Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2006 20:17:26 +0100 (BST)
From: Mike Arram <mikearram@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: The Son of the Chav Prince - 2

Justin cuddled into the broad chest of his lover.  Their reunion had as
ever been glorious, leaving them exhausted and perfectly content.
  Nathan kissed Justin's thick black hair and enveloped him in a powerful
but gentle embrace.  Justin sighed.  `I love you, Nate.  I miss you so much
when I'm away, I doan know why I bother goin' any more.'
  Nathan chuckled.  `It's the call of the sleaze, chavvy babe.  You can't
give it up.  You love the low life too much.  Besides, you're good at what
you do.  Terry told Andy that you're the best, a complete natural.'
  `Well fuck it for a bit.  I'm just glad to be home wiv you, superbabe.
Have I told you how much I missed you?'
  `Just about thirty times.'
  `That all?'  Justin laughed with pure happiness.  `Wass up in the centre,
then?'
  `Staff changes.  Claire and Louise are moving on.  I'll miss `em.  Great
and reliable workers the pair of them.  We're having a farewell night for
them in the Feathers at Haseldene end of next week.  You coming?'
  `Oh yeah.  Claire always made me laugh, and she so obviously fancied my
little butt.  So what you doin' about gettin' new people?'
  `I spread the word at the college and put an ad up in the local post
offices.  There's a lot of interest, y'know.  We pay relatively well here,
and business is good.  But there's been a ... complication.'
  `A complication?  Tell me more.'
  `It's Gus.  Uncle Phil's fed up of the boy hanging idle round the house
in the holidays, and wants him to get out and do something useful.  So I'm
more or less obliged to offer him one of the jobs.  A pity, cos the other
applicants are all better bets than he is.'
  Justin frowned.  `Which one is Gus?'
  `The youngest of the three boys.  The difficult one.  Remember?'
  `Oh God, yes.  He's the weirdo.  The middle one is James, the sadist, and
Lewis, the eldest, is in the army.  Didn't Gus get into stuffing animals at
one point?  Stank the Hall out when it went wrong.  It was my first memory
of the house -- the stench of death.'
  `Yeah,' Nathan nodded.  `He was thirteen at the time.  Weird then, and
just as weird now.  He needs a good shagging, as Terry would say.  That
would sort him.'
  `Certainly sorted me, dinnit?  So who's the other new guy gonna be,
Nate?'
  `Who says it has to be a guy?'
  `No one.  Just thought it might make a change.  We been flooded out wiv
girls recently.  Do you suppose the locals have guessed we're, y'know,
gay?'  Justin looked appallingly innocent for a moment, and fluttered his
eyelids.
   Nathan cracked up.  When he had recovered, he replied, `One of them is
both male and a good prospect, as it happens.  Nice lad.  Sixteen.  No
experience, but he's got something about him.'
  `Good looking?'
  `Not really, though he seems quite fit.  But he projects an air of
confidence and competence.  He'll do well on the tills.'
  Nathan kissed and stroked his partner's hair for a while.  Suddenly he
paused, looking narrowly at Justin's head.
   Justin stared at him.  `What is it?'
  `Justy, you've got a grey hair!'
  `I what?'
  `Really.  It's there.  Above your ear.  Want me to pull it out?'
  `Fuck.  What!  No leave it.  If you pluck it out, you get three more.'
  `Old wives' tale,' Nathan laughed.  Then he looked serious.  `Justy,
you're bothered by it, aren't you.'
  Justin looked a little cross, but also despondent.  `I'm getting' older,
Nate.  Iss awful.  I'm twenty-two and I got a grey hair.  Life sucks.'
  `Ease off, babe.  You're too young for a mid-life crisis, although you
might think of giving up the fags.'
  `You wish.  Anyway, I only smoke outside the house.  Be fair.'
  `Yeah, Justy, you're good, I know that.  But it's time you thought of
trying to quit, seriously.'
  `What?  Eat wholemeal bread, go vegan, and have organic shits?  You never
gives up, do ya mate.'
  `Not where my Justy is concerned, no I don't.'
  `You're kicking me when I'm down, Nate.  Doan you feel ashamed?'
  `Are you really down?'
  `Yes.  A bit.  Sorry, Nate.  I can't always be your chirpy little
cockney, and just recently things have been getting to me.'
  `Want to talk about it, my chavvy prince?'
  `Nah.  Not yet.  I'm still trying to work it out.  But it ain't you,
Nate.  You're perfect.  Don't you ever change.'
  `It's not in my plan.'  Nathan smiled at his lover, but deep behind his
eyes, Justin saw he was troubled.

***

Danny was in his room vegetating when the call came on Tuesday morning.  He
had to run downstairs to the hall phone.
  `Hey, Danny, it's Nate.  I've seen all the applicants now, and I just
want to say that you're the one who impressed me most.  Can you start
tomorrow?'
  Danny stood stunned for a moment.  He hadn't thought he'd have a chance
against kids from the college, but here he was, the successful applicant.
  `Hullo?' he heard Nathan's voice.  `You there?'
  `Yeah.  Thanks, Nate.  I can start today if you like.'
  A laugh came down the line.  `OK.  Jump on your bike and get yourself
over here.  I'll show you around the place.  It's never that busy in
midweek.  It's weekends that are the big rush.  I'd like you to do four
days a week normally, that OK?'
  `Exactly what I want.  Cheers, Nate.  Thanks so much!'
  `Don't mention it.'
  Danny pedalled like a maniac across to Haddesley through the back lanes.
He drew up in the car park in a scatter of gravel, then picked up his bike
and carried it inside.  Nathan gave him a grin and indicated where to put
the bike out of the way.
  The rest of the day was busy.  This was a new world to Danny, the world
of retail.  The till was not too difficult to master, though he concluded
that using it at speed might be a problem.  Mostly he had to memorise the
stock, its location and prices.  This he was good at, and he smiled under
the sun of Nathan's approval.
  By midday, when the Hall gardens were open to tourists, the number of
customers in the shop rose.  Nathan had to run the till, and soon Danny
found himself face to face with the general public, directing them,
carrying heavy items and parking shopping trolleys and baskets.  Nathan
watched him out of the corner of his eye with satisfaction.  The boy was a
Trojan, tireless, collected and endlessly polite.  If he didn't know
something, he dashed over to find out.
  Before long the pressure of a coach party led Nathan to call for
reinforcements.  Justin appeared in garden-centre gear, and the rush abated
somewhat for Danny, who breathed a sigh of relief.  Even so, it was four
o'clock before Nathan was able to let him take a break.  He and Justin went
up to the little staffroom and Justin snapped on the kettle.
  `Tea, Danny?'
  `Tea, thanks.  Er ... what do I call you?'
  `Justy to me mates, Dan the man.'
  Danny grinned, concluding there was a lot about this Justin to like, even
though he was a gay.  He was very good looking, and you could easily have
thought he was still in his late teens.  What impressed Danny more, though,
was the edge of danger he caught in the man's eye and speech.  This, he
instinctively knew, was a person who would do or say anything he chose, and
wouldn't give a damn what anyone else thought.  It echoed something in
Danny himself.
  They sat next to each other in the battered old armchairs.  As a country
boy, Danny was endlessly curious about other people, and not afraid of
prying.  `What do you do when you're not at Haddesley, Justy?'
  `Dinn Nate tell you?  I works in showbiz security.  Me last contract was
a boy band.'
  `Really?  Which one?'
  `The Sick Boys.'
  `Them?  Can't stand 'em.  One more bloody manufactured group of
talentless pretty boys.  Oops, sorry.  You a friend of theirs?'
  `Not after being on the road across the States wiv `em for six fuckin'
weeks, no.  Wears out your tolerance no end.'
  `They pretty bad then?'
  `Nah ... to be fair, they've only just made it, so they've not developed
the fuck-you-it's- what-I-want-that-counts attitude they all eventually
get.  Doan yet have to kiss their arses.  But by next time, they'll be
monsters.  That Cody fuckin' Bignall's the worst.'
  `What?  The blond one?  Now he can really sing, I'll admit.  He makes the
band.'
  `An' doan he know it, mate.  He's on the path to rock-and-roll legend, he
is.  Self- destructive as they come, too.'
  `Tell me more.'
  Justin laughed.  `If I did that, I wouldn't be any good at what I do.'
  Danny pleaded, `Aww, come on.'  As he did, he caught himself pouting
playfully, trying to draw more out of Justin.  It was the sort of thing he
might have done with his mates, but sitting next to a gay man, it somehow
took on a different significance.  Danny blushed.  That was a gay sort of
thing to do, he thought.  Had Justin noticed?  He certainly had, and Danny
had been swept by a brief, calculating glance.  His ears burned.  There was
an uncomfortable pause in the conversation, or at least it seemed that way
to Danny.
  But Justin simply gave a brief laugh and asked about Danny's family,
allowing the moment to pass.  Regardless, Danny knew that something about
him had been registered.
  The garden centre closed at six.  Nathan and Justy sent Danny on his way
with a wave.  As he pedalled the lanes of Suffolk, he decided he really
liked the two men, gay or not.  He believed his was a much more open and
emotionally literate generation of British youth, theoretically very
accepting of gayness.  Boys in his year at school tended to hug and kiss
girls indiscriminately and a little theatrically, in a way that bemused the
staff, and it was fashionable for them to be camp.  Even so, he had
definitely been a little nervous about Nathan and Justin to begin with.
Now he was fine with them.
  When Danny arrived home, his big brother Wesley waylaid him with a smirk.
`How was life in Pansy Park?'
  `You what?'
  `The Gay Gardens, the Homo Horticulturists?'
  `You mean Haddesley Hall Garden Centre and Pet Supplies?'
  `Thought you'd recognise the description eventually.'
  `Y'know, Wesley Hackness, there are times when I think you're not very
liberal or modern in your attitudes.'
  `C'mon, Danny.  It's a scream.  Working there with two poofs.  They try
to grab your arse?  Chat-you-up sort of thing?'
  `People do say, Wes -- and I'm only repeating this, mind -- that
fascination with the gay lifestyle, when expressed by straights, is the
first indicator that they have secret longings that way.'
  `Fuck off!'
  `No, it's true.  I was reading it in Dad's Guardian.  Has to be true,
dunnit.'
  Wesley jumped his brother, and there followed a period of laughter and
yelps, until Danny begged for mercy and Mum shouted up to them to stop
making the house shake.

***

It was a cheery Danny in green trousers and sweat shirt who arrived at
Haddesley at eight the next morning, looking forward to another day's hard
work with Nate and Justy.  The big doors were already open and he parked
his bike inside.  His shouted greeting to Nate was answered by a distant
hallo from somewhere out the back.
  Danny went looking for his boss.  Between two rows of dwarf conifers he
walked abruptly into a tall boy who was not Nate, but had a curious
resemblance to him in build and face.
  The boy blinked down at him before asking diffidently, `Who are you?'
  `I work here.  Who are you?'
  `I work here too.  I began today.'
  The boy was indeed wearing garden-centre gear.  Then Danny realized he
was looking at the same lad who had told him to get out of the park of
Haddesley Hall the previous weekend.  Although the face was no longer red
but was now dominated by a look of puzzlement, it was the same boy alright.
  Nathan came up at that point.  `Oh, hi Danny.  This is Gus.  He'll be
working here too during the holidays.'
  `Er ... hi Gus.'  If it had been anyone else, Danny would have put out
his hand.  But this weirdo, he would not trust to take it.  It did indeed
seem the gesture was unknown to Gus, as his hands stayed hanging loosely at
his sides.
  `Gus, this is Danny Hackness.'
  Gus continued to examine Danny with a dawning awareness that they had met
before.  `You were the boy who was trespassing in the park early on Sunday
morning.'
  `I guess,' admitted Danny.  Looking at Nathan he added, `Sorry.'
  `You shouldn't have been there.'
  `I suppose not.'
  Nathan broke in brightly on their pointless conversation.  `Gus has just
finished year 11 at Medwardine School where he boards.  He's the son of Sir
Philip Underwood who lives at the Hall, and since Phil is my uncle, that
makes Gus my cousin.  And Gus, Danny is about to go on to the sixth-form
college here.  Well, now you've met, why don't you both go along and sweep
the outside paths before we open.'
  Danny found two brushes and handed one to Gus, who took it gingerly while
still staring at Danny in a puzzled manner.
  `You do it like this.'  Danny, irritated into deliberate sarcasm, began
to clear the main path.
  `Yes, I know,' came the emotionless response, and Gus started sweeping
alongside Danny.  He said never a word, just worked mechanically until
they'd cleaned the main aisle.  Then Danny suggested he would do the
left-side aisles while Gus took the right.  Gus went off and did it,
silently.
  Danny was not too happy with this new development.  He liked kids who
were as cheery and laid-back as he was.  But he was saddled for the summer
with this irritating cold fish ... this irritating, snobbish cold fish.
How could he have been so unlucky?  He hoped fervently that the rota would
keep them apart.  And how would Gus get on with the public?
  Danny soon found out the answer to that one.  An old lady had wandered in
to buy some cat food.  Gus looked on absently as she laboriously tried to
haul a big bag into a trolley.  Danny ran up and helped her with it, taking
the trolley to the till and then loading the bag into her car.  She smiled
at Danny and said a very warm thank-you, at the same time casting a dark
glance past him at Gus, who was by then gazing up vaguely at the roof
girders.
  Danny stormed over to him.  `What the bloody hell were you doing letting
the poor old dear struggle with that heavy bag?  What sort of git are you?'
  Gus looked at him.  `What did you say your name was?'
  Danny saw red.  `Danny, you fuckwit.'
  `Not Daniel?'
  `No, not Daniel, I'm Danny.  Christ almighty, are you on dope or
something?'
  `Drugs?  No, I never touch them.  So I'm supposed to load things on to
trolleys for people?  Is that part of my contract?  I never saw it written
down.  Of course, if you say so, I will do precisely that.  I would rather
hear it direct from Nathan, however.'
  Danny thrust his face up into Gus's.  `You're a fucking nutcase, mate.'
  `My name is Augustus, actually,' he said pedantically, `Augustus Lewis
Lawrence Fincham Underwood.  People tend to call me Gus, though.'
  Danny was more and more bewildered.  Hadn't the weirdo heard himself
called a fuckwit and a nutcase?  Danny replied weakly, `What would you
rather be called?'
  `Gussie.  I like Gussie.  I had a friend who called me that in year 9.
He left to go to Oundle.  I rather miss him.'
  `Oh, sweet Jesus,' swore Danny, `let me outa here!'  He retreated to the
bedding plants and began to tidy them up before the morning opening.  He
fervently hoped he could avoid seeing Gus for the rest of the day.
  His hopes were dashed when Nathan gave him the job of initiating Gus into
the location of stock.  Danny groaned, then tackled this assignment as
conscientiously as he did everything else.  He had to assume his trainee
was taking it all in, but when he decided to test the other boy on the
location of the hydrangeas, he got nothing more than a blank look.  Danny
dragged Gus over to the section and told him to remember it.
  Gus nodded wisely in agreement.  `They're a bit like pink cauliflowers,
aren't they,' he commented vaguely.
  Danny nodded.  `Yes, Gus, like pink cauliflowers.'
  `Call me Gussie, please.'
  `OK ... Gussie.'
  `Thank you.'
  Danny was greatly relieved when lunchtime came and Justin took over from
him.  Nursing a cup of coffee, Danny looked down from the interior window
of the first-floor staffroom on to the aisles and stacks of the centre, and
was surprised to see Gus and Justin talking perfectly amicably.  Then he
remembered that Justin was virtually family to the Underwoods.
  Danny finished work at three, and left without saying anything further to
Gus.  As he was pedalling home, Danny thought the oddest thing of all was
that Gus had actually piqued his interest.  Usually he could happily ignore
weirdos.  This one had got to him.