“But you come to my house?” she scorned.
“I haven’t seen you at the gym for a while,” he added by way of explanation.
“I’ve been there, on and off,” she replied. She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re lucky my old man isn’t in, because he would seriously lose the plot and you might just find yourself being hauled into the middle of that busy road down there,” she added, nodding behind him, indicating the main Harpenden road. She finally stepped aside and gestured for him to enter.
When Robert stepped into the hall, he whistled through his teeth. “This is a nice place you have here, Lily.”
“It’s a dungeon,” she muttered, but it was loud enough for Robert to hear. He frowned, but she avoided a response by offering him a drink and leading him into the kitchen. “Red wine?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Take a seat.”
He perched on one of the eight stools neatly lined beside the breakfast bar. “Where’s little Amy?” he asked as he assessed his surroundings.
“Upstairs, sleeping.”
He nodded and added, “This place must cost a pretty penny.”
“I would have thought so,” she replied.
“Do you own it?”
“Aiden owns it.”
Robert’s lips quivered in amusement at the irritability in Lily’s tone whenever she spoke of her husband. It had been clear from the start that she wasn’t content in her relationship with the elusive Mr Foster, though she had never yet said it outright. “Where is Mr Foster today?”
Lily didn’t reply right away. She approached Robert, placing their drinks on the breakfast bar, and sat opposite him. “Working, I expect,” she finally answered.
“What does he do?”
She took a sip of her wine. She had made it plain on the two occasions she had met Robert that the subject of her husband was not to form any part of their conversations, but she sensed Robert was attempting to pry again. “It’s a sore subject. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Really?” he laughed at the familiar response.
“Yes,” she replied sharply, but she wasn’t bothered. She smirked and took another sip of her wine.
Robert stared at her, musingly, wondering why on earth she would be so furtive about her husband’s profession. He wanted to ask her, but instead he asked, “Have you ever worked?”
“Another sore subject…” she replied, narrowing her eyes.
Robert frowned. “He doesn’t let you work?”
“No.”
“And you’re obviously not happy about that?”
Taking a large gulp of her wine, she replied mordantly, “Let’s just say, I should have chosen a career over love. That would have pleased me greatly…”
Robert pursed his lips. Lily was acting quite differently today. On the two other occasions she had graced him with her presence, she had been shy and timorous. Now she seemed cold and resentful, and her attitude didn’t sit right with him at all. Lily was too beautiful and intelligent to be so bitter. A long silence fell between them before Robert announced, “If you were mine, I’d spend every woken minute trying to please you, Mrs Foster.” He leant over the breakfast bar and placed his hand over hers.
She instantly pulled her hand away and, on a sigh of exasperation, she snapped, “Don’t say things like that to me, Robert. I’m married…”
He pursed his lips once more. “I see… so, what can we talk about?” he replied cautiously, placing his errant hand on his knee.
Lily closed her eyes. When she reopened them, she smiled timidly and said, “Let’s talk about you for a while.”
He asked, “What do you want to know about me that I haven’t told you already?”
Lily inhaled a deep breath and when she exhaled, her whole body relaxed. She placed her cheeks between her palms, leaning on the breakfast bar with her elbows, and stared intently into Robert’s brown eyes. “We never got round to talking about what you do for a living…”
He grinned and ran a hand through his long blond hair. “I teach history at the University of Bedfordshire.”
Her eyes twinkled with approval. “Really?”
“You approve?”
She nodded. “I did A-levels and a HNC in history!”
Robert beamed with triumph. “So, that’s three things we have in common!”
“Three?” she laughed cheerily.
Robert held up his hands and counted on his fingers. “We both go to the gym, we both like red wine and we both study history.”
“Studied,” Lily replied wistfully.
“You could get back into it,” he suggested, then his eyes lit up as if he’d just come up with the greatest idea in the world. “You could come to my class! I teach night students!”
She laughed lightly and shook her head. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea…”
Robert shrugged, but he couldn’t hide his disappointment. “Well, a man can dream… if you change your mind, though… you can call me.” He pulled a brown leather wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans and opened it up. Taking out a business card with the University of Bedfordshire logo on it, he passed it to her. It had an office and home number on it and Lily got the impression that he was giving her his number under the pretence of his profession.
She took it from him, glancing shyly up at him. “I’ll think about it,” she replied.
Then silence fell between them as they both took a sip of their wine. Again, Robert spoke first. “What else do you want to know?”
Lily twisted her lips in thought. She already knew that he lived in Luton, and the memory of him telling her that compelled her to ask, “What is your home like? I mean, do you live in a flat… house?”
“I have a flat, but it’s no Harpenden property, that’s for sure. I like to go to the gym there just so I can pretend I live the high life like the other half.” He gestured around the room, in awe of the large, elegant space around him.
“I go for the crèche and…” Lily hesitated then added, “It’s only the high life if you’re happy, Robert.”
“You feel trapped here?” he asked instantly. He had wanted to ask that question since her comment in the hallway.
Lily closed her eyes and puffed a sigh. The conversation had hit a road block once more, and it dawned on her that it would always be like this. There was just too much she couldn’t reveal, too many secrets she was forced to keep, too much pain she could not declare.
She opened her eyes to see him gazing expectantly at her. She knew he was beseeching her to give him more, to open up and allow him into her life, but she just couldn’t. It was too dangerous. This was all wrong. Robert shouldn’t be in the home she shared with her husband and their child. She couldn’t allow herself to like him any more than she already had. She put her head in her hands. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered, as if she were telling only herself. She looked up at Robert, her expression filled with bewilderment. “I’m a married woman… I have a child… I’m sorry.” She slid off her stool and, with her glass in hand, stepped over to the sink. Draining the dregs of her wine, she set the glass down and turned to the man sitting at her breakfast bar. “I can’t risk the quality of Amy’s life for…” she tailed off. For what?
Robert stared down at his glass. “Does he make you happy?” he asked.
Lily sighed and felt compelled to be honest. She shook her head slowly and lowered her eyes to the floor. “I don’t know,” she muttered.
He looked up at her. “Do you love him?” he pressed.
Not meeting his gaze, she nodded her reply.
“I see,” he said.
Lily slumped back against the worktop, her head bowed, staring at the floor. It was in that moment that she realised she wasn’t ready to let go of the life she had. However tragic it was, she had to see it out to the end. “I shouldn’t have let you in. I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Robert slid off his stool. “So, is this it?” he as
ked regretfully. She gulped and nodded once more. He took a deep breath. “OK,” he muttered, pulling his car keys from his jeans pocket. “Will I see you at the gym?” he asked, attempting to hold onto one shred of hope. Lily shook her head, feeling her throat constrict with the threat of tears. “Well, I’m sorry for breaking data security and tracking you down like a stalker,” he added, forcing a joviality he did not feel. Lily chuckled and a tear fell from one of her eyes. When she looked up at him, he smiled weakly at her and croaked, “Good luck, Mrs Foster.”
Then he was gone.
Lily heard the click of the front door and the house fell into an eerie silence. She stood staring at the glass Robert had left on the breakfast bar, her mind whirling, and for a split second she felt compelled to go after him, but she forced the urge away. She felt lost suddenly, as if she had lost someone dear to her, yet, in reality, Robert Wesley was but a stranger.
Chapter forty-nine
“Gina!”
Lily yelled through the letterbox of Gina’s flat. She could hear her coughing, but Gina wasn’t acknowledging that she was at her door, or maybe she couldn’t get to the door to let her in. Lily was frantic with concern. She had to get inside the flat but she couldn’t ask Ricky again. It would raise too much suspicion.
“Gina, I’m going to get help!”
As she turned away from the door, a man came out of the flat a few doors down. He was wearing a grey suit and he was adjusting his tie as he skulked down the walkway. Lily recognised him, but she couldn’t put her finger on where she had seen him before. “Excuse me!” The man ignored her at first. It was clear he’d heard her, as he began to walk faster, away from her, heading for the stairs. “Hey!” Lily yelled, and the man finally turned to face her.
“What do you want?” he snapped.
Lily flushed red with fury and snapped back, “I need you to help me get inside this flat. Unlike the woman you exploited last night, the woman in here is very sick and is in urgent need of medical help!”
The man ran a hand through his receding hair. “Then call a doctor,” he suggested tersely.
Lily gulped down her growing anger. “Please!” she begged.
The man sighed and his whole body sagged with it. He headed towards her, his feet scraping across the floor as if it took every last ounce of his energy and patience to help her. Yet she sensed in him a sign of obligation to help her. Why else would he have not told her where to go? It suddenly sparked a trail of thought in Lily’s mind: his face, his sense of duty…
“You’re the chairman of the council, here in Hackney. You were at one of the police committee meetings that my father held!” Lily blurted, her mouth falling into a perfect ‘o’ shape. She was astounded and equally disgusted.
The chairman stopped dead in his tracks and stared wide-eyed at her. He shifted on the spot, unsure whether to run in the opposite direction or admit defeat. But Lily refrained from saying any more about it. There was nothing more to say. She had caught the dirty, deceitful bastard out, but she needed a job doing and she sure as hell wasn’t going to allow him to leave without helping her do it.
“I need you to kick this door in. I can’t do it alone,” she announced quietly. Her disgust and disapproval was evident in her expression, but she retained a polite, steady tone. “Your help now will buy my discretion.”
He watched her warily for a long moment then nodded in agreement and Lily stepped aside. He stepped up to the door and, taking a deep breath, he slammed his foot into it once, then twice. The door rattled on its key lock. It didn’t open, but another three kicks and Lily was inside.
She muttered a thank-you then left the chairman and rushed into the living room. He did not enter the flat to see if she needed any further assistance, but Lily hadn’t expected him to, the dirty, cowardly bastard.
“Gina!”
Gina was lying against the wall between the couch and the television. Lily wondered briefly how she had got there, but her focus was immediately captured by Gina’s shallow breathing and her emaciated body, inundated with scabs and needle track marks that she hadn’t seen beneath Gina’s dressing gown the last time she had been there. Now, Gina was dressed in just lacy black knickers and a matching bra, and the afflictions on her body were glaringly obvious.
Lily knelt down before her. Taking her chin in her fingers, she lifted her head up, but their eyes did not meet. Gina was utterly disorientated, her eyes gazing ahead but not focused on anything in particular, and her pupils constricted.
She spoke, but her words were slurred and hindered by her shortness of breath. “I need Aiden…”
“Aiden’s not here, G… it’s me, Lily,” Lily warbled, her voice strained.
“Aiden?”
Tears sprung to Lily’s eyes. “No, G, it’s your friend, Lily. Lily Summers…”
“I thought you went to college?” Gina muttered deliriously, her tone one of confusion, as if the past five years had not happened at all.
She licked her lips. They were dry. Her whole mouth was dry. Lily could tell by the way she smacked her lips together before she spoke, and they were chapped and sore at the creases of her mouth. Her nose was running, and a wet stream of mucus was forming above and dripping over her top lip.
She twitched restlessly. Lily’s eyes clouded with tears. She took her hand and squeezed it gently. “I’m going to call an ambulance, G. I will be back in just a few seconds, OK?”
Gina groaned. Lily was unsure whether it was in protest or agreement, but even so, she got to her feet and located the phone in the hallway. Within a few minutes she had spoken to the emergency services and was heading back into the living room. “I’ve called…”
“Dad, I didn’t do it…” Gina mumbled, and Lily saw her flinch as she entered the room. She sensed that Gina had already forgotten she was there. She cautiously knelt before her once again, attempting not to startle her and, this time, Gina lifted a hand to shield her face and cowered against the wall. “Don’t hit me,” she begged. The imploring urgency in her tone stunned Lily into silence momentarily.
She gulped. “I’m not going to hurt you, Gina. It’s your friend, Lily Summers…”
“Lily?”
Lily managed to move to her side and sit beside her. She lifted Gina’s twig-thin arm and placed it in her lap, clutching hold of her hand. She was freezing. Lily’s other arm snaked around Gina’s skeletal shoulders and she lightly pulled her into a side embrace, her perfect nails running tracks through Gina’s dark, unwashed hair.
Gina relaxed against her and began to mumble incoherent words and half sentences, falling in and out of consciousness. Lily couldn’t quite piece together what she was trying to say, though she was quite sure she wasn’t actually trying to say anything.
She looked about the room, continuing to comfort her friend until the ambulance arrived. The room was filthy. There were takeaway containers everywhere, and clothes draped over the couch and the stair’s banister. The coffee table opposite them was littered with cigarette butts, loose tobacco, glasses, teaspoons, silver foil… just like the first time she had gone there. She spied the little silver box that, she knew, held the substance that Aiden supplied to her friend as a wage for her services, and her stomach lurched with an overwhelming sickness. Suddenly, the full force of her grief and fear rose up within her in the form of anger – anger over scum like the so-called pillar of community she had just met outside, and fury over the man who was responsible for all of her friend’s suffering: her husband, her beautiful, loving husband and the father of her beautiful daughter. She had an overwhelming desire to expel the surge of emotion within her and tear apart everything that Aiden had created, everything he had caused.
She tore her eyes away from the table and looked down at Gina’s face. It was ashen, and her cheekbones were too prominent beneath her skin. Her eyelids flickered, uncertain whether to open or close. She could feel her short intake of breath and hear the wheeze as she exhaled. Minutes passed where the only sound was th
at of Gina’s shallow breathing. Lily wondered every few seconds where the hell the ambulance was.
Gina’s body was falling heavier against her. Lily squeezed her to her again, her arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders. She could feel Gina’s ribs pressing hard against her own. She could feel that she was now fighting harder to gain a breath and tried her hardest not to panic.
“Aiden!” Gina cried suddenly, a gut-wrenching howl as if her life depended on his presence.
Lily’s face crunched up into a silent cry. “Aiden’s not here,” she sobbed as she continued to stroke her friend’s hair with trembling fingers. “I’m here, G. Me, Lily, your friend. You’re not alone.”
Gina shifted and gazed up at her. Her eyes were wide suddenly, alert and strangely responsive. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Lily frowned, momentarily thrown. Then she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and shook her head frantically to dismiss her apology. No apology was necessary, not anymore.
Gina gazed up at her. Then she lifted a skeletal arm and her fingers took a strand of Lily’s hair and she began to stroke it as if it were a cherished pet of hers. A smile crept to the corners of her chapped lips. “You were always the prettiest one, inside and out, Lily.”
Lily gulped down the strain of her anguish and on a brave smile and replied, “No, G, I was in awe of you. You could have been great…”
“I let you down.”
“No, no, you didn’t. I let you down… and I’m so sorry.” She could no longer hold her tears and her chest shuddered beneath Gina’s head.
Gina closed her eyes and a tear fell down her cheek. She coughed, but it was short-lived and she peered back up at her friend and Lily took her hand and squeezed it gently. “Lils,” Gina whispered. “I didn’t mean for all this. I didn’t have a choice…”
Lily nodded. “I know.”
“No… I don’t think you really do. I wanted…” she gulped then went on, “I wanted so much to be like you. You’re so loved. To be safe must feel…”
“You’re safe now…” Lily sobbed.
“Lils, can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone before… before I…?” Lily sniffed and nodded frantically, purposefully attempting to distract Gina from finishing that sentence.
Human Conditioning Page 37