‘I doubt that’s top of the list of things she thinks about, but if anything she’d probably thank you. Not everyone understands this but Allegra’s a blessing, not a curse. You don’t have kids, do you?’
‘Nope. Not the daddy type. Couldn’t if I wanted to, in any case.’
‘How’d you mean?’
‘I shoot blanks, not to put too fine a point on it. I was married once, a long time ago. We were only youngsters, childhood sweethearts you could call it. I wasn’t too bothered about having kids, I was only about twenty, but after a couple of years she marched me along to the clinic to get tested and it turned out my boys were swimming backwards or something. It wasn’t long after that she ran off with a bloke who packed a bigger punch in the fertility stakes. Last I heard she was living in Hereford with a plumber and three or four of the little blighters.’
‘Wow, I’m sorry. I had no idea.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you. It was a long time ago and it’s not on my CV. I was just Paul in those days, not Big Paul, before all the Dom P and lunches at Le Gavroche went to my waistline.’ He sighed nostalgically. ‘Still, it was probably for the best. Who’d keep the strip clubs of Soho in business if I turned into a family man? The fabric of this fine city would have been the poorer for it.’
‘Indeed it would.’
‘Anyway. Enough about my stunning physique. When do you want to pitch Eva’s Widgits to me?’
*
‘. . and that’s why we feel justified in projecting that we’ll break even at the end of year two and go significantly into profit by the end of year three.’
It was Friday night and Big Paul was sitting at Sylvie’s kitchen table, his fingers laced behind his head and an implacable expression on his face. In front of him were an empty dinner plate and an almost empty wine glass.
‘It’s not a terrible idea,’ he said slowly. ‘There are some obvious obstacles, but it’s not utterly shit.’
Eva leant forward. ‘High praise indeed, and wholly justified. Think about it. How many times have you tried to order things over the internet only to find that it takes so long to retrieve the damn things from the sorting office that you may as well have gone and bought it on the high street? Internet shopping has vast potential but it’s being hobbled by twentieth-century delivery systems unable to cope with the notion that people go out to work and don’t have a spouse sitting at home. The Plop-Box will solve all that. The basic design will be classic, like those old red post-boxes, and it will come in different shapes and sizes to fit the dimensions and style of your porch or garden. You leave it unlocked and empty, the delivery man puts the parcel inside and closes it, it locks automatically and gives him a receipt, then you open it with a key or code when you come home. Simple, yet exquisitely practical.’
Big Paul looked thoughtful. ‘Well, first off, I’m assuming Plop-Box is a working title, because it sounds like a mobile khazi. Second, the distributors are your biggest challenge. They have to agree to accept a receipt from this thing instead of a signature from a person. Have you spoken to anyone yet? Royal Mail? DHL? The Post Office is pretty monolithic and hardly well adapted to change.’
‘We’ve had initial talks and they made promising noises, but we need to have a prototype in place to get them to commit, and that’s why we need capital now. I really don’t think it’s going to be that hard a sell once we have proof of concept. Think about it. Every time they fail to deliver a parcel, they have to take it back to a sorting office and then attempt to redeliver it. That adds costs for them. If the householder buys a Plop-Box, they’re spending money that will not only save them inconvenience, but will save the distributors money too. Everyone’s a winner.’
There was a few seconds’ pause and then Big Paul said, ‘Okay. Done.’
‘Done?’ asked Eva.
‘Done,’ he confirmed. ‘Two hundred.’
Sylvie’s face dropped. ‘Oh. Two hundred quid won’t go far.’
But Eva was smiling broadly. ‘Not quid, Sylvie. Grand.’
Eva and Big Paul watched in amusement as she processed the information, furrowed brow giving way to widening eyes. ‘As in, thousand pounds? Two hundred thousand pounds?’ she squeaked. ‘Just like that?’
‘Yeah, just like that,’ said Big Paul. ‘With one caveat. You have to change the name. Now, do you know why I’m doing this? I’m doing it because I know you, Eva. I trust and believe in you, but more than that, I know that you are so anally retentive that you would walk over hot coals before you let this business fail and lose a penny of my money. And just to give you some added motivation, let’s be clear that if you prove me wrong, I will hunt you down and destroy all that you love.’
Still smiling, Eva fetched the bottle of champagne she’d bought that day in the hope there would be a reason to celebrate, and Big Paul, satisfied that it was of a suitable calibre to pass his lips after scrutinising the label, uncorked the bottle and handed the first glass to Sylvie.
She waved it away. ‘I’ll stick with juice, thanks.’
‘AA, is it?’ He peered at her suspiciously.
Sylvie looked taken aback. ‘Not exactly. I never made it quite that far. But some people are better off not drinking, and I’m definitely one of them. We all know what happened the last time you handed me a drink,’ she added, gesturing upwards towards Allegra’s bedroom. This was the first time that their previous meeting had been alluded to, and an uncomfortable hush descended upon the table.
‘Yeah.’ Paul shifted in his chair. ‘I suppose now’s a good time to say that I’m sorry about that. We may not have behaved in an entirely gentlemanly fashion on that occasion. I was sorry about the baby and Robert and everything.’
Eva shot him a glare across the table, causing him to backtrack.
‘Shit, I don’t mean I’m sorry about the baby. Probably you’re really happy about the baby. Actually, I’ve got no idea how you feel about the baby and I’m just trying to make the right noises but digging a hole so big I’ll probably emerge in Azerbaijan—’
‘Relax.’ Sylvie stopped him with a smile. ‘I’ve got a thick skin and I know people don’t always know what to say. I’d honestly prefer that they give it a shot, even one as incompetent as that, than ignore Allegra completely. For the record, I’m delighted about my daughter. She’s beautiful and I love her. Sometimes it’s tough and I worry about the future, but mostly she’s a huge source of joy in my life.’
Big Paul leant back in his chair. ‘Good. Great. I was really sorry to hear about what happened, that’s all. Really bad luck.’
‘Look,’ said Sylvie, ‘in my situation you rethink your ideas about what constitutes bad luck. Spend half an hour in the waiting room at Great Ormond Street and you’ll see children with feeding tubes, oxygen canisters, tracheostomies, colostomy bags. We don’t have any of that anymore. The kids themselves, they don’t sit around measuring themselves against other people or railing against the injustice of their circumstances, so unless their condition is really painful, and Allegra’s isn’t, most of the bad stuff is to do with worrying about the future. For the first year I did nothing else. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and lie there for hours thinking about what will happen to Allegra when I die. It blunts itself after a while. I mean, say I live to seventy-five, that’s more than another thirty-five years from now.’
Big Paul nodded thoughtfully. ‘True. And who knows what will have happened in thirty-five years’ time? What with global warming, probably all that’ll be left will be Keith Richards and a bunch of cockroaches sitting around on a rock. Maybe we should all be running through the streets screaming.’