Counter Culture

by JL Merrow

  Archie had barely set foot in the house on Wednesday night when Lyddie waved a newspaper in his face. He blinked. “Huh, the Echo’s on time for once. Must be audit week.”

  Lyddie made an incoherent noise. “Have you seen this load of arsewipe? ‘Bag your place in the Willoughbys sale queue now’ it says. Har, har, I don’t bloody think.”

  Archie frowned. “What’s supposed to be funny about it?” The paper had been gone before he could tell what she was looking at.

  “Cos they’ve bunged in a picture of people making like they’re dossing in shop doorways. In sleeping bags, get it?” Her tone was savage. “Are they seriously taking the piss out of the homeless, at this time of year?”

  Archie grabbed the paper from her and held it still so he could actually focus on the page. His grip grew tighter as he realised what he was reading. “Exploiting the homeless, more like. Oh, bloody hell, it gets worse. ‘With prices like these, there’s no need to go without at Christmas.’” One of the pretend rough sleepers—presumably shop staff, as actors would have wanted to be paid—was hiding his face with a teddy bear, so at least one person had some shame. Or maybe not—that was Sheppy’s Mum’s patch the bastard was squatting on, wasn’t it? Most likely she and Sheppy had been told to bugger off while they all posed and pretended.

  He threw the paper down in disgust. “What the hell were they even thinking? It’s a total kick in the teeth to anyone who’s struggling. How do they think it’s going to go over with anyone who’s out there in the cold, wondering where their next meal’s coming from?” Archie stamped down hard on the memories that threatened to bubble over, but somehow a shiver still escaped him. He shot a guilty glance over at Lyddie, but luckily she didn’t seem to have noticed.

  “I’ve got a good mind to go and complain,” she was saying. “Know what? I reckon I should. Everyone should. We ought to get a march going, or a demonstration, maybe. You’d come with me, wouldn’t you, love? And Bridge would. We could get all the real rough sleepers to come along too. I bet they’d love that at Willoughbys, a load of down-and-outs turning up at their posh store. Serve ’em bloody right. Bastards.”

  “Okay, hold on a mo. I don’t like it any more than you do, but I’m not sure we want to start with the civil unrest. How are you going to escalate after that? What about writing to the shop management first—or the local paper?”

  Lyddie nodded. “Yeah, that’d work for a start. You can’t let people get away with things, you know? It’ll just keep on getting worse.” She stared at the wall, obviously lost in thought.

  Archie decided it was probably safe to leave her to it and make a start on dinner.

  Work was pretty busy on Thursday. They had a school party visiting the museum, which meant Archie got to break out all his most gruesome tales of life below the poverty line before social security had been invented. He loved this part of his job. The kids ate up all the gory details of how harsh life had been back then, but it also got them thinking about how different life could be for other people.

  He always ended it with asking the kids if they reckoned the workhouse paupers had deserved what happened to them. Nobody ever seriously suggested they had, although there was always the odd joker in the class who tried to play devil’s advocate.

  After they’d been through that, Archie decided to take it a bit further. “And what about people you see sleeping rough these days? Do you think it’s their fault?”

  Their teacher, a pretty young white woman with a middle-class accent, frowned but let him run with it.

  One girl put her hand up. “Well, yeah, cos we’ve got benefits and council houses and stuff these days.”

  “What if their benefits don’t come in time, or aren’t enough to cover their rent? Or if they’ve been on the council’s list for months to get a flat they can afford, but the housing just isn’t there and because they’re not elderly and don’t have kids, they keep getting passed over?”

  “My dad says they’re all alkies,” a lad near the back shouted out.

  Archie looked him in the eye. “Some rough sleepers are. And some of them have a drug problem, or mental health issues. You really think that means they deserve to sleep out in the cold and the rain, rather than getting the help they need to get their lives back on track?”

  Nobody seemed to want to speak up this time. Archie went on, “And once you’re homeless, it can be very hard to break out of it again even if you haven’t got health or addiction issues to deal with. You can’t get a job because you haven’t got an address—and let’s face it, you probably wouldn’t get past the interview anyway, because it’s so hard to keep yourself and your clothes clean living on the street.”

  There were a fair few frowns as the kids tried to reconcile this with the limited world view they’d absorbed from their elders.

  The teacher stepped forward. “I think that’s all we’ve got time for. Thank you for that highly interesting and thought-provoking talk, Mr. Levine, was it?”

  “Archie,” he said, giving in with good grace.

  “Archie.” There was a hint of a blush on her cheek. “Children, if we could all show our appreciation for the talk?”

  She clapped and was joined by the kids in dutiful applause.

  As they filed out, one of the kids hung back. “Homeless people aren’t all alkies,” she said defiantly.

  Archie guessed she’d wanted to say it to the boy earlier, but hadn’t had the nerve. “No, they aren’t. But they all deserve our help.”

  She nodded and headed for the door, where her teacher was waiting with a complicated expression on her face.

  He wondered what the girl’s story was, but it wasn’t his place to ask.

  Archie found Lyddie in the kitchen when he got in from work that night. “Did you have a good day?” he asked, giving her a hug and a peck on the cheek.

  “Yeah. Got lots done.” Lyddie hummed a happy tune and went back to pulling cans out of the cupboard. “Thought we could have curry for tea, but I can’t find the chickpeas. Do we need chickpeas? Will kidney beans work instead? What do you think, love?”

  “I think we’ll never know until we try.” There were used teacups and plates with cake crumbs on them stacked by the sink, so Lyddie must have had someone round while he was at work. Archie was glad. Her downward spirals always seemed to start with her isolating herself from everyone but him.

  She didn’t say anything more about Willoughbys during the evening, so perhaps that bee in her bonnet had flown off to find another hive. Probably just as well, although Archie wasn’t planning to let the issue slide. Maybe he’d write to the Echo himself over the weekend. There wouldn’t be another edition out until next Wednesday, so it wasn’t as though there was any hurry.

  Jerrick was grizzly tonight. His red little cheeks suggested it was teething, but he also chucked up his milk, so it could be colic. Or something else entirely. With zero evidence to go on, Lyddie blamed it on him picking up a bad atmosphere at Bridge’s mum and dad’s. In any case, there wasn’t a lot Archie could do for the poor mite, apart from spend the evening walking around the house with his son in his arms.

  “You need a sling for him,” Lyddie suggested. “Save your arms. Or we could make one out of those long strips of cloth like all the yoga mums do.”

  Archie smiled down at the tearful little face. “No, he’s fine. You’re not heavy, are you, mate? Bantam weight champion of the world.”

  “Bantam. Like the chickens. Is that the lowest one?”

  “What, weight category in boxing? Not sure. It’s definitely lower than featherweight.”

  “Well, that’s just stupid. Shows how bad boxing is for your brain. Why would a feather weigh more than the whole chicken?”

  Archie chuckled. “Don’t ask me. My mum never let me take part in combat sports.”

  “That’s cos I didn’t want you around a load of thugs. Violence doesn’t solve anything.”

  Maybe not, but knowing which end of a fist was which might h
ave come in handy during a certain part of his life. Knowing how to throw a punch—and more importantly, how to dodge one—could have saved him a lot of aggro. Archie didn’t say it, though. It wasn’t her fault things had turned out how they had, and anyway, that was all in the past now.

  Next morning, Archie had his breakfast as usual and got ready to go to work. He was about to step out the door when Lyddie called him back.

  “Wait a minute, Archie, love. I’ve got a letter.”

  Archie frowned. “It’s too early for the post.”

  “No, I mean I’ve written a letter. To Willoughbys. You can take it in on your way to the museum. I’m not wasting the price of a stamp on them.” She held out a sealed envelope to him. It was addressed to The Manager, Willoughbys.

  “Uh, what exactly have you written?” Archie’s misgivings flitted in his stomach like the butterflies of foreboding. “Maybe I should give it a read-through?”

  “Don’t trust me to write a letter, now?” Her tone was sharp.

  “Of course I do. Just . . . sometimes these things are better with a second opinion.”

  “Well, hah to you, cos it’s had one. I wrote it with Shirley from down the road, cos she volunteers with Crisis, so she knows what she’s talking about. She thinks it’s a crime and all. We’ve set up a group, and we’re going to do placards today and write to all the papers.”

  “Wait, what? You didn’t say anything about this last night.”

  She shrugged. “I was tired, wasn’t I? Had a busy day. Now go, all right? You’re going to be late for work. And I want that manager to see that letter as soon as they get into work. Let ’em know people care about this sort of thing, and we’re not going to roll over and let them screw us for a profit. And don’t worry, it’s all anonymous, so no one’s going to be knocking on our door.”

  Archie winced. “Lyddie . . .”

  “Go!” She flapped at him with her hands.

  The butterflies mutated into pterodactyls as Archie let himself be shooed out of the house.

  He seriously considered just not delivering the letter, but . . . he couldn’t do that. It’d be a total betrayal of trust, and if there was one thing he could never do, it was betray Lyddie. She’d had too much of that in her life already. He’d have to hope Shirley-from-down-the-road was a more stabilising influence than she’d seemed in his vague memory of a tall, middle-aged woman with a sharp nose and softly flowing hippy skirts.

  Friday morning, Gail was looking even more stressed. Deep lines had etched themselves at the corners of her mouth, which was so tight-lipped Robin imagined her having to drink her morning coffee through a straw. It gave him inappropriate giggles as she walked by.

  “Is something funny, Robin?” she snapped.

  “Uh, just remembered a joke on the telly last night. Sorry.” Robin’s conscience twinged. She didn’t need him to make her life harder.

  “Well go on, then, share with the class,” Heath said from Gail’s side. He seemed to be aiming to make that his permanent position lately, which Robin could only put down to Gail’s warning about redundancies. “Think we could all do with a laugh this morning.”

  “Er . . . You had to see it. So, um, you’re not having a good day, Gail?”

  “No, I am not.” An elderly gentleman came up at that point with a pair of socks, took one glance at Gail’s face, and backed away hurriedly. Hopefully to find another till, rather than to abandon his purchase in fear. “I received a very unpleasant letter this morning. As though I haven’t been doing my best to save this store for the community. Don’t people care about keeping one of the last few independent department stores afloat?”

  Robin peered closer, and was horrified to see she seemed close to tears. “What did it say?”

  Heath gave him a shifty look. “Later, salesdude. You just keep ringing up the moolah for now.” He put his hand in the small of Gail’s back, and to Robin’s astonishment she allowed Heath to shepherd her through the store and towards her office.

  Heath caught up with Robin and Azrah in the cafeteria at lunchtime. “I sent Gail home to recover,” he said, sitting down with his plate. He’d gone for the healthy option today—only one doughnut, and an apple.

  Robin looked up from his quiche and salad. “You sent— Remind me who works for who around here?”

  “I think you’ll find that’s ‘whom works for who.’ And hey, so she’s my boss, so what? Sometimes even the top dog needs permission to be human.”

  “Did you just call Gail a dog?” Azrah asked.

  “Did you just call Gail human?” Robin put in.

  Heath shook his head, tutting. “Walk a mile, my friends, walk a mile.”

  “Is that you telling us to piss off?” Azrah frowned. “And anyway, what’s it all about? Gail’s letter, I mean.”

  “So, The Letter.” Heath paused to give them both a portentous look. “Delivered by hand this morning at some time before Gail arrived to open up.”

  He paused again. Robin wished he’d just get on with it.

  “It’s from an organisation calling themselves Community Over Consumerism. Or COC.”

  Azrah sniggered. “Cock?”

  “You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face when they picket our Black Friday sale.”

  “What? Why would anyone do that?”

  “Seems they’ve taken exception to our ad in the Echo.” Heath shook his head sadly. “Some people don’t understand art.”

  “What was there to object to?” Azrah demanded, aggression in every inch of her five foot two.

  “‘Belittling the plight of the homeless,’ the letter said,” Heath told her.

  “Some people are always after something to get offended about,” she snapped, sounding worryingly like Gail at that moment.

  Robin wasn’t so sure. “I guess it could be seen as a bit . . .” He trailed off in the face of their, well, faces. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m just trying to see it from their point of view.” He’d found it hard to forget about John and Sheppy’s Mum, and he hated to think he’d taken part in something that’d . . . what was the phrase? Belittled their plight, that was it.

  Except they hadn’t seemed to mind. Did that make it okay?

  “You can’t go around seeing everyone’s point of view all the time,” Azrah said flatly. “Sometimes you’ve simply got to pick a side. And my side’s the one my bread’s buttered on, which is Willoughbys’ side.”

  “That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?”

  Robin quailed at her glare.

  “Is it? How many homeless people were actually harmed in the making of that advert? From what I heard, you ended up giving at least two of them a hot meal as a direct result, so I don’t see what anyone’s got to complain about. It was a bit of fun, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, but whoever came up with the idea for that ad could’ve put a little more thought—”

  Heath interrupted him with a loud, fake cough that sounded a lot like Azrah.

  Robin stared at her. “Wait, what? The ad was your idea?”

  “Well, yeah! You’re always telling me I need to be professional and serious about my career, so when Gail called me in for that meeting about the Loyal Customers’ Christmas Shopping Evening, I thought, now’s my chance to show I’d been thinking about Black Friday too. So I suggested it to her. And she liked it. She got straight on the phone and set it all up there and then so it’d make it into this week’s Echo.” She folded her arms.

  “Losing sight of the real issue here, people.” Heath looked unusually serious. “Which is that we have a planet-sized PR disaster waiting to happen.”

  Oh God. Things had to be bad if they needed Heath to drag them back on track. “Are these . . . COC people . . . seriously planning to stage a demonstration on Black Friday?”

  “Nobody knows. But what would you do, if you were COC? Heh. COC Robin.”

  “So what are we supposed to do about it?” Robin asked, ignoring the snickering. “How do we stop them? What
do they even want?”

  “Apart from a few hints on avoiding Freudian slips?” Heath shook his head. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t they say? That’s so bloody helpful, isn’t it?” Robin clenched his hands into fists to stop them doing anything unfortunate like tearing his hair out. “So what do we do? Cancel the Black Friday sale?”

  “Yeah, cos it’ll be so great for the homeless if we lose all our profits, Willoughbys closes, and the local economy tanks.” Azrah’s tone was withering.

  “Shh!” Robin glanced around furtively. “You’ll have everyone panicking.”

  “Let’s not count our apocalypses before they’re hatched.” Heath made calm down gestures. “It could all be a bluff.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t know, do we? Is Gail going to write back to them?” Robin was not going to start biting his nails again.

  “Can’t. No address on the letter. No names, even. Just COC.”

  Azrah huffed. “That doesn’t sound very professional. Was it scrawled in crayon? Or made from bits of cut-out newspaper?”

  Heath shrugged. “Printed out from your average home computer, I’d say.”

  Robin found his hand approaching his mouth and snatched it back hurriedly. “Should we tell the police? Was it really threatening?”

  “Eh, more on the vaguely disquieting side. ‘The people will make their feelings known,’ and all that.” Heath sat back and picked up his doughnut.

  “So it might all be a load of nothing? And how come you got to see the letter, anyway?”

  “I’m her rock. Her rock against COC.” Heath grinned and took a huge bite of doughnut.

  Azrah groaned. “I know why Gail went home. She couldn’t take Heath’s puns any longer.”