‘Well don’t let it get too warm,’ he says. ‘Won’t hurt to decant it, but it won’t struggle straight out of the bottle either. Cash or card?’

Becky hands over her debit card. It is the same colour as when she was at school. The first-savings-account hue of somebody who agonizes over whether sixty-five pounds, which she really cannot afford, is enough to spend on wine for a man who might consider it midweek drinking, a bottle to open mindlessly before rushing off to a weekend away, leaving it to idle and spoil on the kitchen island. Is it enough, a bottle like this, for a man like Matthew?

Matthew pays her pretty well. She can’t complain. She knows there are others who make less and are worth far more.

Stop it, she tells herself. You are good at your job. You are.

‘Enjoy it!’ says the man behind the counter as he hands her the bag. Did he see the dismay in her eyes as the card receipt chattered through? Surely he knows that this is a gift, one meant to impress; a wine that she does not understand, intended for someone whose world she only fleetingly visits.

And yet, his smile seems sincere. Perhaps he is honestly grateful for her custom, even if the wine is wasted on her. The money is real enough.

Matthew taught her that, like so much else about their business: everything is only talk, only a possibility, until somebody writes you a cheque, or cashes one you’ve written them.

As she exits the shop she holds her head high. Today is a good day. She has come to West London to deliver a gift and the gift has been well-chosen. It will suffice.

Becky passes the wedding-cake white houses of Portobello, takes in the scent of freshly cut stems from an elegant pink-and-orange-painted boutique floristry and the steam-whistle of a barista’s coffee machine through lacquered café doors flung wide-open. The weather has finally turned a corner. Her skin actually feels warm for the first time in months and she cannot help but stop for a moment, right there on the street corner, and turn her face to the sun, smiling even as she hopes that no one catches her in the act.

It’s a small miracle, she thinks, how an idea can turn into a series of meetings, and then a screenwriter’s draft, and now – or at least soon – will become actors and cameras and lights, and conversations in the edit suite. Like watching a foetus growing across a series of ultrasound images.

Tomorrow her yellow brick road takes her to the Cannes Film Festival where she will meet the people who can really make it happen. Those who can write cheques, or accept them. Her small idea, gathering supporters, players, financiers.