persuasion: ‘I hate condoms, but I’ll make a sacrifice if you come off the pill,’ he’d said.
She stepped down from the ladder to retrieve more paint and, suddenly, her heart sank so deep that she was sure it had just retreated from her body. “Shit!” she exclaimed and, dropping the paint brush into a bucket, she fled the room.
Walking briskly across the landing, with its brand-new and very expensive cream carpet and freshly painted cream walls, she entered the bathroom. The room was huge, bright and airy, owing to the large frosted window above the enormous, oval bath/jacuzzi that filled the left corner of the room. All the walls were tiled in bright white opaque tiles and the floor was laid with black granite stone. A double shower was situated on the right side of the room, along with the toilet and a bidet.
Lily ran, leant on the sink and stared at herself in the large mirror above it, her expression dripping with dread. Closing her eyes tightly, she counted back the weeks since her last period. Six weeks! Her eyes sprang open and the fear in her expression was unmistakable. “Shit!”
She left the room, pulled off her overalls and headed out of the house. Unlocking the driver door of the white Chevrolet Corvette Coupé that sat in the gravel driveway (one of the several moving-in presents from her husband), she got in, started the ignition and skidded out of the driveway.
When she returned to the house, she headed back to the bathroom. She pulled out the pregnancy test from the plastic bag bearing the logo of the pharmacy she had bought it from and dropped the bag into the waste bin by the sink. Opening up the pregnancy test box, she took out the folded paper bearing the instructions, unfolded it and frantically began to read them.
After a couple of minutes reading, she dropped the instructions into the sink and got on with the gruelling task of trying to urinate over the small stick that she held awkwardly between her thighs. As her warm urine trickled over the plastic instrument, she closed her eyes and prayed silently. Be negative. Please be negative. She popped the cap on and placed the test down on the sink and waited, staring down at the little instrument that might be about to inform her that her life was about to change.
She glanced up at herself in the bathroom mirror as she washed her hands. She looked bleak. It wasn’t meant to be like this. Angst and regret tugged at her heart when surely she should be waiting in excited anticipation to find out whether she was blessed with their first child.
She frowned. Why did she feel like this? She was generally happy. She had a husband who adored her, and who she adored in return. They had a beautiful home and they had money – lots of money. What was her problem? And really, the only answer she could come up with was that she was still so young. Yet not too young to get married and not too young to have sex, she scolded herself inwardly. But she had insisted on them being careful… so what had happened?
She sighed with irritation. She was thinking as if she already had confirmation that she was pregnant. She didn’t know yet, but some innate feeling inside her was quite certain that the little plastic instrument sitting on the edge of the sink was going to show positive. The minute was up. She picked up the test and, with a deep breath, she pulled off the cap.
Shit!
************
When Aiden returned home that evening, Lily was in their very large kitchen, with its two ovens, a breakfast bar long enough to comfortably sit eight people, all the up-to-date utilities and cooking equipment, and shiny black and white tiled floor. She was washing the pots that were too large to go into the dishwasher – pots from the dinner that Aiden had had to miss, again, when she felt his arms wrap around her waist. “Alright?” he whispered, and kissed her ear.
She nodded. His lips traced down her neck and his touch ge
nerated the familiar twinge of arousal between her thighs, but the feeling was instantly overridden by acute anxiety as the result of her pregnancy test entered her mind. Positive! Oh, Aiden would be thrilled, but she was unsure when to tell him. She wasn’t exactly elated about it and she didn’t want her husband to sense her reservations. She inadvertently sighed at her predicament.
“What’s the matter?” Aiden asked, releasing her and stepping over to their large American-style fridge. He took out a cold bottle of lager and popped the lid off on the kitchen worktop.
“Aiden!” she exclaimed. “That’s oak!” He frowned and took a long gulp from the bottle. He set the bottle down and stared at her, waiting for her to respond to his question. When she said nothing, his eyebrows rose, silently commanding her to speak. “I’m just tired… I’ve been decorating all day,” she lied.
“Well, we could…”
“Don’t suggest we get professionals in again, please!” she snapped.
Aiden’s eyes narrowed. “Something’s wrong. What’s happened?”
“Nothing…”
“Lily, I can read you like a book. Now tell me what the fuck is wrong with you.”
He was serious all of a sudden and Lily knew she had to enlighten him about her pregnancy. He would badger her and badger her all night if she didn’t speak up now. She sighed again, louder this time. “Sit down, Aiden.” He did nothing of the sort. He was almost glaring at her and she knew that, as usual, he was expecting the very worst news. “Please, Aiden, it is good news, I promise. It’s just… I’m not sure how I feel about it yet.”
He finally yielded and sat down on one of the four stools on his side of the breakfast bar. “Go on,” he said eagerly.
Lily gulped and, plastering a smile onto her face, she announced, “I’m pregnant.”
Aiden’s face lit up instantly, his smile wide. He looked thrilled and it dawned on Lily how rare that smile was. Aiden didn’t get enthused about many things – cars, maybe, and money – definitely money – but she had never seen him this happy about anything. Except, perhaps, when she had agreed to marry him.
“Really?” he breathed. He was ecstatic, actually; as if he were a child being told he was going to Disneyland, and as if reading her mind, he stood, paced over to her and embraced her, saying, “This is the best present anyone has ever given me!”
His enthusiasm only made her feel worse. Guilty, even. That she didn’t want this as much as he did made her feel as if there was something wrong with her. She squirmed in his arms and he stepped back. He was frowning at her again. “What is it?” Lily shook her head silently, in response. “Lils?” he growled impatiently.
“I’m in shock, Aiden. I wasn’t planning on this happening so quickly. We have been safe… I don’t understand…”
He smiled with sympathy. “Sometimes these things happen, baby.” He shrugged then added, “It’s fate, Lils. You’ll be a great mother.”
“I have no doubt of my maternal abilities, Aiden,” she retorted, then her voice dropped a few decibels and she lowered her eyes to the floor. “I just didn’t want this right now,” she finally admitted.
When she peered back up at her husband, his eyes were narrow. He was reacting exactly how she had feared he would. He was taking her reluctance to have his child personally. She sighed and opened her mouth to reassure him, but she didn’t make it in time before Aiden began. “Do you love me?” he asked, bad-tempered now.
“What?”
“Do… you… love… me?” His tone was snide and sardonic.
“Of course I do…”
“Then why the fuck is it so difficult for you to accept our baby?” Lily sighed again, but she refrained from answering because the answer was that she didn’t know. Something deep inside of her didn’t want this, and she could not fathom why. “Do you even want kids?” he pressed sharply.
This raised significant thought. Again, however, the answer was she didn’t know. She hadn’t really thought about it. All this was moving too fast. She needed time to think. She thought she would have had time; be a wife, settle into their new home, and spend a couple of years just being Mrs Foster before she had to take the subject of children seriously. “Aiden, I need time to think!” she exclaimed, expressing her frantic thoughts and holding up her hands, palms up, in front of her. “You’re smothering me about this!” There, she had said it. But it didn’t make her feel any better and it certainly didn’t make her situation any better either.
Aiden strode away from her and located his lager. Putting the bottle to his lips, he began gulping the entire contents down in one. Lily took in the changing expressions on his face, the ferocious smouldering anger stirring in his eyes, and it was as if downing his drink was the distraction he required to stop him from reacting some other way. Then, suddenly, he launched the empty bottle across the room, the vessel smashing against the far wall and scattering smithereens of broken glass across the tiled floor.
Lily couldn’t prevent herself from starting, and the shock and apprehension that blasted through her like a lightning bolt left her feeling weak and as though she couldn’t control her bladder. She gawped at her husband, and when he turned back to her, her whole body froze as if she had just been injected with a shot of terror. She was actually fearful of her own husband! She could feel the adrenaline, induced by confrontation, begin to stir in the pit of her stomach, and she began to tremble all over, overwhelmed by his anger.
Her thoughts inadvertently turned to Gina and Aiden’s relationship with her; her pregnancy and his spiteful dismissal of her. Aiden had implied that Gina was ‘unstable’, but who really had been the unstable one? Her or him, or both?
Aiden slumped down at the breakfast bar and put his head in his hands, running his fingers through his dark hair. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, Lils,” he whispered, staring down at the counter.
Lily could not move. This was the first time Aiden had ever directed his notorious temper at her, and she was petrified. For a moment, he had become a stranger, as if possessed. And she couldn’t help but think it: was this the Aiden Foster everyone else knew, who Gina knew?
Lily finally found her voice and quavered, “Are you going to hurt me?” staring down at her trembling hands.
Aiden’s eyes darted to her. “No!” he cried and, sliding off his stool, he jogged over to her. “Lils… hey…” He lifted her chin with his index finger and thumb, and he felt her flinch at his touch. His heart sank. He was instantly crestfallen. “Lils, I would never hurt you,” he whispered earnestly.
Lily gulped and she peered up into his anxious blue eyes. “Did you hurt Gina?”
Aiden froze for a moment, staring at her in shock at such an unexpected question. He shook his head. “No… why? No, never,” he answered, but he heard the lack of conviction in his reply and he hoped to God that Lily hadn’t picked up on it. “I’m so sorry, baby,” he added.
He looked utterly devastated, and Lily couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. She would forgive him anything. “It’s OK,” she whispered after a strained silence.
He embraced her and groaned with relief. “I love you, Lils.”
She returned his declaration, but the memory of this day would be forever etched in her mind.
Chapter thirty-eight
April 1991
Lily was feeling pain again, but she had been told by her doctor that her baby was not in any danger. She had been diagnosed with PPGP (pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain), which gave her severe pain around her pelvic area and made it difficult for her to move around. Despite her agony, she had sneaked out of bed at 8am that morning before being accosted by her motherin-law. She had walked down to the local supermarket, which was a short distance from the Fosters’ flat at Carlton House.
She and Aiden had visited Duggie and Vivien the previous night. It had been a ploy of hers to try and build a relationship with her mother and father-in-law, and in turn she’d hoped that Aiden could gain some connection with his parents, but when she
had initially told her husband about the arrangement with his mother to go for dinner and stay over at Carlton House, he had gone ballistic and had stormed from the house, returning a few hours later bearing a bunch of thirty-six white roses in apology. After an extremely long-winded discussion, however, he had eventually yielded and, though reluctantly, had accepted the arrangement on the condition that he himself would not stay over, that he would go off to work after dinner then stay at a hotel and pick her up the following morning.
Since the announcement of her pregnancy, her husband and her motherin-law had been putty in her hands, though Aiden being Aiden he still challenged almost everything before he eventually acquiesced. Her father-in-law, on the other hand, had remained as detached as ever.
Lily didn’t know the full extent of Aiden’s hatred towards his parents. In fact, she didn’t know the half of it, but she did know that Aiden only spoke to his mother on occasion and, from what she had gathered from Kate Foster, on the few occasions the siblings had spoken, he hadn’t spoken to his father since he’d left home in 1987.
Turning up there last night had been unnerving, to say the least. Everyone had been on eggshells the whole evening and she had been acutely aware that Aiden’s temper had been hanging by a very fine thread. She had actually been grateful when he had left. He had attempted to take her with him and drop her home, but she had promised Vivien that they would both stay, so when Aiden had bluntly refused, she’d had to make an excuse for him whilst staying over herself to avoid disappointment. She tried her best to understand it all, she really did, but even she, who usually played advocate, had to admit that the family dynamic was way off kilter and it was exhausting to deal with.
She pulled a trolley out of the trolley park, thankful that she finally had something to lean on, and pushed it towards the automatic doors of the shop. Another agonising pain shot through her pelvis, and for a moment she had to stop and breathe through it. A middle-aged lady stopped in concern, but Lily smiled bravely and told her she was fine.
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