It was exactly what Jeanie needed to hear. Although she would never have admitted it, her excitement was matched by apprehension. It was her first day working as a clerk at a swanky private secretarial college in town – earning her own money and making her own way in the world. Jeanie had big dreams, and this was where they began. Ray gave her a tight hug and a peck on the cheek. ‘Come along, sweetheart. I’ll walk you to the bus stop.’

_______________________

‘Didn’t you look in the mirror when you got dressed this morning?’ Ruby Campbell raised her eyebrows at her eleven-year-old son before pulling him towards her by the lapels of his blazer and releasing him so that she could straighten his crooked tie.

‘There. Don’t you look smart? Randall – look at your boy.’

Her husband raised his eyes from the newspaper he was reading and grinned.

‘He looks like a proper young man. And handsome too – just like his daddy.’

Their son was, in fact, a striking blend of his parents’ genes. His blonde-haired, blue-eyed mother and Jamaican father had produced a beautiful child with eyes the colour of aquamarines. But his good looks had done him no favours with his classmates and as a new term in a new school threatened, Treasure was wary. He smiled obligingly at his dad, but Ruby saw the doubt in her son’s eyes and the knot in her stomach that she had been trying to ignore since she woke that morning twisted and tightened just a fraction more. Treasure was a tough little boy – small and wiry, and fast as a hare. But Ruby knew that for him life was not always easy. She remembered the ‘no blacks’ signs in the windows of the flats that she and Randall had seen when they were hunting for their first home, and the casually cruel insults they had endured simply for being seen together and holding hands in public. Treasure wasn’t black, but he wasn’t white enough for some people either, and no man’s land was never a safe or comfortable place to be. She watched him struggle with a few spoonfuls of cornflakes before pushing his bowl to one side. Ruby wished that there was something that she could say or do to protect him from the bullies and the bigots, but she knew that he would have to fight his own battles and forge his own armour with whatever resources he could muster. Growing up was hard for anyone, but for kids like Treasure it was always harder.

Randall folded up his newspaper and pushed back his chair from the table.

‘What’s in my lunch box today, darling wife?’

Ruby laughed. ‘The same as usual: corned beef and tomato. The only thing you’ll eat in your sandwiches.’