Chapter 5

When Maggie resorted to drawing diagrams in the beer slops to communicate, we decided we'd best go somewhere quieter. Frankly, with the pub now apparently playing host to a bus load of travelling beer freaks - all with significant hearing impairments, from the noise they were making - it was that or sit there and text each other. So I reluctantly finished my pint of Avalanche and, more to the point, passed up the opportunity of another.

When we finally got outside, of course, we found that it was chucking it down, but, then, we needed to have the sort of focused discussion that would have been difficult on a park bench or at a bus stop, so ... well, I did think of suggesting going back to the office but M pre-empted me and simply led the way back to her place. Which, to be fair, was literally around the corner ... and very pleasant, in a surprisingly fluffily feminine sort of way. In fact, it felt homely - and, yeah, I know, it was her home - and altogether more Maggie-ish than I'd somehow expected. I mean, I suppose that I liked the place, liked ... well, it was a shame about the crucifix on the wall, that all I'll say.

We got down to business, or, at least, we did as soon as Maggie had produced a couple of large glasses of Bushmills, some very strong coffee and some dark mint chocolates. Its that sort of detail, I thought, that shows how little you know people - I mean, I for one would never have guessed that M was the sort of woman to keep mints around the place, or a row of stuffed toys on her couch ... or who'd have gone for such a chintzy couch in the first place. My rapid revision of my perception of all things Maggie, continued apace, especially when she proceeded to sit very close beside me on said couch - almost touching thigh to thigh - and, looking at me with another engaging smile, proceeded to give me Steve's news. I did my best to concentrate, given its implications for our future wealth and happiness...

On one level, it was simple enough, and her account simultaneously detailed, apposite and brief: It seemed that Simon's latest move, and our response to it, had crystallised a lot of ill feeling and - more to the point - initiated a lot of conversations amongst our peers. Crucially, these had, necessarily, covered the formerly taboo subject of funding, an area which had always been brushed under the carpet somewhat, talking about engineering and technology always being more attractive to all of us. Or maybe we all had lots of ideas and none of us had enough funding, so ... Whatever the reason, a sort of 'don't ask, don't tell' policy had become accepted practice regarding our various backers - which was why, I thought, bitterly, that I'd not been warned about Simon in advance.

Now that people had started talking about the subject, though, it turned out that we were all basically fishing in the same pond, that there were remarkably few people who were putting any money at all into the field and that there was, thus, considerable overlap. Which possibly explained why all of us had found it so difficult to get additional, incremental funds to take our various projects to their next stages - those same few funders were being bombarded by proposals and, basically, waiting to see what everyone else would do. And that, according to Maggie's account of what Steve had told her, was Simon's perceived opportunity. He had, I learnt, repeatedly trawled the field - we were by no means the first to receive his offer - and seemed to have settled on us simply because we'd agreed to play. Or that was Steve's view, anyway - personally I thought that our technology was genuinely better than everyone else's and that Simon had been well enough informed to appreciate that. And I said so, interrupting M's narrative with sufficient passion to provoke an indulgent smile from her.