We Own the Sky(11)

start-up run by someone called Scott, who had been a few years ahead of me at Cambridge.

“That’s absolutely fantastic, Rob. Brilliant news,” she said, but it was as if she was waiting for me to tell her something else.

“And guess how much they want to pay for it?”

“I don’t know, um...”

“One and a half million.”

Even Anna couldn’t contain her excitement. “As in sterling?”

“Yes, pounds. I still can’t believe it.”

Anna took a deep breath, and I could hear a shuffling sound, what sounded like her blowing her nose.

“Anna, are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said, sniffing a little. “I just... I just don’t know what to say...”

“I know, me too. We have to celebrate tonight.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, a note of caution in her voice. “I don’t understand, though. So what actually happened? What did they...”

I could hear the scraping of chairs on the floor of the meeting room, the sound of people standing up.

“Anna, I’ve got to go, I’ll call you in a bit...”

“Okay,” she said, “but don’t do anything hasty, Rob. Don’t sign anything, okay? Say you need to discuss everything with your lawyers.”

“Yeah, yeah... I’ve got...”

“I’m serious, Rob...”

“Okay, okay, don’t worry. I’ll call you later...”

  *

The grimy heat hit me as soon as I left the building. For a moment, I just stood, blinking into the sunlight, watching the lanes of traffic hurtle around the roundabout, the happy, dirty din of London.

The last nine months hadn’t been easy. Living in Clapham in a rented ground-floor flat that Anna paid for. While I worked late through the night—caffeine-fueled coding binges—Anna got up early for work. We didn’t see much of each other, a wave in our bathrobes on the landing—her getting up, me turning in. It was just for a while, we agreed. It would be better when her training period was over, when I had finished writing my software.

Anna loved her job, working in a department that audited the bank’s

adherence to financial regulations. It was perfect for her: a stickler for the rules, she knew where the bank could trip up. And because she knew the rules, she also knew how to get around them, the legal shortcuts and back doors, the get-out clauses that lurked in the small print. Her talents were recognized, and she was promoted and fast-tracked for management in just her first six months.

I was still buzzing and didn’t know what to do with myself, so I started

walking toward Liverpool Street, the skyscrapers eclipsing the sun. I tried to call Anna but her phone was switched off, so I ducked into a pub for a beer.

I knew I was right. All those twenty-and thirty-hour coding sessions, sleeping under an old blanket on the floor. I told people smartphones would change everything, and they rolled their eyes. But it was true. Maps used to be static, something we kept folded up in a backpack, or in the glove compartment of the car. Now they would always be with us, customized, dynamic, on our phones, in our pockets.

The beer began to have a calming effect, and it felt like a great weight had been lifted. It hadn’t been the plan—Anna paying the rent and lending me the money to buy a new suit. She didn’t say it outright, but I knew what she thought.

That I should do a business course, an internship at a gaming company, that I should put my silly maps idea on the back burner for now.

It grated. Because everyone always thought that it would be me, that I would be the precocious wunderkind dripping in cash. Because I had a track record. I told people I would graduate at the top of my class—and I did. I told my disbelieving tutors I would win the annual Cambridge hacking competition—and I did, every year. But London hadn’t been like that. While Anna flew off to Geneva every two weeks for work, I sat on the sofa in my boxer shorts watching Countryfile and eating leftover rice from Chicken King.

My phone rang. It was Anna.

“Hello.”

“You’re in a pub, aren’t you?”

“How did you guess?”

“I had training and I’ve finished early. Do you want to come and meet me at Liverpool Street?”

  *

It was a bustling Thursday night. The streets were packed with commuters in suits, and you could hear the buzz of the workweek coming to an end. I got to the pub before Anna and stood in the crowd of people waiting for a drink.

I saw her walk in. Even though we had lived in London for nine months, I had never seen her on her territory and it made me fall in love with her all over again: the cautious way she approached the bar; the calculations I knew she was making about the best place to stand; the way she fiddled with her new work glasses, which she said made her look like a secretary in a porno movie.

“Hello,” I said, and she turned around and smiled. For a moment, I thought she was going to hug me, but she just stared, intently, blinking as if the light was hurting her eyes.

“I owe you an apology,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because sometimes I wasn’t that supportive, of your idea, your software, and I’m sorry.”

“That’s not true, Anna, and you’ve essentially funded the whole thing by