I drove over to his office in Surry Hills on one of those Sydney spring days that remind you of somewhere else warm with car fumes where you’ve had a good time, like Rome. Terry runs his show right off one of the parking and servicing stations. It had been a no-frills operation that had lately acquired considerable polish, but it was still not unknown for Terry to do a day behind the desk or in the workshop.

I pulled the Falcon into a prominent place beside one of the highly-glossed, bright orange, fuel-injected vehicles, and told the woman in the orange skirt and white blouse who came over to protest that Terry was expecting me. She eyed the car, which is a bit faded and wrinkled, like me.

‘I bet he wasn’t expecting you to park that here,’ she said.

‘You’re wrong, he insisted on it’

She sniffed at that and stepped aside. I walked past a line of cars to the glass-walled outer office. It had a big registration desk, some VDTs, pot plants and posters of places you might drive to with Bargain. A waist-high partition is the only barrier Terry puts between himself and his staff; I considered vaulting it, decided against, and pushed open the half door.

Terry had a telephone in his hand and was scribbling on a pad on his desk. He nodded at me, flipped the receiver up to his ear and caught it with his shoulder like a night club performer playing with the mike, then he waved me into a chair with his free hand. I sat down and looked at him; it was an odd experience, regarding an old friend in a new light, as a client. Clients need special looking at, for rust spots and other defects. Terry was a well-built six footer with blond hair going thin on top. He’d played professional football and been a pro runner in his younger days, and he still had a lot more muscle on him than flab. He was one of the few teetotallers I knew who wasn’t a dried-out alcoholic.