Percy pestered him that way too, it really was a pain. In time they came to a suitable arrangement, or one that suited Terry, anyway. He would let himself be sucked off, but that was as far as he was prepared to go. Percy groused, of course, and even offered Terry money to let him do more things to him, but Terry had drawn the line and there was no crossing it. Imagine allowing himself to be buggered by that smelly old brute.

He often wondered if Percy knew about him stealing from him. He would wait until Percy was asleep and slip his wallet out of the back pocket of his stale-smelling, shiny-arsed pinstriped trousers where they hung by their braces from the wardrobe door, and quietly extract a ten-bob note or even a pound or two. He only did it this way for the fun of it. He could have just taken the money and not cared about getting caught. What could Percy do, even if he were to catch him red-handed? From the start Terry made it his business for Percy to go in fear of him. It didn’t take a lot of effort. Percy had about as much backbone as a slug.

Though Percy too had his rules, unspoken ones, mostly. For instance, one thing he wouldn’t do was let Terry mix with his fancy friends. He had quite a few of them, or so he claimed. One night he came home pissed from a dinner out somewhere posh and mentioned casually that Princess Margaret had been among the guests and he had sat opposite her. Terry didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Percy, dining with Royalty?

He said he used to be a Guards officer, which Terry definitely didn’t believe, until, to prove it, the old fraud brought out a moth-eaten scarlet tunic with gold buttons and gold piping and a string of coloured medals pinned on the breast. He had a sword, too, in a decorated scabbard. Sometimes, when Percy was out, Terry would play with the sword in front of the misty, full-length mirror in Percy’s bedroom, slashing and feinting and stabbing imaginary opponents in the guts and cutting down hordes of imaginary darkies.