Chapter 2

So, drowning men (and woman) as we were, we grabbed at Simon's offer and damn the implications – like the 10% of equity. Maggie – who'd done her time with the nuns and the confessional – even cheerfully referred to Salvation, at one point, but Tim and I nonetheless did our best to co-operate with the Man's plan, contact this bloody Ruth person, make ourselves available for tarting up so that we could be sold to the investment world.

It was not easy. Turned out that the Lady Ruth may have been the apple of her father's eye but she was just another boss to her employees, none of whom seemed to grasp the Saving The Planet importance of what we were trying to do. Instead, we got a whole load of contradictory demands as to what they might require from us – a 'visually effective workplace' was the one that threw me – before they would contemplate even pencilling in dates to do anything vaguely resembling work. And, no, we didn't get Simon involved, play the father card. We were, I realise now, amateurs – worse, we were trying to be fair...

Eventually, of course, we did get stuff together. Actually, Tim sweet talked the University we'd been using for our hydrodynamic testing into using their facilities for promotional purposes, Mag pretty much redecorated the office/work space and I even rewrote some of our simulation software so that it would – sorry, but I really, really, did this – produce Hollywood style Big Numbers on screen, complete with multi-coloured progress bars and all that shit. And eventually we had a video crew on site, another working simultaneously "elsewhere". I did eventually wonder aloud, one day, watching these guys do their stuff, when or whether we'd ever get to meet the mysterious Ruth. A passing clipboard carrier disabused me.

"On a job this size? Nah ... no chance. Anyway, guv, Queen Bee's away in Strasbourg – some big EU gig..."

In fact we only met Ruth for the first time when we finally saw the video – well, it was more a multimedia thing, really, much background information buried in hyperlinks and stuff – at a presentation they organised at our offices. Simon didn't grace us with his presence but, whatever we might have thought of the idea, he did invite our existing investors. So it was just as well that the thing turned out to be good. Very good, in fact.

I mean, from my point of view there was hardly a lot of new information, so I had time to be amused by the 'human interest' side of things being more or less entirely taken up by lingering shots of Maggie – on a beach, by the testing pool, etc etc – while Tim and I were restricted to distant shots of us looking industrious, and in Tim's case working on a large and complex CNC machine that I'd never seen before and which was thus presumably also borrowed from the University. No matter, I thought – male camera crew but then probably also primarily male investors, so...

Ruth herself was charming but professional. I didn't make anything of the fact that she was, of course, the stunning – sorry. 'drop dead gorgeous' – woman I'd seen Simon hugging on St Pancras station and had assumed to be his trophy wife. Rather, I told her that I thought she'd done a good job.

She looked at me with total disdain, handed me a pile of obviously 'finished product' DVDs.

"No chance of a final edit, or anything, then?", I said, slightly nonplussed.

"At this price, no." Well, that was clear enough. But she went on. "However, my father did say you'd be helpful, so I do need to talk to your engineering bloke..."

And with that, she was gone, leaving Maggie and me with our other guests – our funders to date – all of whom were even more enthusiastic than ever ... and, as ever, no more inclined to cough up the dosh. Still, we kept them entertained and happy for a while – or, at least, until Ruth's crew began to pack away their gear ... which included most of the seats they were sitting on. At which point they got the hint and left.

And I got a bottle of champagne – well, Cava, we were on a budget – from our minimal fridge and Mag went off to collect Tim, given that we reckoned it was now safe to let him back into the office. Except that, as M reported back moments later, Tim was still – umm – locked in discussions with Ruth. Or, as Mag put it, positively drooling over the poor woman. So we had a glass each and talked, in a desultory fashion, about the day we'd had, whether the New Product – the DVD – would actually help produce the Real Product – the generator –, whether the investors had been all that impressed and, if so, by what, whether ... we did all the usual debrief stuff, basically.

I tried to read her emotions while we were talking, get a sense of where she was at in all of this – whether she minded her partner ... well boyfriend, really ... being so obviously besmitten by the photogenic Ruth, came close, perhaps, to asking what on earth she was doing with someone like Tim in the first place ... But I didn't.

We worked together well enough as we were, I thought – Tim and I long standing collaborators if never really friends, Maggie and I sort of nudging up to something like a friendship of our own, and M and T ... well, doing their stuff. So I left well alone, as one does, eventually took a couple of glasses down to Tim and Ruth – they were discussing universal joints and servo motors as I got to the bottom of the stairs – then retreated back to 'my' space ... and Maggie.

Who was pulling on her coat, as I got back, and clearly about to leave.

"Have a good evening", she said, as she made for the door.

"And chuck a bucket of water over the love birds, if you happen to leave before they do..."