The Underground City(74)

He watched them tear the paper. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, smiling broadly, “but I’ve given you both the same thing.”

It couldn’t be chocolates, Murdo thought, ruling out that option immediately; chocolates didn’t come in such huge boxes. What on earth could be inside them?

Then the banknotes spilled out onto the brand new red carpet. Hundreds of them! Thousands of them! Tammy tore the wrappers off the second present and there were more.

Wullie sat back in his chair and watched them with a huge grin on his face. This was his moment! He knew they thought him thick and most of the time he agreed with them. But this time he hadn’t been thick! He’d been clever!

Murdo jumped to his feet, flinging banknotes in all directions. “Wullie! You great idiot! How did you do it?” he shouted.

Tammy sat, utterly thunderstruck, sifting the notes through his fingers. “They’re all used and they’re all fifties,” he muttered, looking up at Wullie in awe. “There’s a fortune here!”

The rest of the afternoon, needless to say, was spent counting the notes — lovingly, one by one.

“You see, I remembered what you told me, Murdo,” Wullie explained, totally overcome by the praise they heaped on him. “I remembered you said that the folk in the pub would be suspicious if I walked through with a bin-liner full of cash so I stuffed all my clothes with as many banknotes as I could and just walked out. It was easy and not one of the coppers in the High Street stopped me on the way home or anything!” he said, beaming proudly.

“You carried all this money in your coat?” queried Murdo doubtfully, looking at the number of notes that littered the carpet.

Wullie looked at it, too, and frowned. “I must have done,” he said, shaking his head. “When I emptied my pockets there … there just always seemed more to come. I wondered at the time …”

“It must have been magic,” laughed Tammy Souter, not realizing how close he was to the truth. “Relax, Wullie, they’re all genuine and they’re all ours! What a Christmas this is!!”

“Wullie,” Murdo said, sincerity ringing in his voice, “Wullie, you’re a genius!”

“What are we going to do with it?” Tammy said. “What about a holiday in the south of France — or even Spain? Come on, lads, the three of us together!”

“That’s a great idea,” Murdo agreed, his eyes shining in his thin face.

Wullie, however, didn’t seem so keen. “Well, you see,” he said, “I’ve spent a lot of mine already on this furniture and stuff and I was thinking that with the rest of it I might buy Mrs Ramsay’s wee shop.”

“And sell sweeties?” Tammy said sharply. “Don’t be a fool! She’s been there for years and hasn’t made a decent living out of it yet!”

“I wasn’t thinking of selling sweeties,” Wullie said, shaking his head. “I was thinking of starting one of these tourist shops that sell postcards and souvenirs and the like. They do a roaring trade all the year round and I’ve been making a bit selling them things, too.”

“You’ve been selling them things? Nicked things, you mean?”

“No, Murdo, not nicked things. Things I made.” He looked a bit embarrassed as he went over to the windowsill and picked up an ornament. “These,” he said. “The tourists snap them up. Honest they do!”

Murdo held the pottery ornament in his hand. It was the Loch Ness monster and it was beautifully made. “When on earth did you start making these?” Murdo asked in surprise, turning it over in his hands.

“A while ago,” Wullie confessed. “You know that I always carry a big lump of plasticine in my pocket in case I have to make impressions of keys in a hurry, don’t you? Well, if I was ever bored I used to take it out and make models out of it. A chap in one of the shops told me I had a real knack for it and should go to Night School so that I could make things properly, out of clay. I didn’t say anything to you, Murdo, ’cos I thought you’d laugh at the idea of me going to Night School but, well, I went and I had a great time and learned how to make things for the shops.”

Murdo and Tammy looked at Wullie with real respect. It was only Murdo, however, who appreciated the effort it must have cost Wullie to approach the Night School on his own.

“You know, I think Wullie’s right,” Tammy Souter said slowly. “Running a shop’s not a bad idea. We could all put in a share. It’ll take a bit of cash to buy it and do it up — and then there’d be stock to buy, but I reckon it would be a going concern in no time.”