Human Conditioning (29 page)

Shelly sprung to her feet and
threw open the bathroom cupboard doors to grab some towels. Jackie went to
protest – they were good towels, used by their best clientele – but she was
intimidated by Shelly Matthews and Shelly didn’t look like someone who gave a
flying fuck about the quality of the towels at that moment.

“Call an ambulance!” Shelly
cried, dropping back to her knees.

Gina was groaning loudly. She
was evidently in pain, but whatever drug she had taken was sending her into a
semi-conscious state and Shelly couldn’t get anything from her, until out of
the blue she groaned, “My baby!”

Shelly and Jackie stared at
each other. “Aiden, our baby...!”

Jackie’s mouth tightened.
“That bastard,” she muttered.

“It’s alright, Gina,” said
Shelly, pulling her up by her arms. She attempted to make her sit up, but Gina’s
body was a dead weight, and she flopped back on the floor before Shelly could
get a proper hold on her.

“Jackie, ambulance, now!” she
cried.

Jackie finally rushed into the
hall. She was shaking and in no doubt about what had caused Gina’s bleeding.
She herself had miscarried once, and it hadn’t been a dissimilar experience to
what Gina was now going through. Her baby had been an unwanted surprise, a
child conceived with Mr Baker, who she’d worked for for the past five years.
She too had gone off the rails for a short time, like Gina, and had been left
at the mercy of alcohol whilst she flushed her baby away in the same bathroom
as Gina lay in now. The memory sent shivers down her spine as she picked up the
telephone to call for help.

“What the fuck is going on?”

Jackie spun around. Mr Baker
was standing at the front door with a scowl on his handsome face. She gulped.
“It’s Gina... she needs an ambulance.”

His eyes widened. “Don’t
fucking call one here!”

“We can’t move her!”

“Where is she?”

“In the bathroom...”

Mr Baker stormed past her and
Jackie replaced the phone receiver and followed on his tail. Shelly had managed
to mop up the blood, and Gina was lying against her, mumbling and whimpering – in
pain or for the loss of her baby, Shelly didn’t know.

“Shelly, can she be moved?” Mr
Baker asked, more compassionately than either woman had expected.

“Aiden... he’s hurt her real
bad!” she stuttered. “But, yes, I think she can be moved.”

“Right...” He crouched down
and lifted Gina in his arms. “She’s been bleeding?” he asked with alarm, taking
in the dark blood stains on the green dress he remembered buying her just last
week.

“Yes,” Shelly replied
breathlessly as she struggled to get to her feet in her heels. “I think it’s a
miscarriage... Aiden...”

Mr Baker’s eyes immediately
went to Jackie. Jackie had told him about her miscarriage about a year after it
had happened. It had been a heated discussion, and one that neither she nor Mr
Baker wanted to dwell on. But he was looking at her for confirmation, and when
she nodded and lowered her eyes, he strode out of the bathroom with Gina
semi-conscious in his arms, and out of the front door before any more words
could be said between them.

“Blimey,” Shelly muttered, still leaning against the sink
fifteen minutes later. Adrenaline continued to course through her and she shook
as if she were freezing.

Jackie left the bathroom, her
own appalling miscarriage at the forefront of her mind. Padding into the
kitchen, she took out a mop and bucket from the cupboard behind the door and
began filling the bucket with floor cleaner and hot water. When she turned off
the tap, she heard voices. Entering the hallway with mop and bucket in hand,
she was faced with Aiden and two brunette teenagers, who were giggling loudly and
clearly intoxicated.

“Jackie!” Aiden greeted her
with a sardonic grin. “Did Gina get here alright?”

Jackie dropped the bucket,
soapy water sloshing onto the floor, and glared at him in disgust. “I’m
surprised she was able to leave her own flat in the state
you
left her
in, you spiteful bastard!”

Aiden’s eyes narrowed and he
ushered the brunettes into the lounge – their giggles and chatter were all of a
sudden jangling his nerves. Before he could retort, Shelly came into the hallway
from the bathroom, her expression conveying that she could easily commit a
murder, and her bloodstained clothes suggesting to Aiden that she may well have
done already. Aiden’s eyes lowered to the blood. “Gina’s blood... if you’re
interested...” she snapped, running her hand through her wiry red hair.

Aiden’s eyes met hers, and for
the very first time, she saw a little compassion behind them. “Where is she?”
he asked.

“Hospital, I hope. Mr Baker
took her.”

Aiden glanced at the two women
before him. Both looked as if they could quite easily slaughter him. He peered
into the lounge. The brunettes were making themselves at home, but he didn’t
care about them now. He went to leave when Shelly added, “It was a
miscarriage... thought you might like to know. There’ll be no Aiden Junior for
a while yet...”

Both women watched Aiden leave
before they teamed up, firstly, to kick the brunettes out on their arses, then
Jackie fetched her mop and bucket whilst Shelly went to collect more towels.  

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

In the hospital, Mr Baker was sitting at Gina’s bedside.
A petite mousey-looking nurse was completing her final checks before Gina was
to be left for the night. When they had arrived, Mr Baker had introduced
himself as Gina’s closest friend and informed the nurse that he’d found Gina at
her flat, alone. He had flipped out his platinum credit card and requested a
private room and unlimited visiting rights, and it had all been arranged and
paid for within the hour.

“Will you be staying the
night, Mr Baker? Do you need a pillow?” the nurse asked politely.

He gave her a friendly closed-lipped
smile. “I’ll be staying, but I can do without a pillow... thank you.”

The nurse nodded. “Well, she’s
stable, but she has consumed a high dosage of amphetamines, as well as alcohol.
She would have been grateful for her semi-conscious state, as it would have helped
her through the pain of her injuries and the miscarriage, but such a high
consumption could have killed her. She’s very lucky to be alive. You found her
just in time...” She smiled politely once more. “I’ll leave you now. I’ll be
back in around 3am to check on her,” she added, then left the room.

Mr Baker turned back to Gina.
At first, he hesitated, then he placed his hand over hers and eventually
gathered it up into a full hand-hold, relishing the feel of her soft fingers
between his.

When Gina had awoken the following morning, she’d had an
overriding spell of panic as she took in the hospital room then the bed she was
laying in and the tube in her hand. What had surprised her all the more were
the fingers wrapped around that same hand and the hazel eyes of Mr Baker, who
had been gazing fretfully down at her.

Those eyes were on her again,
but now she was safely tucked up in Mr Baker’s bedroom. The curtains were
closed. The day had already faded away without her noticing, and a small
bedside lamp with a fader had been set to an ambient light, giving a sense of
tranquillity within the modern yet comfortable room.

She blinked away her tiredness
and stared up at the man who had been taking care of her. She couldn’t remember
much of the previous day and what she could remember she tried hard to abandon
to the corners of her mind. Because if she thought on how Aiden had beaten her,
thought on the fact that she had been told that morning that she had lost their
baby, she might just walk to the bathroom, take out one of Mr Baker’s razor
blades and end her life once and for all.

She gulped down the pain of
her loss. Already many times she had fallen into a sleep only to wake and find
that all that had happened had not been a dream, she now willed her tears to
remain unshed.

“How are you feeling?” Mr
Baker whispered. Angst and sorrow were etched on his handsome face and, not for
the first time since she’d seen him that morning sitting beside her in her
hospital bed, she wondered why he was being so nice to her, why he was so
concerned about her, his employee. He shifted closer to her and leant in to
place his lips on her forehead, but she turned her head from him. He sat back,
his frown deepening in dejection. “Gina,” he whispered, his voice cracking under
the strain of her rebuff.

Gina could feel bile rising to
her throat. Aiden didn’t want her anymore, and the only possible reason he
might have stayed with her was now gone. She’d lost their baby, her tiny
reminder that Aiden had once wanted her. She felt empty inside. She felt sick.
Her losses tore at her heart like nothing else ever had, but it was the loss of
Aiden that hurt the most.

Mr Baker made to leave, and
Gina turned back to him, an expression of painful determination on her ashen
and gaunt face. “Does Aiden know about the baby?” she croaked.

Mr Baker’s expression
hardened. “Would he care?” he replied.

Gina puffed a pitiable laugh
and smiled timidly up at him, as if it took all her strength to form the
gesture. She closed her eyes and he turned away and left her to sleep.

It was 7:45am the following
day when Mr Baker returned to his bedroom. He had slept in the room next door,
one of the five rooms he had in the apartment. When he stepped into the room,
he saw that Gina was awake and staring at the wall opposite in deep thought.
She didn’t rouse from her reverie until he took her hand. “How about you try
and get up and we go for a walk?” he suggested, forcing himself to sound as
positive as he could handle.

Gina glanced at him then set
her eyes back on the wall. After a moment, she asked, “What’s your name, Mr
Baker?”

He frowned at such an
unexpected query. “Why do you ask?” he replied.

She shrugged then, and after
yet another spell of silence, asked, “Have you always been a
pimp
?”

He’d swear he heard a touch of
disapproval in her tone of voice, and he had to swallow down the urge to
admonish her. Calmly, he answered, “No. It wasn’t something I had aspired to
be, but life hands you specific opportunities and you have to take them or
sink.”

She turned her head to face
him. “Do you care for me?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“But I am your employee. I
sleep with men to make your living.”

He closed his eyes then opened
them. “Yes,” he replied.

She didn’t say any more and he
left her to her thoughts.

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

Aiden was in his kitchen, dressed only in his grey
jogging bottoms and downing a glass of Alka Seltzer to combat his impending
hangover when the phone rang. He glanced at his Armani watch and strode into
the hallway to pick it up. “Yeah,” he said down the line.

“Aiden, it is Mr Baker.” Aiden
didn’t respond. “I take it from your silence and from what Jackie told me
yesterday that you know what happened to Gina?” he asked.

Aiden sniffed and replied,
“Yeah, I know,” feeling a touch of regret, though it was masked by his attempt at
indifference.

“She’s been asking for you,”
Mr Baker added.

Just then the tall, pretty blonde
who had entertained Aiden during the previous night came sauntering down the
stairs in just a thong. She approached him with a smirk and wrapped her arms
around his waist. “Come back to bed...” she whispered lasciviously into his
ear.

Mr Baker obviously heard her,
because he raised his voice down the line and spat, “What’s been going on with
you and Gina, Aiden?”

“I’d already called it off...”
Aiden muttered distractedly, as the girl ran her fingernails through his
ruffled hair and slipped her tongue into his ear.

All of a sudden, Mr Baker
bellowed, “I don’t give a
fuck
what you do in your spare time, but when
you mess with one of my girls, it makes me fucking angry! You beat the shit out
of the poor girl,
when she was pregnant
!”

Aiden suddenly held the phone
receiver into his chest and pushed the girl away. All playfulness set aside, he
snapped, “Upstairs, now,” at her and flicked his head towards the stairs with a
glare to ensure his message was loud and clear.

She stared at him for a moment
then skulked back up the stairs. She didn’t, however, refrain from slamming the
bedroom door to convey her infuriation. Aiden held the receiver back to his ear
and said quietly, “I didn’t know she was pregnant... she never fucking told
me...”

“Would
you
tell you?”
Mr Baker retorted, but Aiden didn’t answer. “You’re a fucking animal...” he
muttered.

Aiden spat, “You might like to
tell me why
you
care so much.”

“She’s a good earner...” he
replied circumspectly.

“Is that all?”

 “Of course.”

“Only, you seem to be very
concerned over a brass,” Aiden ventured, suspiciously. “
Your
brass, may
I remind you. A girl you practically begged me to hire out to you.”

As if a sudden thought had
occurred to him, Mr Baker added, “My clients wear protection, but surely she
was using contraception...”

Aiden sighed and replied,
exasperated, “She was. She must have stopped or forgotten or something...” Then
he added viciously, “Then again, it could have been yours. I mean, you have
been fucking her too, haven’t you, Mr Baker?”

“Be careful, Aiden.”

“Nah, mate, it’s you who
should be careful about who you’re fucking talking to!”

At that, Aiden slammed the
phone down. He ran a hand over his face then downed the rest of the glass of Alka
Seltzer that was still clutched in his hand. Then, taking the stairs, he burst
into his bedroom and began to get dressed, ignoring the lecture he was
receiving from the girl who was no longer welcome.