Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista (5 page)

‘You have to be up in two hours,’ I groaned, by which I meant, I have to be up in four hours.

‘So I’ll sleep for an hour.’ He slipped the straps of my camisole off my shoulders.

Sometimes he can be very persuasive.

Cassie Cavanagh
has had the weekend from hell

Friday was horrible. Truly horrible. I don’t know whether it was because he’d had almost no sleep, or because he was so hungover, or simply because he had been on a winning streak for weeks and everyone’s luck runs out eventually, but things went badly wrong for Dan.

I didn’t even know anything was up until I got a text from Ali in the afternoon. I’d been so busy catching up on all the things that had been put to one side while I’d been party organising, I’d barely looked up from the desk all day. Plus, the success of the party notwithstanding, I was nervous about Nicholas – he’d spent virtually all day on the phone in his office with the door shut, a clear sign that something was wrong.

Around three, my phone buzzed on my desk.

think Dan may be in trouble

from: Ali

Nicholas’s office is at one end of the trading floor and my desk is just outside it. Dan is right down at the other end, so I can barely see him from where I sit. I asked Christa, who is PA to Nicholas’s second-in-command, to cover my phone for a moment while I popped out, and I quickly walked the length of the floor. I couldn’t actually go up to him and have a conversation, of course, not during trading hours, but I’m pretty good at reading him, even if he does have the best poker face on the floor. But you didn’t have to know him well to judge his mood today – it was written all over his face, which was deathly pale and covered with a sheen of sweat. His head rested on one hand; his second phone dangled over his shoulder while he barked into the first one.

I returned to my desk.

what’s going on?
I texted Ali.

not sure bad call maybe

you doing ok?
I asked her.

just about breaking even

I rang my sister.

‘What is it?’ she snapped when she answered. I could hear kids shrieking in the background. Celia has three of her own, but is frequently to be found looking after as many as five or six; because she’s a ‘full-time mum’, other mothers, part-time mums presumably, take advantage of her, apparently. (I once made the mistake of referring to someone as a working mother. ‘All mothers work!’ Celia said icily. ‘Some of us just work harder at it than others.’)

‘I can’t come tonight, Celia. I’ll come up tomorrow,
but I cannot do tonight.’

‘Cassandra, you had better be outside Kettering station at seven forty-two this evening or I will personally drive down to London to kill you.’

‘For God’s sake, why? Why do I have to be there tonight?’

‘Because I’ve made arrangements and I’m not changing them now. Whatever it is that is
so
much more important than your family will just have to wait. I’m not arguing about this.’

And with that she hung up.

Dan didn’t go to the pub with the rest of the guys after the bell rang, he stayed at his desk. Once the office had emptied out I went over to speak to him.

‘How bad?’ I asked.

‘Pretty fucking catastrophic,’ he said without looking up. ‘The tip I got, last night, you know from that guy at Midas? Well, either he was trying to stitch me up or he just doesn’t know what he’s talking about, because I went heavily short on Lloyds TSB and Aviva and they’re two of the biggest gainers of the day. Jesus, Cass, I’ve fucked up, I’ve really fucked up.’ He took my hand in his. ‘Can we go home, babe? I just really want to go home.’

Caught between the rock of disappointing my parents and the hard place of exacerbating Dan’s misery, I foundered.

‘What is it?’ he asked, looking up at me. ‘You still got work to do?’

‘I can’t, Dan. I’m really sorry, I have to go home. To Kettering, I mean. I meant to tell you yesterday but we never really got the time to—’

‘Right,’ he said, withdrawing his hand from mine and getting to his feet. ‘All right then. I’ll see you when I see you, I guess.’

‘Dan, please don’t be angry with me,’ I pleaded, but he was already walking away, his head bowed, looking more dejected than I can ever remember seeing him. I felt awful, heartbroken. By the time I caught the six fifty-two from St Pancras to Kettering, heartbreak had turned to rage. I was furious with my sister. How dare she guilt-trip me into going to this bloody party, into leaving my boyfriend at the very moment he needed me most? Silently I fumed for the next fifty-six minutes, planning exactly what I was going to say to her when I saw her.

Frustratingly I had to rethink my opening gambit (‘You bitch, Celia’) when I saw her standing on the platform, the baby in her arms, three-year-old Rosie in the pushchair and five-year-old Tom crawling around on the floor pushing a small vehicle and making impressively accurate truck noises. Celia smiled winningly at me.

‘Look, kids, it’s Auntie Cassie! Come all the way from London to see us!’

‘Hello, darlings!’ I cooed back. It’s difficult to stay pissed off when you have two blond angels running at you, arms outstretched, gurgling wholehearted hellos. Disentangling myself from the children, I gave Celia
an unenthusiastic peck on the cheek and took Monty, the baby, from her arms.

‘God, he’s huge,’ I exclaimed. ‘I can’t believe how much he’s grown.’

‘That’s the thing about babies,’ Celia replied sourly. ‘If you only see them once every six months then you will be amazed by their growth spurts.’

‘He looks exactly like his dad,’ I said, knowing that would annoy her. The other kids have far more of their father in them than they do of Celia, too, and she hates it when people point this out. ‘Where is Michael, by the way? Is he not joining us for dinner?’

‘Change of plan,’ she said with an air of weary resignation. ‘The “quick pint” he went for after work turned into three, so I told him to just stay there. Do you mind if we get takeaway instead? Not sure I can be bothered to go out. Sorry, Cass.’ My anger at her dissipated and was replaced with guilt. Celia looked wiped out. Her face was pale and her eyes ringed with dark circles. With her hair scraped back into a ponytail and wearing a less-than-flattering tracksuit she looked closer to thirty-five than twenty-seven. It was hardly surprising though. How could she not be exhausted with three children of five and under to take care of and a twenty-eighth wedding anniversary party to plan, not to mention having to cope with her feckless husband and recalcitrant younger sister.

‘That’s OK, Cee, takeaway’s fine. It’ll be nice to hang out with you and the kids at home.’

‘Great. And I am sorry, Cassie, that you had to change your plans for this weekend. I know you’re not keen on family things.’ You’ve got to hand it to her, Celia knows how to twist the knife.

Dinner was a rather greasy Chinese eaten while sitting on the floor and watching the DVD of
Mamma Mia
, Rosie and Tom singing along lustily and tunelessly, getting all the lyrics wrong. Eventually, Celia put them to bed.

‘Wouldn’t usually let them stay up this late, but they were desperate to see their Auntie Cassie,’ Celia said as I opened a bottle of Rioja. ‘They see you so infrequently.’

We were sitting at her rather formal dining room table. I felt an interrogation coming on.

‘How’s work?’ she asked. ‘Are you worried, you know, with the credit crunch and this recession business? Do you think your bank’s going to be OK? Because Mike was saying that quite a few of the banks are in trouble.’ Michael, Celia’s husband, is a solicitor with a small local firm and something of a know-it-all. He spends most of his time drafting contracts for property sales but he likes to pretend that he has insider knowledge of the business world.

‘It’s mostly the US ones,’ I said, with a breezy confidence that I didn’t feel as strongly as I might have done a few days previously.

‘Really? Because Mike was saying that quite a few of the British banks are having problems, too.’

Conversations with Celia are often like this. Mike was saying this, Mike was saying that. It drives me up the wall. She appears to have no opinions of her own, except for those on what Mike would call ‘women’s subjects’ like childcare and cake-baking.

‘We’re fine, Celia, really. My job’s great. I’m actually in my boss’s good books for a change – I had to organise this drinks party for the clients and it was a real success. It was in this amazing hotel, the Hempel, you know, designed by Anouska Hempel—’

‘Ooh, did I tell you I got the function room at the Holiday Inn for tomorrow?’ Celia said, cutting me off in full flow. ‘It’s ever so nice, actually. It’s out on the A43, towards Corby. Lovely place. There’s a gym and a pool and everything. I think it’s a three-star. Anyway, the function room is lovely – nice views of the countryside and fields and things, and they’ve given us a really good deal on the buffet.’

‘Sounds great, Cee,’ I said, pouring myself another glass of wine. As I replaced the bottle on the table, Celia picked it up and put the cork back in.

‘That’s probably enough for tonight – don’t want to be hungover tomorrow, do we?’

Unused to being sent to bed at ten thirty in the evening on a Friday night, I hung around downstairs once Celia had gone up to bed, retrieved the bottle of red wine from its hiding place and rang Ali.

‘Where did you disappear to last night?’ I asked her when she picked up.

‘I went home.’

‘No, you did not. I saw you with that French guy again. What’s going on?’

She laughed throatily. ‘Oh, it’s nothing really,’ she said.

‘It didn’t look like nothing.’

‘Well, maybe it’s something. I’ve been … seeing him on and off for a little while now.’

‘You kept that quiet. Is that because he’s married?’

‘Oh, don’t, Cass. It’s not like I’m trying to get him to leave his wife. He’s French – you know what they’re like. They all have a bit on the side. The wife probably does, too.’

‘And you’re OK with that?’

‘I’m great with that. Suits me down to the ground. Clandestine meetings, amazing sex and no relationship hassle. No meeting of the parents, no hanging out with his boring friends, no emotional dramas … You should try it. It’s bloody fantastic.’

I was woken the following morning by Tom demanding that I play football with him immediately. I looked at my phone. Seven fifteen.

‘Too early, Tommy. Let Auntie Cass sleep just a bit longer and then we’ll play football, I promise.’

‘But I want to play
now
,’ he wheedled, pulling the duvet off the bed. I grabbed it back. Our tug-of-war was interrupted by Celia.

‘Tom, what are doing in here? Leave Auntie Cassie alone and go downstairs to have your breakfast.’

‘But I want to play
football
,’ Tom insisted.

‘Cassie doesn’t have time for football, Tom. She’s going to be busy with me today.’ All of a sudden a kickabout in the garden with Tom was sounding rather attractive. Tom started to whimper. Celia ignored him. ‘Better jump in the shower, Cass, before Mike gets in there. We’ve got loads to do this morning.’

I looked at my phone again. No missed calls, no text messages. I’d called Dan four times the previous evening and sent two texts telling him I loved him. He was officially ignoring me.

Why I had to be dragged out of bed at half past seven I have no idea, since we didn’t actually get going until after nine. I think Celia just cannot stand the idea that I am lying in bed doing nothing when she is making breakfast, supervising baths, brushing hair and selecting outfits. In any case, I was showered and dressed and just helping myself to a second piece of toast when Mike emerged wearing a ridiculous pair of green and brown checked trousers and a brown sweater.

‘All right, Cass?’ he said, giving me a peck on the cheek. ‘You made it then?’

‘I did indeed. How are you?’

‘Oh, not so bad, not so bad. Bit of a sore head this morning, you know how it is. Off to play eighteen holes at the club with a couple of chaps from work. How’s your job going, by the way? You still got one? Hamilton Churchill’s not gone under yet?’ he enquired cheerily.

‘It’s going fine, Mike,’ I said, gritting my teeth.

‘Even so, you might want to start looking around, you know, keep an eye out for other opportunities. Just to be safe. Because from what I hear, there are going to be a lot of jobs going in your sector.’

I chewed my toast and clamped my mouth shut. Fortunately, we were interrupted by Rosie who came tearing into the room and flung herself across my lap.

‘Lucy’s got a party dress on,’ Rosie announced proudly, showing me her doll, which had been draped in sparkly silver wrapping paper.

‘And doesn’t she look lovely?’ I replied, thinking,
wrapping paper
. Oh, shit. A gift. I had completely forgotten to get my parents a gift. Shit, shit, shit.

Since Mike was golfing all day and therefore unable to either help out with party preparations or look after the children, Celia had arranged for Rosie and Monty to spend the day with Jo, her best friend who has kids of similar ages. After Jo’s we drove Tom to his karate lesson, then into town to buy balloons and glittery, sparkly things which Celia said were for sprinkling over tables. We picked up the cake, a rather boring white square with ‘
Congratulations!
’ written on it in blue icing and ‘
Tim and Susan, 28 happy years
’ underneath in pink. From there we went to the dry cleaner’s to fetch Mike’s ‘good’ suit, to the florist’s to pick up the fifteen floral centrepieces (it’s a good thing Celia drives an Espace), and from there to the school to pick Tom up from karate. We drove him home for a hurriedly devoured sandwich, after which he too was left with Jo.