Treasure

 

    Only twenty four and already laid off. 'Downsizing,' his boss called it. Bill Jones had been given the news just before he went home on Friday afternoon. On Saturday morning he still hadn't plucked up enough courage to tell his wife Carol that he was out of a job. And then she beat him to the punch with a little surprise of her own.

    “I’m pregnant,” she said. “And it’s a girl. I know it is.”

    “You can’t know that already.”

    “We only have girls in my family,” said Carol. “Me Mum had four, our Janie’s got two and another on the way, and I’ve got six aunties and not a single uncle. Trust me, it’s a girl.” 

    “We can’t afford a kid right now,” said Bill. “I’ve been laid off.”

    Carol glared at him. “And when were you going to tell me about that?”

    “I only found out yesterday, didn’t I? And now this. Of all the rotten luck.”

    “Well, I’m not getting rid of it this time,” she said, “so you can get yourself down the Labour Exchange first thing on Monday.”

    He didn’t answer.
 
    “D’you hear?”

    Bill ignored her and wandered out onto the balcony, where he took a deep breath and leaned over the balustrade.  The view from there was the only good thing about living in a tower block. On a clear day you could see right across the city to the huge old cathedral overlooking the port. It was where he always went when he needed to think.
   
    But thinking needs peace and quiet, and there was precious little of that in Waterford Towers on a Saturday. The tearaway next door had the radio on full blast, and the couple in the flat beneath them had already begun their usual, all-weekend-long fight. Down in the street teenagers were throwing empty beer bottles at passing cars and yelling insults at the drivers. In the playground directly below the flat a little girl played peek-a-boo with an elderly man sporting a Pancho Villa mustache and a large cloth cap. The wind carried the child’s excited shrieks and squeals of laughter all the way up to where Bill stood.
   
    He had seen the man and the little girl before. They were foreigners. Not that he had anything against foreigners. They were just…foreign, that’s all. The family lived in a council house across from the tower block. Carol, who always had the latest gossip, said they were Turkish. He sometimes saw them on his way back from work. Usually it was just the man and his veiled wife, but sometimes they were accompanied by several brightly-dressed young women. Occasionally, the little girl was with them. Bill thought she must be the old man’s granddaughter. She looked about three years old, and the old man always held her hand in a firm grip. Whenever he saw Bill he nodded politely to him without saying a word.

    “What are you looking at?” asked Carol from behind him.

    “Them,” he said. “That lot from across the road.”

    “Well, never mind about them,” she said briskly. “I forgot to buy chops for lunch. So why don’t you make yourself useful, and pop down the butchers’ for me?”

    “Look…” he said.

    “And don’t stop off at the pub on your way back, either. The bins need emptying.”

    “I just…

    “Go!” she snapped.

    So he went.

    As he exited the lift he saw the man in the cap sitting on a bench, watching the toddler as she aimed ineffectual kicks at a rubber ball. The man nodded gravely to him and Bill nodded back. Just as he reached the pavement the little girl’s foot finally connected with the ball, which flew up into the air and bounced off the back of his head. 
   
    “Here, watch it,” said Bill.
 
    The little girl burst into tears.
 
    “Wait a minute, I didn’t mean…”
 
    “Is all right, sir, is all right,” the man said. He picked the child up, and she buried her face in his shoulder. Bill realized he was younger than he’d thought, probably somewhere in his mid fifties. A sudden, surprising idea struck him.
 
    “Yours, is she?”
 
    The not-so-old man smiled. “She is my treasure,” he said. Then he nodded slowly to himself. “And she is the last…”
                                                                  *
    For once Bill didn’t stop at the pub. He bought the chops, and some flowers and hurried back home. The lift got stuck on the tenth floor and he had to walk the rest. On his way up he met some shaven-headed teenage boys, who laughed and jeered when they saw the flowers. He was quite out of breath when he reached his front door. He went inside and flopped down on the sofa with a groan. 
 
    “You’re fat,’ said Carol.
 
    “Not as fat as you’re going to be.”
 
    She waved a little book at him. “If you’re in such a good mood,” she said, “you can help me with this.”
 
    “What is it?”
 
    “Baby names. Got any ideas?”

    Bill didn’t have to think for long.
 
    “Treasure,” he said. “We’ll call her Treasure.”

 

                                                          ***