Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

Religion jeans from the pile behind me. ‘God, there’s a load more stuff here!’
    They descended like jackals on a half-eaten zebra carcass, delightedly snatching up the delicious tidbits which I had hoped to save from their grasp. Who cared that a couple of hours ago I was happy to be rid of all this stuff? That was before I knew that all I’d be getting to replace it would be a bunch of tasteless student tat not fit to clean the house in.
    Jude and friends had decamped to the pub, crowing over newly acquired designer items. I remained behind.
    ‘I’m feeling a bit tired,’ I said, clutching the one decent item I had managed to scavenge from Jude’smates, a slightly gothic but quite sexy black dress from All Saints. Not much good for wearing to job interviews, but I had to come away with something.
    ‘I’m not surprised after all the work you’ve put into this, Cass,’ Jude said. ‘It’s just such a shame Ali and the others couldn’t make it.’
    As she left I cursed her and her bright ideas. Dog walking, clothes swaps … it was all her fault. I could have sold all my old stuff on eBay. But oh no, I had to listen to Jude and now, here I was, a hundred and sixty quid out of pocket, half a wardrobe down, left with enough uneaten sushi to feed the five thousand.
    Annoyed as I was, that wasn’t what was really bothering me. What hurt me – if I’m honest, what broke my heart – is that Ali hadn’t shown up. Not only had she not shown up, she hadn’t even called to say she wasn’t coming, to explain why, to apologise. She hadn’t even returned the calls I made earlier in the evening asking her where she was. I was starting to realise what was going on: she had dumped me. Ali had dumped me.
    How had I not recognised the signs earlier? I’ve seen her dump men enough times before. First, there’s the slight cooling of the relationship as she puts some distance between them. Then she starts to look elsewhere, in an obvious way. Her targets are often completely unsuitable people (in this instance Kate and Sophie). She gets irritable in the man’s presence, snaps at him for no reason. Then, if the poor sod hasn’t already got the message, she just snubs him. Doesn’tturn up when she’s supposed to and doesn’t take his calls. It was official. I had been dumped three times in the space of two months: first by my employer, then by my boyfriend and now by my best friend. And this hurt most of all.

13
     
    Cassie Cavanagh is injured
    Hours to go until the date with Jake: 28
Number of pounds in my bank account: -£1,789
Available bank balance: £11
Credit left on my card: £18.88
Weeks until the rent is due: One
    Dog walking continued, out of sheer necessity. After I’d taken Susie and Stanley out (she’s the only one he’ll walk with without biting), I went to see Mrs Bromell to pick up payment. As she handed over the cash, she said, ‘Would you mind popping over to see Mrs Mellor at some point this week, dear?’ Mrs Mellor is the owner of Thierry and Theo, the skittish greyhounds.
    ‘Of course,’ I said, a little nervously. ‘Is something wrong?’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I think she may just have a favour to ask of you.’
    Well, as long as it was a paid favour, I didn’t care.Dog walking over the past week had earned me the princely sum of £70 – not enough to cover half the damned Tsunami sushi bill. Jude had very sweetly offered to give me a bit of cash for the party.
    ‘After all,’ she said, ‘you did all the work and you didn’t seem to take many clothes.’ She handed me a tenner.
    Money wasn’t the only thing playing on my mind. The date with Jake was coming up and I was unaccountably nervous. So nervous I had spent the past three days reading Jude’s Guardian from cover to cover. I was sure he was the sort of person who would have opinions on world events and I didn’t want to come across as a complete idiot. After all, we had only met twice: the first time I had been lying on the bathroom floor, the second I was recovering from a mild concussion following a flood in the kitchen. Come to think of it, why did this man want to go out with me?
    No use obsessing over it, the point was that he did. He did want to go out with me – and he wanted to go out with me tomorrow. I was starting to panic: I had nothing to wear and I was looking, shall we say, a little unkempt. Yes, I know it was only a first date, but there is an unwritten law somewhere that if you