Counter Culture

by JL Merrow

  Archie’s eyes pricked. It was stupid—he was twenty-eight years old and a father himself, and he still wanted his mum to make it all better. He let her hold him for a few more moments, then pulled away. Best to get this over with. “Uh, I found out something about Robin tonight.”

  She made a face. “Not gonna like it, am I? What’s he done?”

  “Lied. To me and to you.” Archie drew in a shaky breath. “He works for Willoughbys.”

  “Oh, love.” She held him tight again and muttered, “Bastard,” into his chest.

  “I went in the store this evening—Nikki needed the loo. And there he was. With his mates, who’d gone along with it. Made up a load of . . . of rubbish about the place they worked.”

  “Why would they even do that? You don’t think it was all a . . . a ruse, do you? Robin making nice with both of us. You don’t think they sent him, do you? To keep an eye on us, find out what we were up to?” Lyddie looked more scared than he’d seen her in years.

  If Robin had walked in the door right now, Archie would’ve been hard put not to punch him in his lying mouth. But . . . “No. No, I can’t believe that of him.”

  He couldn’t.

  Could he?

  Later that evening, Archie was numbly drinking a cup of cocoa Lyddie had made him, when she spoke up, her voice small. “Archie, love? I’ve been thinking, and . . . maybe it was my fault Robin lied?”

  “How could it possibly have been your fault?”

  “No, listen—I mean, he walks in our living room, and there’s my placards and stuff staring him in the face. He probably didn’t want to cause a fuss. And then he had to stick with it, didn’t he? Couldn’t change his story after that.” She gave him a long look. “Don’t tell me you’ve never been there, cos I certainly have.”

  “He still shouldn’t have lied to us and kept on lying.”

  “Sometimes you’ve gotta lie. When the world shits all over you—”

  “You hadn’t done anything to him! You invited him in and offered him cake.”

  Her shoulders hunched up. “Yeah, but he didn’t know me, did he? I could have been any weird old bat.”

  “Oi, no calling yourself that. And . . . Robin’s not like us. He’s never had to worry about a roof over his head, about social services . . .”

  “Maybe, but from what you’ve told me about his mum and dad, it’s not been all beer and skittles there. Bet you he’s had times when he was too scared to tell the truth to them.”

  “I guess, but . . .” Archie screwed up his face. “He’s a grown man now. Living on his own. Free to make his own choices.”

  She gave a bitter laugh. “Never goes away, though, does it?”

  Archie took a deep breath. “No. No, it doesn’t.”

  “So maybe he’s not as bad as you think he is. Maybe he’ll call you. Or pop round. Apologise. Tell you why he did it, and . . .” Lyddie looked around blankly.

  “Maybe.” Archie couldn’t help remembering how Robin had basically just walked off and left him.

  “If he does, will you listen? Archie, love, I know he did what he did. But maybe you’re taking it a little too hard? You were so happy with him. He’s a good lad at heart, I know he is. And we’ve all done stuff we wish we hadn’t, that we wouldn’t want anyone to find out about. Especially not people we love.”

  Archie hugged her. He’d always known she’d made a few bad choices in her time. But trust her to think about other people before herself. “Look, I’ll listen, if it’ll make you happy. If he comes to me with an apology.”

  Archie wasn’t going to make any promises about how he’d act after he’d listened, though. Robin had lied and kept on lying—and he’d known full well how Archie and Lyddie felt about Willoughbys. Christ, no wonder he’d kept trying to make excuses for the place when they’d talked about that ad. Archie had even admired him for it—thinking he was simply trying to see the good in everyone.

  When he’d just been trying to cover up the bad in himself.

  Robin was glad of his work, in the next few days, even though everyone was busy and on edge about the upcoming Black Friday sale. It gave him something to take his mind off the grey, leaden feeling in his soul. There had been no word from Archie, and Robin hadn’t quite dared to get in touch. Heath was still urging him to give it time—Robin was beginning to suspect he was thinking along geological timescales—and Azrah vacillated between telling him he’d blown it and going on about how he and Archie were clearly incompatible anyway.

  Which they weren’t. They’d been like gin and tonic. Goggles and hats. Cogs and . . . well, anything a steampunk happened to have about their person, really.

  He wished he knew what Archie was really upset about. Okay, he knew only too well, but . . . was it that he’d lied, or that he’d turned out to be working for the enemy? If it was that he’d lied, all he could do would be to grovel abjectly and promise never to do it again. And hope that Archie would be able to begin to trust him once more.

  If it was his job, Robin didn’t see how he could make it any better while continuing to work there. And if he stopped working there, little things like rent and food would rapidly become an issue. No way was he moving back to Mum and Dad’s. Maybe Heath had a sofa he could kip on for a bit?

  Robin was beginning to get a glimmer of just how ordinary people might end up homeless.

  The thing was, Robin didn’t want to give up his job. Okay, there were things about it he wasn’t so keen on, but he liked serving people, most of the time. He liked chatting with customers, helping them find what they were looking for, and making suggestions when they didn’t have a clue. And . . . Archie couldn’t really expect him to give that up, could he?

  So the only thing was to make Willoughbys not be the enemy anymore. Hopefully the helping-the-homeless initiative would be a good start in that direction. Maybe Archie would read about it in the paper and realise Robin wasn’t so bad after all?

  If Robin got mentioned in the article, which might not even happen. They might just announce the plans and not give him any credit at all. In fact, that was the most likely outcome. Mr. Willoughby hadn’t seemed like the sort to give credit to underlings. Especially underlings whose name he found ridiculous. Which was fair enough. Robin had always thought it was pretty ridiculous. When he’d been young, Mum had sent him to Sunday School to get him out of the house—somehow she’d swung it, despite her and Dad never going to services—and he’d daydreamed of being named Steven, which was a perfectly sensible name that would never have got people thinking he was a girl. Plus it had the added advantage that he could have abbreviated it as St. Christopher, who’d always been depicted as a very manly sort in their bibles and workbooks.

  Robin had torn one of those pictures carefully out of his workbook and stuck it on the wall by his bed, but it’d mysteriously disappeared the next day. With hindsight, Mum had probably had a fair idea he was gay long before Robin himself had.

  But anyway, the point was, whether or not Robin got any credit, at least Willoughbys would look better, so Robin would hopefully look . . . less worse?

  Heath’s advice to give it time and wait until the news got out about Robin’s plan for Willoughbys to help the homeless became harder and harder to follow as the week dragged on. Robin’s flat, which despite its grotty location and cheap furnishings, he’d come to love as a symbol of independence and a haven from pressure, seemed now bare and depressing. It needed an Archie in it.

  Robin ended up volunteering to go into work on Saturday and Sunday just to get out of the place. Fortunately the extra seasonal staff hired had proved as unreliable as usual. Robin honestly didn’t know how Willoughbys picked them.

  Every time he got off the bus from town, he felt the urge to turn down Verne Avenue, go to Archie’s house, and say he was so, so sorry. But he couldn’t face Archie looking at him like that again. As if he’d stomped on his dog and kicked his hopes and dreams in the teeth. As if he’d promised him roses, and given him chlamydia. />
  And he couldn’t face Lyddie looking at him like that either.

  He’d failed them both.

  At least Gail seemed happier now. She’d actually smiled at Robin when he’d bumped into her the other day, which was all kinds of unnerving. And the customers helped cheer Robin up. Many of them were elderly retired people who had plenty of time for a chat, and it was hard to wallow in despair while being flirted with shamelessly by an octogenarian.

  Robin spent a lot of time rearranging his stock in preparation for the Black Friday sale. Willoughbys’ own brand cotton Y-fronts were going to be half price on Friday, although Robin couldn’t help thinking it was a waste of time. Who was ever tempted in the door of a shop by the prospect of a pound or two off their skivvies? It was big-ticket items that got the punters in. No, if he’d been in charge of pricing for the sale, he’d have gone for designer label goods exclusively. And no knickers. Well, maybe boxer briefs at a pinch. Modern, flattering, and supportive. You couldn’t go wrong with a pair of boxer briefs.

  Except he probably could. He could go wrong with anything. Robin let out another heartfelt groan.

  “Are you all right, dear?” an old lady asked. “You don’t sound very well.”

  Robin pasted on the ghastly smile he’d been wearing since Customas. “I’m fine, thank you! How can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Y-fronts for my Ted. The store’s own brand ones. Everything seems to have been moved around.”

  Ted was presumably the husband. Although Robin brightened a few moments by imagining Y-fronts on a teddy bear. “Er, yes, we’re getting ready for the Black Friday sale.”

  She shook her head. “It’s a funny old business, this, having sales before Christmas. You don’t know where you are.”

  Robin found himself nodding along.

  “Will there be any savings in this department, then, or are they all going to be on tellies and electricals? Where we’re both on our pensions, we have to be careful. I suppose I could just go down to the market—people tell me things are ever so cheap there—but we’ve been shopping at Willoughbys for years, and it doesn’t do to let your standards drop, does it?”

  “Can’t argue with that.” Robin lowered his voice—they’d been told to keep quiet about sale items until the double-page ad appeared in this week’s Echo, so as not to put people off shopping before then. “I shouldn’t say, but those Y-fronts are going to be half price on Friday. Do you think your Ted can hold out to the end of the week?”

  “Oh, I should say so.” She beamed up at him. “He won’t be getting them until Christmas anyway.”

  Lucky Ted, Robin thought, having received a fair few similarly disappointing presents in his time. Then he mentally slapped his own wrists. Maybe Ted wanted nothing more than a few pairs of spanking new undies for Christmas. He lowered his voice even further, bending close to the lady to compensate. “I could put some by for you if you like. Just in case there’s a rush on them. What size is Ted?”

  “XXL,” she said. “It’s all the telly. Would six pairs be too many? Only he does go through them.”

  “Not in the least,” Robin said quickly, in case she decided to elaborate. “Enjoy the rest of your day, and I’ll see you on Friday.”

  Thursday morning, Robin’s copy of the Echo still hadn’t come, so he popped into a newsagent on the way to work to buy a copy. He wasn’t sure he’d quite believe in Willoughbys going through with the plan to help out homeless people until he’d seen it in black-and-white. Plus, until the paper came out, there was no chance Archie would see it in black-and-white.

  Trouble was, he couldn’t see the Echo on any of the shelves.

  “Have you got the Hitchworth Echo, please?” he asked the lady behind the counter, who was humming along happily to the Bhangra music playing in the shop.

  “No, dear. They have a problem with the printing this week. They think maybe Friday they will be out.”

  “That’s too late!” Robin blurted and clapped a hand over his mouth, horrified. This was going to ruin everything.

  If the paper wasn’t out, Archie and Lyddie wouldn’t see the announcement about Willoughbys helping the homeless, so there would be no reason for the COC demonstration to be called off. Which would be bad for Willoughbys and therefore for the continued employment prospects of the staff.

  Plus, Archie would still hate him. If the article came out after the protest, it’d look like damage limitation, wouldn’t it? Robin winced at the thought. He hadn’t realised how much he’d been pinning his hopes on Archie seeing the article and deciding Robin wasn’t so bad after all.

  No one ever un-dumped their boyfriend over a PR stunt, did they?

  But at the end of the day, the homeless shelters were still going to get their help. Assuming the Willoughbys hadn’t backed out of the deal, in which case . . .

  No. Robin had enough to worry about without hypotheticals. Right. What was certain?

  What was certain was that he needed to make sure Gail knew about the Echo’s nonappearance. She probably wouldn’t shoot the messenger, given how weirdly good-moody she’d been lately. Yes. First thing today, he’d—

  Robin’s train of thought was derailed by a loud throat-clearing behind him.

  “Are you all right, dear?” the lady behind the counter asked. “Only you’ve been standing there for ages. If you don’t want anything, I’d like to serve the customers behind you.”

  Robin flushed. “Sorry,” he said, and scuttled out.

  Gail was in her office, sipping at a travel cup of what smelled like coffee. It had pictures of fluffy llamas on it. Robin had never seen her as a fluffy llama person, but apparently he’d been wrong.

  He broke the news about the Echo to her very, very gently, and then braced for impact.

  She shrugged and put down the llamas. “These things happen.”

  Robin stared at her. “Uh . . . aren’t you worried that no one will have seen the double-page ad for the sale?”

  “It’s a shame they won’t know about the bargains, but it isn’t the only advert we’ve run for the sale, as you well know.”

  “And what about hoping to stop the demonstration?”

  She stood up. “Really, Robin, I understand your concern for the store and it does you credit, believe me. But there’s no point getting stressed about issues we can’t do anything to change. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go down to Electronics. Just to check they’re all ready for tomorrow. I’m sure you’ve got your department well in hand.” She smiled, picked up the llamas once more, and sauntered off.

  Robin realised his mouth was hanging open, and shut it with a snap.

  Maybe she’d taken up meditation? Or smoking weed?

  He walked slowly back to Menswear, the message 404: Error: Reality not found ringing through his baffled brain.

  On his way back from the bus stop that night, Robin agonised over whether he should knock on Archie’s door and tell him and Lyddie what they should have read in the paper, if it’d managed to get printed. It might still stop the demonstration tomorrow . . .

  Except, without the report in the Echo, what reason would they have to believe him?

  Robin certainly hadn’t given them any reason to.

  He trudged on back to his lonely flat and barely mustered up the energy to pour a bowl of cornflakes for his tea.

  Lyddie was up early on Black Friday morning—COC members were planning to get into position with their placards well before Willoughbys opened for business.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Archie couldn’t help worrying. “I don’t want you getting in trouble with the police.”

  Lyddie rolled her eyes. “We’re not going to be breaking any laws. There’s freedom of speech in this country, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “Yeah, but laws can be twisted. You know that. And you know what they’re capable of too.”

  “Oh, love. You’re a grown man now. No one’s going to take you away from me.”

  No,
but they might try and take you away from me. Archie couldn’t say it. And . . . it’d be okay, wouldn’t it? Lyddie was in a much better place than she’d been ten or fifteen years ago. Not vulnerable, like she’d been back then. And it was only going to be a peaceful demonstration. “You’ll make sure you don’t do anything they could get you for, won’t you? Stay outside the shop, and don’t get in people’s way.”

  “I have been on demonstrations before, you know.”

  “You’ve been arrested before too.” Released without charge, thank God, but it’d been a worrying time.

  “So I’ve learned my lesson. We’re just going to stand there with our placards and hand out flyers. Maybe have a chant or two to keep it interesting. No breach of the peace, no blocking the public highway, and no harassment. No, sir!” She saluted him.

  Archie laughed. “But do you honestly think one little protest is going to make a difference to the way they do things?”

  Lyddie squeezed his arm. “I want to make a statement, that’s all. Let them know they can’t keep on doing what they want and not caring for anyone but themselves. Not without consequences.”

  “And you won’t try and stop the staff going into work?”

  “No. Although there’s one of them I might have to give a piece of my mind if I see him. You’ve not heard from him, have you?”

  Archie shook his head. “I really thought—” He broke off at the sound of a car horn from outside. “Is that your ride?”

  “’Spect so. Do you want to come in with us? We could drop you off in town,” Lyddie called over her shoulder as she ran to open the door. “Course, we’re picking up two more on the way.”

  Archie took a look outside. Lyddie’s ride was a Mini Cooper that already had one passenger, without Lyddie and her placards. “Thanks, but as I’d have to sit on the roof, I think I’ll get the bus as usual.”

  He helped her get the placards into the car, then she gave him a quick kiss, slid into her seat, and they were off. Archie checked his watch as he went back into the house. Still the best part of an hour before he had to leave. Time for a cup of tea.