Share Your Toys, Timothy!

"So, what business do you need my help expanding now, Tim?" Amos asked, "What do you need?"

"The leasing business, I've got a chance of adding a large account. How about a mill to a mill and a quarter, Ammo?" Tim said at the other end, which suddenly went quiet as if he wasn't being tickled any more. Tim continued, breathing normally again, "I have a rough idea of the requirements but still waiting for the basic figures to come to me this morning, then I'll crunch them with Lily within an hour or two and get back to you later today with a closer figure."

Amos whistled, that was his total lending limit for between ten and twelve weeks under current constraints.

"Send me the figures," he replied, "Can't see any problem with that."

OK, an exaggeration on his part, but who else in the town was going to take up the borrowing slack? Only two-thirds of the last six months' available cash had been taken up locally at current rates of interest that he couldn't sell to a loan shark. If Tim's figures added up, and they always did, he should be able to swing it, provided the big boys at head office didn't shut him down in the meantime. Perhaps he could even liquidise some of his own capital and hide it in Tim's business until he'd kicked Clare to the kerb. If there were one guy he could trust with his life or his money, it would be Tim.

"Speak to you later, then, Ammo. And ... I'm really sorry to have brought that matter to your attention. I wish I hadn't seen it but once I had I couldn't just let it go."

"Glad you did tell me, Timbo. Although it feels bad knowing and it doesn't feel any better from where I stand now, I do believe that it's better knowing sooner rather than later."

"Let me know if you need anything to help you through this, Ammo," Tim said, "I'm here if you need a shoulder or a place to stay if you need either."

"I know," Amos knew he didn't need to say thanks, "I'll speak to you later, Timbo, OK?"

"Later then, Ammo, bye."

Amos looked up. Through the open office door he could see the open-plan office and three of the five desks directly in view. A trim young woman with short red hair was already sat at the nearest desk, side onto him, his secretary, Pam.

Amos hadn't really noticed before that from his viewpoint he could see in her profile that she was an attractive woman, still in her late twenties. Even with her reading glasses, perched on the end of her pert nose, she looked cute, no, make that hot, very hot. The spectacles were attached to a fine chain around her neck, dangling down, leading his eyes to a pair of breasts, which appeared to be bursting out of her tightly buttoned warm winter woolly. He noticed that sitting down, her skirt had ridden partway up her shapely thigh and that she had kicked off her shoes and wrapped her slim stocking-clad legs comfortingly around each other. She clearly hadn't been sitting there long as she was still loading her computer and answering programmed prompts with clicks on her mouse and keying in the odd password, opening up all the programs she needed for her day's work.

He thought it was funny how he had never noticed before that Mrs Pamela Armstrong was an extremely attractive woman. Perhaps he hadn't recognised the fact because previously he had no desire to see any woman other than his Clare as attractive. Now Clare wasn't his anymore, his current wife didn't appear to be as attractive as she had previously, which completely changed the way he was perceiving the world around him.

By the time Amos looked up at Pam's face again she was already looking back at him, a small unreadable smile playing on her lips.

"Hi, Amos," Pam said cheerily. She always informally called him Amos when they were alone, which he liked, it made him feel more human, and always "Mr Shillingstone" whenever anyone else was around. Pam was the first of his office staff to arrive in the morning, beating Amos most of the time by just a minute or two. They sometimes walked through the bank together, unlocking and relocking behind them the various doors before getting to the office at the back of the second floor of the old Georgian shop building.

Pam was a widow, having lost her husband, a lieutenant in the Irish Guards, in Iraq some seven years or so ago. She had a seven-year-old girl, Janice, who she dropped off at a school friend's house on her way to work. Janice had never known her father. Pam worked flexible hours so she could leave at three in the afternoon to pick up Janice and her friend after school. It meant that Pam had to start an hour early, come in Saturday mornings and work through every lunch hour in order to get her full hours in to justify her full-time pay. As far as Amos was aware, Pam was still a single mother. What was going through his head now, he wondered? Perhaps he was actually releasing Clare from his heart and mind earlier than he thought would be possible.

"Hi, Pam," Amos grinned back, a little embarrassed at letting his gaze linger longer than he ever had before below Pam's eye-line, "Sorry, I didn't see or hear you come in."

"That's alright, I saw you were on the phone. I recognised the caller's number; he rings you so often. Do you know if Mr Smith's company still have their legendary carol singing buffet when they close early on Christmas Eve?"

"Yes, it's a tradition-thing they do over there, I've only been once before." Amos got up as he was speaking. He had sat at his desk for over half an hour and realised that his joints had stiffened as he had been so tense. He thought he would put on the coffee maker this morning for a change while Pam was still setting up her workstation.

"Oh, didn't you like going?" Pam asked, noting his movements with a warm smile as her boss headed towards the coffee maker. She had only worked in three offices in her stop-start career, but this was the first one where the boss was prepared to make tea or coffee for his staff. OK, he only made it about 20% of the time, but her previous bosses never did, ever. He was also one of the cleverest and nicest people she knew; he appreciated what his staff did and dished out lots of thanks and praise. In fact, she knew she did all right out of working for Amos; the bank didn't actually run a flexible working scheme, Amos had set her hours to fit her circumstances and she was certain she worked a couple of hours a week shy of the hours she was actually paid. She knew there was no ulterior motive in the arrangement, he had never suggested anything or even looked at her in any predatory way in the three years she had worked for him.

That is until just now ... no, he must've been preoccupied, perhaps thinking of a late Christmas present for his wife or son, perhaps. No, he was a devoted husband and father who just happened to be a thoroughly nice man. He wouldn't look at her twice in that way, however much she wished he would.

"Loved it, actually," continued Amos, smiling at his recollections, "For a start all the first-timers are required to stand up in front of everyone and sing a solo, which was so-so, but we got that out of the way first thing and after that you just got into the spirit of taking part. It was really great."

He walked behind her towards the kitchen counter, breathing in her perfume as he passed. It enveloped him, like strolling through a summer meadow, he almost spread out his arms to brush against the cornflowers, poppies and ripened grass seeds he imagined surrounding him. Pam was like a warm summer breeze, almost blowing away his gloomy midwinter misery.

"That sounds like fun," laughed Pam. She wished he had run a hand along her shoulder as he passed behind her, here, now, while they were still alone. If he had she would have caught it just on the cusp of leaving and squeezed his hand. It didn't even have to mean anything to Amos, really, it would have meant something, everything, to her. No one, she corrected herself, no man had touched her for seven long years. There has to come a time when mourning your departed partner, no matter how much love you held for them, has to stop being so all-encompassing. Pam felt that time was close, no it was long past if she was honest.

She had a beautiful natural tinkly giggle, thought Amos, as he filled the coffee maker with coffee and water, realising for the first time that Clare's laugh, that he once thought of as charmingly girlish, actually sounded annoyingly like a spooked horse's whinny.

"I thought it was fun, but Clare and Scotty, who was about six or seven at the time, hated it and we never went again, although Tim always invites us every year."

"That's a shame," Pam's face did actually look a degree sadder as she said it, like she really cared, then brightened as other thoughts went through her head. "Jan would love it, she played the part of an angel in the school nativity play and hasn't stopped singing 'Twinkle, twinkle' since she started rehearsing a couple of weeks ago!" She smiled warmly at the thought of her daughter's smiling, singing face.

Amos got out the cups for himself and Pam, as the coffee brewed, the rest of the office staff wouldn't be in for pushing another half an hour yet.

"I'm sure she'd love it, Pam, lots of the Monroe's kids go along as well as the parents. Bring Janice into the bank with you on Friday morning, you can both consider yourselves invited."

Chapter 9 - Christmas comes but once

Tim had been up half the night preparing dips and salads for the Monroe's Carol singing party. Michelle had also helped for a while before giving up, utterly exhausted.

For Michelle, she felt that she was still in information overload after the last hectic week. As well as being a cook of near-professional chef standard, it appears Tim was a genius businessman, with interests in small businesses all over the town. Hundreds of people relied on Tim for their regular reliable income and all of them appeared to be focussing their attention on her, the woman who had overnight become an integral part of this well-respected man's life. She had spent almost every hour since last Friday night constantly in his company. Tonight was their seventh night together and they had still not consummated their increasingly close relationship. Michelle felt they both wanted to but they were under so much pressure, even though everyone they met clearly assumed that they were already committed lovers. Well, in every respect bar one they were lovers. They just needed time together to relax and take the final step in the process that Michelle was certain had been leading to them spending the rest of their lives together.

Michelle's last really relaxing evening with the man, who she was completely sure was the one true love of her life, was Monday. And she really felt she needed to relax by then. Meeting Lily earlier that day had been a revelation. Tim's ex-lover still clearly loved him dearly, that much was plain, but at the same time she was so happy that Tim now had Michelle and also rooting for her to be the main part of his life.

While Tim got Brian started on sorting out her little Micra's starting problems, Lily ran through the computer program that calculated the capital, running and closing costs along with the margins resulting from the leasing contracts until Michelle was comfortable with them. Michelle had looked on while Lily and Tim worked so smoothly together through the figures that her father sent through about his car leasing arrangements and existing and future requirements. In a remarkably short space of time they had some figures ready to show Roger Jones before lunch.

Michelle had accompanied Tim when they presented the figures to her father and his team early that afternoon. Tim let Michelle put up the figures and resultant graphs, using the keyboard onto a large flat screen, while Tim did the accompanying talk. Roger had already showed them the costs of their vehicles over the last five years and Tim was able to show the immediate monthly savings and the projected savings over the coming five years. Questions about the levels of personal service, servicing and additional valeting during and out of hours services were shown, much of the benefits of which they had never experienced before. They were particularly delighted with the proposal that all servicing could be scheduled at night, with ML Leasing collecting the cars from homes in the evening and dropping them off before morning, so no need for the disruptions they had put up with for so long. It made sense from Monroe's point of view as they already ran a night shift and had capacity to accommodate the insurance company's fleet with minimal capital other than purchasing the vehicles. Michelle was confidently able to modify the figures and charts as she had been shown how to by Lily as questions or alternative scenarios were raised by the insurance company team.

Roger was impressed both by the presentation and ease with which Michelle had been able to manipulate modifications after an extremely short initiation into the workings of the program. Tim was delighted too by how she had been able to work the program, although Michelle had to say that she had learned enough about programming from her Mum Jennie that she was aware that the way it had been created could have applications way beyond what Tim was using it for.

After his impressed team had left the room, Roger asked for another demonstration of the program and agreed with Michelle that this could be used for selling his products too and asked if he could get his IT people, including Michelle's Mum Jenny involved to see if it could be adjusted. Tim arranged to bring a copy of the program shell in just after Christmas.

~~~~~~~

Michelle stayed in bed dozing for a while Tuesday morning after Tim left for work and was thinking about getting up and taking her revitalised car into the centre to start her Christmas shopping, when she thought she heard Tim banging about in the kitchen immediately below their bedroom. She threw back the covers and skipped down the stairs, eager to see him.

"Hi honey!" she sang as she sailed through the open kitchen door, to be confronted by a strange woman standing at the sink with a coffee mug in one hand and a cookie in the other.

"What?-" yelled Michelle.

"Who?-" yelled the stranger at the same time, spilling her coffee all over her chin and the front of her blouse, "Oh shit! Fuck! That was hot! ... Who are you?"

"You must be the cleaner ... Manda? ... Wait, you're Mrs Smith, Andrew's mother?"

"Y-yes, hold on a minute, Miss Jones? Miss Jones from the Comp?"

"Yes, Michelle Jones," said Michelle, relaxing a little but conscious that she was wearing one of Tim's tee-shirts and nothing else, long enough to finish halfway down her thighs.

Manda Smith started laughing, "Look at me, I thought I was alone in the house, you frightened the wits outta me!"

"And I thought you were Tim," laughed Michelle, "I was hoping he had come back home."

"So, you and Tim, eh?" smiled Manda, as she wiped her front with a tea towel, "I'll put this in the wash with whatever's in the basket."

"Think I better go get dressed, too," Michelle said, sheepishly, "I feel a little self-conscious like this."

"Well I think you look very fetching, Miss Jones."

"Michelle, please."

"Call me Manda. Well this is a turn-up for the books. Andy will be surprised, he says you're still his favourite teacher."

"Oh gosh! What are you going to tell him?"

"Only that I've seen you, he's only 12."

"He's with Mrs Sparrow now for English, isn't he? How's he getting on?"

"Not so well, seems to have lost interest. Lazy sod takes after his father. Sorry, shouldn't have said 'sod'!"

"He's a bright boy, got a great imagination, some of his essays showed real promise. Maybe he just needs to get his enthusiasm back."

"He got on alright last year in English, but that was because he got on so well with you. This year he seems to be improving in some areas. His biology report was very good but Mrs Sparrow marked his last two essays down to D-minus."

"Perhaps if I have a word with him?"

"Could you? I know his dad don't care but I'd like to see Andy do well, his brother and sister look up to him and it might help bring them on too."

"Of course, I'd be happy to, And...y probably just needs encouraging, it would be a waste if he lost interest after doing so well last year."

Michelle was delayed getting out of the house, so she just did some essential grocery shopping from the nearby supermarket. By the time she got back to the house Manda had finished what housekeeping duties she was expected to do and had departed. Michelle made a packed lunch for two and took it in to Tim.

They ate the little meal in his office and laughed together as Michelle recounted how Manda and she had frightened each other. Later she went shopping on her own and Tim said he would cook the evening meal. Michelle had bought some fish earlier so they could have something light to counter the heavy meals they had coming up in the next few days.

On Tuesday evening, Amos Shillingstone, Tim's banker, turned up with an overnight bag and stayed that night in one of the spare bedrooms. Michelle instantly took a liking to Ammo, as Tim continually called him, liked him very much. He was a quiet, polite man, rather shy but innocently charming in his way.

Relaxing in their sitting room, with his jacket, tie and shoes off, with one of Tim's exquisite meals and a couple of malt whiskies inside him, he started coming out of his shell and, with Tim prompting, spoke about his concerns about losing what investments he had built up over the years. He expanded on how little his wife had contributed to his life and happiness, holding him back through her selfishness. He had no sooner come to terms with her recent betrayal that her manipulation of him over the years became so transparently obvious, which meant there could be no turning the clock back or mending the fences that had been destroyed by her transgressions.

It was his wasteful son that Ammo so despaired of. The lad had failed his first year at Sheffield University and was re-sitting his foundation year for a second time, so even if he successfully completed the first year again he would still have to do another two years to complete his bachelor degree over four years.

Tim undertook to take on Ammo's investments and hide them as his own for as long as he needed and that would be done the very next day. Michelle chimed in with an offer that he could stay at her flat from the next night onward, which both Tim and Ammo were more than happy with.

Michelle drove round to her flat on Wednesday morning and packed up as much stuff as she could and cleaned the flat up ready for Ammo to move in later in the day after the bank closed. She was just about to make her third trip "home" to Tim's when Ammo turned up, this time with an attractive red-headed woman and her sweet daughter, who stressed to Michelle for propriety sakes, that they were only there helping him move in.

When Ammo took Michelle to one side and raised the subject of rent, Michelle had laughed and given him a hug and asked Amos if they were friends. Ammo said she definitely was a friend for life, therefore Michelle told him that she considered him a very good friend of both her and Tim, so there was to be absolutely no mention of rent. With an afterthought she said with a grin, unless paying a substantial rent on paper helped with any calculations affecting the outcome of his assessment for alimony. Ammo actually hugged her back and went as far as to kiss her on the cheek, which was a big step for the shy, retiring banker.

His lady friend, Pam, who came along to help, and Michelle had also taken an instant liking to, smiled warmly at the pair of them, before giving Michelle a hug herself when the flat owner left to return to spend another night with Tim.