Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista (23 page)

Silence. That’s odd. She doesn’t go into college on Fridays. The door hadn’t been double-locked so I was pretty sure she was in.

‘Jude!’ I called out again. ‘Where are you? You’re not in bed, are you? It’s nearly twelve o’clock, for God’s sake.’ I gave her door a perfunctory knock before pushing it open. Then I closed it again. Very quickly.

‘Shit. Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ I called through the door. I could hear some muffled giggling from the other side. ‘Hi, Matt,’ I said. ‘Good to see you again.’ I’d been so wrapped up in thoughts of my job interview I’d completely forgotten Matt was arriving today.

Several hours later (to be fair to them they hadn’t seen each other in months), the happy couple emerged.

‘Sorry about the interruption,’ I said, feeling myself blush as I said it.

‘Did you interrupt?’ Matt asked with a grin. ‘I didn’t
notice.’ He came over and gave me a kiss. He looked very tanned and very tired.

‘How was Sierra Leone?’ I asked.

‘Good. Bit grim in parts, but basically promising. Darfur, on the other hand …’ he passed his hand over his eyes and shrugged, ‘… doesn’t bear thinking about.’

Jude was hopping about from one foot to the other, clearly desperate to say something but not wanting to interrupt.

‘So?’ she asked. ‘What happened? You were yelling earlier – I couldn’t really hear what you were saying …’

‘The earth was moving,’ Matt said.

‘Of course it was … So? Was it good yelling or bad yelling?’

‘It was good yelling. Very good yelling.’

Over a glass of champagne or three, we decided that we’d all go out to dinner to celebrate Matt’s (temporary) return to the UK and my new job.

‘I’ll get this one,’ Jude said. ‘You can repay the favour once you’re a successful wine entrepreneur.’

The three of us headed into town to the Anchor & Hope in Waterloo. As usual, the place was packed to the rafters, but Jude, who used to work behind the bar, managed to get us a table straight away.

‘For three?’ the waitress asked us.

‘Four, please,’ Jude said.

‘Three,’ I corrected her.

‘No, four,’ she said with a smile.

‘Awww – you invited Ali! That’s so sweet of you,
Jude,’ I said, squeezing her arm. The waitress escorted us through the pub to a table at the back and took our drinks orders. ‘You know Ali isn’t drinking at the moment,’ I told Jude and Matt. ‘She’s just … being healthy. Don’t make a big deal out of it, OK?’ The pregnancy was still not common knowledge.

‘OK,’ they chirruped in unison, grinning at me.

‘What?’ I asked them. ‘I know you’ve just spent eight hours shagging but do you have to look quite so pleased with yourselves? You’re starting to make me feel ill.’ The waitress brought over a bottle of red. She was just pouring me a glass when I saw him, pushing through the crowd, walking towards us.

‘Jesus Christ, Jude!’ I hissed at her. ‘You invited Jake? Do you not recall that he isn’t speaking to me?’ There was no time for her to reply, he was already upon us, he was standing right next to the table. He was tall. He was incredibly tall. Had he always been that tall? He bent down to give me a kiss on the cheek.

‘Congratulations on the new job, Cassie,’ he said with a smile. He was wearing jeans and a white Fred Perry shirt underneath his jacket. He looked fantastic. Why the hell hadn’t I gone on that date?

‘Hey, you,’ Jude said, getting up to give him a kiss, ‘let me introduce you – this is Matt, Matt – Jake.’ The boys shook hands.

‘Great to finally meet you at last,’ Jake said, sitting down next to me. Under the table, he gave my leg an affectionate squeeze. I nearly fainted. ‘You feeling better?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine,’ I said.
Oh, Christ, what did Jude tell him?

‘Sorry I gave you a hard time last time we spoke,’ he said. ‘I was just disappointed that I didn’t get to go out with you.’

After a brief toast to Matt’s safe return and my new career, Jude started quizzing Jake about what he’d been up to.

‘Haven’t seen you in college all week,’ she said. ‘Have you been working, or just skiving?’

‘Working, of course. I’ve been getting ready for the college exhibition most of the week, although today I had a proper job. Actual paid employment.’

‘Who for?’ Jude asked, popping an olive into her mouth.

‘Women’s magazine,’ he said, casually. ‘
InStyle
. I was shooting a spread for them.’

‘Bloody hell!’ Jude said. ‘That’s brilliant.’ I was pretty sure she had never read
InStyle
in her life, but you always can count on Jude to be enthusiastic.

‘So,’ Matt said with a smile, ‘you’ve been hanging out with models all day? And I thought I’d had a good afternoon.’

‘Models in their underwear, actually,’ Jake replied. ‘It was a lingerie shoot.’

‘You lucky bastard,’ Matt said, clinking Jake’s glass with his own. Jude rolled her eyes. I didn’t say anything, but I felt a familiar twinge in my gut. I recognised it as the feeling I used to get when I watched Dan flirt with other women. I was jealous. I was horribly, painfully jealous of the fact that Jake
had just spent the entire day in the company of a group of very beautiful, half-naked women. And I hardly even knew this man. How ridiculous am I?

Dinner was a long and relaxed affair, so relaxed that Matt was starting to nod off by the end.

‘I think I’d better take him home,’ Jude said, ruffling his hair. ‘He’s getting old – can’t handle these late nights any more.’

‘Excuse me,’ Matt protested. ‘I had a seven-hour flight, getting in to Heathrow at six o’clock in this morning and then had to spend the entire day in bed keeping you happy …’

‘Oh, you
had
to, did you? Don’t recall any protests …’

‘How about you two?’ Matt asked. ‘You ready to call it a night?’

‘I don’t think I am, actually,’ Jake said. ‘How about you, Cassie? You fancy staying for another?’

They were stacking chairs on tables by the time Jake and I left. I toyed with the idea of inviting him back to the flat for a nightcap, but by a Herculean effort of will power managed to stop myself. I had a really good feeling about him – it would be idiotic to rush into things at this point. Anticipation is ninety per cent of the pleasure, I reminded myself as he hailed me a cab. As the taxi pulled up next to us, Jake slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me close to him, giving me a long, lustful, delicious kiss goodnight.

‘I’m visiting my little brother in Manchester this
weekend – he’s at university there – but I’ll be back on Tuesday. Can I see you next week?’

‘That would be lovely,’ I said, reluctantly disentangling myself from his arms. ‘Just give me a call.’

I hopped into the cab and sank back into the seat, grinning like an idiot.

‘Good night, love?’ the cabby asked me.

‘Heavenly,’ I sighed.

Just then, my phone buzzed.
You have one message from Jake
, the display read. I clicked on the text message icon.

Models, schmodels. You are without doubt the most beautiful girl I’ve seen all day xxx

Cassie Cavanagh
is overqualified

On Sunday evening I had a call from Rupert. After a moment of brief panic (were they going to cancel the job offer?) I discovered that in fact he was just ringing to ask me to come in a bit early on Monday.

‘We’ve got some potential investors coming round in the afternoon, so I was hoping we could get an early start. Eight o’clock OK with you?’

I arrived at Vintage Organics’ offices at ten to eight. For a girl who was used to working on the forty-second floor of Number 1 Canada Square, the VO headquarters came as a bit of a shock. They were situated on the third floor of a dingy walk-up a couple of alleyways back from the Thames and they consisted of three rooms. In the main office, which could not have been more than ten feet by fifteen, there were four desks: one each for Melanie, Peter, Fabio and Aidan. Leading off the main office on the left-hand side was a small meeting room and to the right was
another office in which Rupert and Olly had their desks.

‘We haven’t actually found you a space quite yet,’ Rupert said apologetically.

I managed to find a chair to sling my coat over and was given brief introductions to the rest of the team and then asked to get coffee.

‘Do you prefer Starbucks or Nero?’ I asked Rupert.

He looked aghast.

‘Oh, we don’t go out for coffee. Got to keep an eye on the cost base. There’s a kettle over there in the corner.’ There it sat, on top of a mini-fridge in which I found some decidedly iffy milk. I nipped down to the newsagent to get a fresh pint.

‘One of your duties, I think, Cassie,’ Rupert said. ‘To ensure we always have fresh milk in the fridge.’

The second task of the day was to sort and distribute the post. After that, I just sat around for a bit, on my chair in the corner of the room. Without so much as a computer screen to gaze at, no Internet to surf or solitaire to play, the morning passed slowly. I had expected Rupert, Olly, or someone else to give me a more detailed run-through of how everything worked and what I would be expected to do day to day, but everyone, apart from me, seemed frantically busy. Peter (fluent in German and Spanish) and Fabio (fluent in French and Italian) were constantly babbling away on the phone to suppliers. Aidan was fixing a problem with the office network and Melanie was negotiating prices for a full-page advertisement in
Decanter
. No
one had time to show me the ropes.

Around midday, Rupert popped his head round the door and summoned me into his office.

‘Sorry everything’s a bit disorganised today,’ he said. ‘We’ll get you properly sorted tomorrow. Now, as I mentioned last night, we’ve got some potential investors coming in this afternoon, and for some reason or other it doesn’t look to me as though the meeting room was cleaned this weekend. The management of this building leaves a bit to be desired, I’m afraid. In any case, I spoke to one of the maintenance guys and he’s given me a key to the closet on the fifth floor where they keep the cleaning stuff. Would you pop up there, get the vacuum cleaner and give the place a once-over? Not just the meeting room, the whole place actually? We do want to make a good impression.’

This, I thought, as I lugged the vacuum cleaner (which appeared to be older than I was) down the stairs, was not what I signed up for. I can be the coffee maker, the milk monitor and the post sorter – these are not things I’ve dreamed of becoming, but I don’t mind taking on those roles in the short term. But what I am most certainly not is a cleaning lady. It was humiliating. Rupert and Olly had disappeared out for lunch but the others were all still in the office, beavering away at their desks, making calls and typing furiously. And there I was trying to hoover around their feet, clear away their dirty mugs, empty their bins. Utterly humiliating.

I had just returned the surprisingly heavy vacuum
cleaner to its closet on the fifth floor when Rupert and the investors – two middle-aged men in grey suits – arrived in the office. They gave the place the once-over; they looked less than impressed. I didn’t blame them. If I were Rupert I would conduct business meetings elsewhere. This dive hardly gave the impression of a thriving and vibrant company.

‘Would anyone like coffee?’ I asked, taking the investors’ coats. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them, but it seemed like the thing to do.

‘Lovely, Cassie. We’ll be in the meeting room.’

The investors left after about half an hour. Rupert and Olly retreated to their office looking fairly glum. A couple of hours later, we were all called to a staff meeting. The five of us trooped into the bosses’ office and arranged ourselves against the wall, as though lining up to be shot. The atmosphere was sombre.

‘No dice, I’m afraid, chaps,’ Rupert said. ‘They’re looking for an operation that is at a more … advanced stage of development.’

There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence before Rupert spoke again.

‘Don’t worry about it, guys. We’ve got some more people coming in a couple of weeks. We’re fairly sure we can raise the level of finance we need to keep us in business … oh, at least for the next few months.’ There was some nervous laughter among the group. I didn’t know what to do. Was he joking? The look on Olly’s face didn’t suggest that he was. Oh God, what had I got myself into? Had I just boarded a sinking ship?

*

On my second day at Vintage I arrived early, armed with my laptop. I was pleased to find that Aidan was already in the office.

‘Morning,’ he called out without looking up at me. I plonked a latte down in front of him. That got his attention.

‘You want something, don’t you?’ he asked.

‘Well, I was hoping you might be able to get me linked into the rest of the office computers,’ I said, whipping my laptop out of the stripy Paul Smith case Ali gave me for my birthday. ‘At least that way I might be able to make a useful contribution.’

He grinned at me, raising the latte to his lips. ‘Far as I’m concerned you’ve already made a useful contribution today.’ He took a sip. ‘Of course I can get you networked in. Since you’re here early I can give you a quick tutorial on how everything works.’