Read part one here and follow the link at the bottom for the third and final story in this sequence.

It was my other half who told me about the nickname. I say other half; I don’t like to use the kind of language I’ve heard at work, but I suppose fuck buddy wouldn’t be too far from the truth. I don’t know what it is about us, but we wind each other up. No, that’s not true: I wind her up. When we first met and sparred, I got that feeling you get when you don’t know what it is, but you do know what it is. She had to work her way through the antagonism before she realised it was attraction. No, that’s not true either: antagonism is her thing; she gets off on it; and I get off on her getting off on it. She also has a nickname, of sorts, but it would split her in two if she knew about that. She’s one of those people who can dish it out, but can’t take it. I don’t care. I love that chink in her armour; her invisible fragility revs me right up. Not that I’d tell her.

We don’t live together, but I have been known to spend the night at her house. She’s known about my thing – that’s what I call it, for want of a better name – since the first time she came to mine. She walked in on me with my arm over the hob. I had my eyes closed, like I do, and she’s one of those people who can enter a room without making a noise. If she is so inclined. When I opened my eyes she was creeping out of the kitchen, bless her. I wasn’t ashamed. I sat her down and explained it was something I did. I wasn’t doing anyone any harm and there was no need to make a fuss. For the love of God, Terry, she said, don’t you know they call you Terry Toast? I did not, I said, and I was laughing, but I do now. Out of respect, and because it’s my thing, which I do in private, I keep it to the days I’m on my own in the house.

She has never asked me why and until the Christmas party I had never told anyone why. I’m too long in the tooth to start up with a shrink again. I’m pretty much in control, especially if I steer clear of hard liquor. I don’t like to put myself in situations where there is drink, but what was I supposed to do when Melanie ran into my office in tears? I promised her I’d make up the numbers, even though some people were bound to object to my presence. I was looking forward to it – who doesn’t like getting suited and booted once in a blue moon – despite the dangers of free-flowing booze. Perhaps I should have stuck to beer, but a pint glass is an ugly thing on a table set for silver service. Maybe I would have got away with sipping a glass of fizz; but there was the wine and then when the first quiz went south, young Mr. Tisdale insisted on shots. Vodka I could have managed, but tequila will get you in the end. With everything that happened, it’s a surprise it took so long; and when Melanie asked me why I did it, I didn’t think to lie. I didn’t have a clue what was going to come out of my mouth, but I wasn’t afraid to speak the truth.

So now I know they all know my secret, which wasn’t a secret. Who’s to say I would have come up with a story about a dodgy toaster if I had been asked why I sometimes smell the way I do? It doesn’t matter now; what irks me, what gets my goat, is that now they all think they know me. They have the measure of the man they call Terry Toast behind his back. There are so many things they don’t know about me. I love the way snowdrops thumb through the frozen soil at the turn of the year, always first out ahead of the crocuses, the daffs and the tulips. I love bluebells in April and the way woodpeckers will hammer metal telegraph poles when they feel like really letting go. I collect objets d’art and small pieces of porcelain. As my other half could tell you, I like nice things. If my colleagues really want to know my secret; if they wonder why I’m so good at my job; and if they question why I’ve got my own office and clients who stick with me when they could get better prices elsewhere, I could and I would tell them. I love stationery – there, I’ve said it – which is more useful than it sounds. The only way to appear excited about a stapler, or a whiteboard, or a pencil sharpener is to be excited about them. You may think you can fake enthusiasm, but you can’t. If you want to know the answers when a new client asks how many grades of printer paper you carry, you have to know the contents of the Sunbury Office Supplies catalogue inside out. There’s no substitute for knowledge and the best way to make knowledge stick is to be passionate about your subject. And passion is contagious, even when you’re selling paper towels.

Melanie shows promise. I’m sure I wasn’t her first choice as mentor and I would have said no if I hadn’t seen something in her. Not everyone arrives at Sunbury a fully formed bastard. I had witnessed her being swept in the usual direction by the usual suspects, but I sensed her struggling against the pull of that putrid tide. When my office door was closed, or if we were out on the road, she was a different person. She wanted to learn and to listen. I’d become so inured to the way things were that I had shut myself off to the possibility of professional respect and, dare I say it, friendship. She could have had the Critchley account. It didn’t bother me that she took the glory for that order, but when they cancelled the scheme she drifted back to the in-crowd. A couple of times I saw her hesitate as she passed by my door, but soon enough she was rushing through the corridor with the rest of them. I understand what it’s like to be young and new and trying to figure out how to make the best impression; which horse to back, as it were. But what I learned from the whole Jim Rosling thing is that the path of least resistance isn’t always the route to success. It’s true that I was in the right place when Jim’s accounts came up for grabs, but I had put myself in that place. Poor Jim, dropping dead like that. He worked so hard. In the end, his heart gave out. Well, yes and no.

Salesmen talk about low-hanging fruit: go for the easy stuff first. By the same token, people imagine that the way to gain influence is to be popular: tell people what they want to hear and they’ll follow you. That’s laziness talking. What counts is information and playing the long game. That’s why I love quizzes. Why wouldn’t you want to learn as much as you can about the world around you? Collect facts and trivia; gather as much data as you possibly can because you never know when it might put you in a position of strength. That’s why I was impressed when Melanie was willing to listen. You learn so much more by keeping quiet. Jim Rosling was boring with a capital B and I should know. I spent months enduring his yakking until I learned something I later used to my advantage. Some of the language he used was disgusting; not what you’d expect from a man with three daughters. He talked about his wife as if she were a piece of meat. He was the same about the girls in the office, and everyone else? Well, they were losers and Jim liked to win. I got that from him, I guess. Because I love – I live – to win. That’s another reason I enjoy quizzing. I bet they think I’m a Eurovision geek, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. That question in the second quiz that everyone assumed no one would know? It’s bread and butter for serious quizzers, and many an amateur quizmaster has found himself searching for a second dead-heat question after assuming that no one will know Eurovision runners-up.

I won that quiz, but you wouldn’t have known it from the way Will Tyler reacted. Sitting here now, in the cold (sober) light of day, I could be reasonable and tell myself that it was the tequila that made him jump on his chair and wave his finger (and the bottle of champagne which I won) at the other tables. But I would be wrong. I could tell myself it was the tequila that made me do what I did. But, I would be wrong. Tyler acted like he always does: like a gorilla in a suit; or, on this occasion, a tuxedo. He had no intention of saving me some of the champagne and I know why: I’m not on his radar. Not in that way. I had served my purpose and anyway, screw Terry Toast. He knew I wouldn’t kick up a fuss and that’s how I like it. Tequila or no tequila, I had enough sense left to know I needed to make myself scarce and straighten myself out. Unfortunately, the tequila might have had a bearing on my judgement. That gas burner was hotter than expected. You should stick to what you know where you know.

If we had been in the office when I told her, my other half would have gone straight to the boss – I don’t recall which one it was – and had Jim marched out the office for the things he said about her backside. But as we all seem to be saying, they were different times and the chances are the boss might not have seen it quite as Christine did. I won her round to my way of thinking by reminding her that revenge is a dish, well, you know the rest. I had taken no pleasure in recording his most unsavoury utterances and opinions in my notebook – a trifecta of quotes, dates and times – but I had of course known that one day it would come in handy. I was also in possession of a box-file of information regarding his accounts. Despite the size of the orders he booked, collections were months, and in two cases years, behind. The one fact I did not know, and in retrospect I should have guessed at, was the condition of his health: Big Jim, as he was affectionately (and otherwise) known, had a dodgy ticker. In one respect, of course, this tidbit was a life saver. I thought that by confronting him with my dossier and Christine’s fury, he might be persuaded to retire, having first nominated an appropriate successor. And he did retire, but permanently so and without having had time to name yours truly as the chosen one. No matter: I had at least made sure to be in the right place at the right time and after warnings from the boss – I remember now, it was a Mr. Peter – to all staff about the dangers of working too hard and being sure to see the doctor for regular health checks, Jim Rosling’s professional legacy was mine. When they discover how much we’ve taken there will be hell to pay.

In our brief time together in the field, I tried to make Melanie understand how important it is to be flexible when dealing with clients. If they ask for something you can’t deliver, never refuse flat-out. They want an extra ten percent off their order? Start with five and settle at seven, having factored seven and a half into your initial quotation. If they ask for a freebie, tell them you don’t give anything away, but what you can do is let them have such-and-such a thing at a knockdown price. What sort of thing? Anything that’s been sitting in the warehouse for months and is about to be written off. Jim Rosling was wont to say, with a wink, let the client think you’re his friend. There’s a certain wisdom to that and I witnessed it firsthand many times, but how he had achieved it did not reveal itself to me until I visited his key clients in the week after the memorial service. Walter Shaw shook my hand and asked if I intended to honour the arrangement he had had with Jim. Penny Collins, who seemed particularly emotional, did the same, as did Niall Dudgeon and Julius Critchley himself. I don’t know how she did it, but Christine figured out all the angles in the end: kickbacks; stock booked out and then marked as returned unpaid, but not returned; stock sent out in multiples of the units recorded on the order; and some stuff simply went out without an invoice. How long had Jim’s ticker been dodgy? As long as he had been Head of Sales at Sunbury is my best guess. What did I have to feel guilty about?

Not long after her husband’s untimely, but not unexpected, death, Jim’s widow invited me to the Rosling manse in Weybridge to go through his files and take away whatever might be required back at HQ. She clearly had no idea about St. Jim’s unorthodox business techniques, but I do think she suspected him of not so much working as playing away from the office. She hinted as much and furthermore gave me reason to understand that his absences from home had suited what she described as her own adventurous practices. I had no desire to seek clarification as to the meaning of such an unusual phrase, and with as much tact and diplomacy as I could muster under such trying circumstances, I hot footed it out of Weybridge with four boxes of dynamite information. Those boxes now reside in a storage facility outside Shepperton. I can’t bring myself to throw them away.

We’ll soon have enough put aside to sail off into the sunset. If Christine appears reluctant to talk about our plans, I put it down to her infuriating-yet-beguiling tendency to antagonise. She knows I know to take everything she says in the office as the opposite of what she means. I agree it’s best we don’t talk about these things on the telephone or put them in an email, but I wish she would agree to meet up. We have to keep our distance so as not to arouse suspicion, but how are we supposed to make plans? I keep hinting to her that I have everything arranged and all she needs to do is cross the i’s and dot the t’s, but she persists with that performance that is fooling everybody but me.

Did Jim Rosling have a premonition that things were about to come to an end? Was he living in fear of the walls tumbling down around him, or did he hold on to an unshakable belief, right up until the last, that he was winning? He let his guard slip more than once; usually after his fourth pint. But what I’ve learned for myself is that once is too often. Why did I agree to take Melanie under my wing? Why did I not spot that I had been given a second chance when the mentoring scheme was cancelled? Why did I tell her about my thing? It doesn’t matter what she knows: it is that she knows. She laughs and jokes about Terry Toast in the staffroom, but I can tell that having learned one thing about Terry Flanagan, she wants to know more. She’s going to have to learn that a little information can be a dangerous thing.