Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

me. They’ve been having dinner at Roka! Oh, all right, that was me, too. My sense of horror and shame growing, I realised that it was all me. Me, me, me, buying clothes and shoes and cases of wine, me, spending a fortune on cosmetics and hair products, me buying flights to Rome … Oh, bugger. I’d completely forgotten about the Rome thing.
    I rang Alitalia straight away. No, the woman said, they didn’t do refunds, but if I needed to cancel the trip due to illness or bereavement, my travel insurer would cover the cost. Bereft I might be, but travel insurance? Who the hell has travel insurance? Perhaps I could flog the tickets to someone else? Ali and her Frenchman might fancy a weekend in Rome. Or I could sell them on eBay. I might even make a profit. I rang Alitalia back. Would it be possible to issue the tickets without a name on them? The woman laughed. No, that would not be possible, she said, since airline tickets, as everyone knows, are not transferable. Great. Not only had I wasted more than four hundred pounds on tickets to Rome, but the airline woman was calling me stupid.
    I rang the Hotel de Russie next, and was eventually transferred to someone who spoke passable English. Yes, they could cancel my reservation, but I would be charged for the first night’s stay.
    If you do not cancel your booking more than seven days before your planned arrival date you have to pay for the first night. Hotel policy. Ridiculous, thieving policy more like.
    And just when I thought I could not feel any worse, something at the top of the statement caught my eye. It was dated the fifteenth of October. The fifteenth of October. That was over a week ago. Which meant that none of the many, many purchases I’d made over the past week had even shown up on the statement yet. Feeling more than a little queasy, I delved into my bag, rooted around for my purse and retrieved a handful ofscrunched-up credit card slips. With a growing sense of foreboding, I fetched a calculator from the desk in Jude’s room and totted up the total.
    Holy, holy crap. Over the past seven days I had spent £1,433.29. Which meant that my total debt amounted to … £6,756.16. Oh. My. God.
    I wondered if I could cancel the order for the Bottega Veneta handbag? I decided against it. Probably a false economy – the bag was on sale and if I cancelled that purchase I would most likely just end up buying something at full price instead. No, instead of thinking about saving money, I had to think about making it. I logged back onto the Reed Recruitment site and applied for every job I thought I might be even vaguely qualified for. Most of them were more senior positions than the one I had held at Hamilton Churchill, but I had to aim high now. I was going to need the money.
    I was just tinkering with the wording of a covering letter for the post of an executive assistant to the head of a large multinational company when my phone buzzed in my bag. I fished it out and almost dropped it on the floor when I saw his name on the display. Dan calling.
    My heart was pounding in my chest.
    Should I answer it? No, I should press ignore.
    No, I should answer it and tell him exactly what I thought of him.
    No, I shouldn’t – I would probably end up crying and screaming, which was undignified. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
    But I didn’t want to give him the opportunity to apologise to by voicemail either – he didn’t deserve to get away with that.
    The phone stopped ringing. I stared at it, waiting for it to buzz again, to alert me to the fact that I had a new message. It didn’t. Bollocks! Why hadn’t I answered it? Maybe he was calling to beg for forgiveness, to plead with me to take him back. Which was a very good reason not to take his calls. Knowing me, I’d let myself be suckered in to getting back together with him.
    Feeling panicky and flustered, I decided to go for a walk. I needed some air. Leaving my phone behind so as to eliminate any temptation to take Dan’s calls, I set off in the direction of the Common. I was almost there when I noticed the ‘Sale’ sign in the window of Oliver Bonas.
    Don’t go in, Cassie, I told myself. Resist! Then I saw it. In the window display was the lovely little red lacquered bedside table I’d been coveting for ages. And it was reduced, from £410 to £280. A saving of more than a hundred pounds! Cursing my bad luck (why oh why had they put that table in the window?) I went inside and bought