Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

not cancelling it. You can’t just order me around all the time, Jude. It’s my money and I’ve decided to spend it on an outfit for this wedding. It’s none of your business. You shouldn’t be snooping around on my laptop anyway.’
    ‘It’s not your money, Cassie. You don’t have any money, remember? It’s the bank’s money. And it is my business if we’re going to get a sodding eviction notice next month.’
    ‘I’m not cancelling it.’
    ‘Fine, don’t. I’m going to call the landlord this morning and give notice. I’m going to find myself somewhere else to live before we get thrown out onto the street.’
    I cancelled the transaction. And I would never admit it to Jude, but I actually felt incredibly relieved as I was doing it.

9
     
    Cassie Cavanagh demands to know, what fresh hell is this?
    Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, a new low comes.
    When Emily invited me to her wedding, I was delighted. It was going to be such a lovely weekend. I had pictured Dan and me driving up the night before the service in his Audi TT coupé, with the top down, a brightly printed scarf tied around my hair (in my imagination it was a very warm and sunny November). We would book a suite at the hotel, we would drink champagne and eat strawberries on the balcony (again, warm and sunny), we would have breakfast in bed, perhaps pop down to the spa for a shiatsu or a scrub before getting ready for the main event. I had not pictured myself having to take the train from London, or jammed into a carriage where there was standing room only (I stood) because there were engineering works on the line. I had not picturedstaying in a grotty bed and breakfast two miles away from the reception venue. And I had certainly not pictured myself having to walk those two miles, in my nasty cheap high heels, because there is only one minicab firm in the entire bloody county and all their cars were already booked.
    When I discovered that there were no cars available, I rang Ali, who was staying at Bramley House with the rest of the rich and posh.
    ‘You have to come and get me!’ I pleaded with her.
    ‘I don’t have my car,’ she said. ‘Sorry. I got a lift down with Sophie and Kate.’ Sophie and Kate were the only other female traders on the Hamilton Churchill equities team.
    ‘Oh. Well, maybe one of them could come and get me?’
    ‘No, they can’t, they’ve been drinking champagne since breakfast. Sorry.’
    ‘Ali …’ I started to say, but she’d already hung up.
    She didn’t sound very sorry. She sounded slightly irritated that I was bothering her. She was obviously still cross about the confrontation at my place, when I’d yelled at her and accused her of ganging up on me – with Jude of all people. There was nothing for it. I would have to walk.
    Walking down country lanes in the Cotswolds is not a bit like walking in London. There are no pavements. There is tarmac and if you’re lucky a bit of grass verge. If you’re not lucky there are just hedgerows into which it is necessary to fling oneself when yet another sportscar or SUV comes screaming around the corner.
    I arrived at the hotel hot (despite the freezing temperatures outside), bothered, breathless and in quite a bit of pain (there’s a reason people spend a fortune on shoes). I had just run up the steps and was about to nip into the loo to fix myself up when, to my horror, a large black Rolls-Royce decked out with white ribbons – unmistakably the bride’s – pulled up. There was no time. I’d just have to go straight in. Picking bits of twig out of my hair, I flung my coat at the cloakroom assistant and slipped into the banqueting hall where the service was taking place, just seconds ahead of the bridesmaids.
    I hid behind one of the enormous floral arrangements at the back of the room (rumour had it that the flowers for this bash cost upwards of fifteen grand. From my vantage point it looked like money well spent). Unfortunately, I could not see a single spare seat. I spotted Ali, about ten rows in, sitting between Sophie and Kate who were both wearing the sort of fascinators that Sarah Jessica Parker might reject for being over-the-top. She hadn’t saved me a seat. Helplessly I scanned the room once more – the music was starting up, the bride was about to enter, there was not a moment to lose – there! Three or four rows in on the groom’s side there was an empty seat right in the middle of the row.
    I scuttled over and