Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

on a robe, and lie down on the bed in the cubicle. The doctor would be with me in a second. When he arrived, I knew for sure. Events of the past few weeks had given me thestrong suspicion that God hated me, but I couldn’t be certain. Now I knew. There in front of me stood Dr Dragovic, a six-foot-four Serb, all dark hair and smouldering eyes, St Thomas’s answer to Luka Kovaoff ER . (Dr Dragovic probably wouldn’t welcome the comparison – I had a feeling the Serbs and the Croats didn’t like each other that much – but it was true.)
    Dr Dragovic read my notes. He read them again. He looked up at me. I smiled stupidly. He went back to his notes.
    ‘OK, Miss Cavanagh,’ he said in his delightfully brooding accent, ‘I’m just going to take a look here.’
    Oh, sweet Jesus, he’s lifting up my robe.
    ‘Right, I see,’ he said, examining the area with a frown. I could no longer bear to look at him. I just lay back with my eyes closed, feeling my face turn puce.
    ‘I think there is some quite bad scalding there . . . And we will of course have to remove the . . . the material in order to treat . . .’ He stood up straight and I yanked the robe back down to my knees. He smiled, revealing a gold tooth which for some inexplicable reason made him even sexier. ‘It won’t be too bad. We just need to get the material off without damaging your skin. Don’t worry too much.’
    He disappeared for a few minutes and returned with Josephine who now bore a range of unguents and something that looked like a heat pack that you’d put on a swollen ankle.
    ‘We need to soften the wax a bit, then we can remove it and treat the burn,’ Dr Dragovic explained kindly.‘But first I will give you something so that you cannot feel it so much.’ Oh, thank God. Drugs. Unfortunately, all he gave me was a local anaesthetic which meant him inspecting my unwaxed upper thighs once again. I swore under my breath that if I ever came across Araminta Foster I would make her feel my wrath.
    Fortunately, the procedure was relatively painless. There was a nasty red welt on my upper thigh which they covered with antiseptics and a bandage, and I was under strict instructions not to get the burn wet for three days.
    ‘No showers?’ I asked, incredulous.
    ‘No showers,’ Josephine replied firmly. ‘In three days you must come back and we’ll change the dressing and make sure everything’s OK.’ She smiled sweetly at me. ‘Next time, I would go to the beauty salon. I know a good one in Chingford if you’d like a recommendation.’
    By the time I was finished, Ali had arrived. She was standing outside the A&E waiting room, smoking a cigarette. She started to laugh as soon as she saw me.
    ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ she giggled, giving me a hug. ‘That must have been a special experience.’
    ‘You have no idea,’ I replied. ‘You should have seen the doctor. Luka Kova, only better.’
    ‘Jeez, can we go back in? Perhaps if I stub my cigarette out on my arm I’ll get to meet him.’
    Ali bundled me into a cab and the two of us headed over to her flat near Angel. She was renting the mostfabulous, canal-side warehouse conversion (complete with roof terrace, hot tub and Porsche kitchen) which she’d snapped up last year just after getting her bonus.
    ‘Don’t think I’m going to be here much longer,’ she said miserably as we took the lift to the fifth floor.’
    ‘Worried about work?’ I asked.
    ‘It’s not so much that . . .’ she said.
    We were barely through the door when she broke down in tears.
    ‘Oh, Cassie,’ she blubbed at me, collapsing in a heap on the sheepskin rug in the entrance hall, ‘I can’t believe what a mess I’ve made of everything.’
    I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Ali, stone-cold sober, totally losing the plot? It just didn’t happen. She was the strongest, most in-control woman I’d ever met; she was one of the most macho of traders at Hamilton, feared at poker games because she never, ever gave anything away.
    ‘What is it?’ I asked, kneeling down to put my arms around her. ‘What on earth’s happened?’
    She continued to blub but didn’t say anything.
    ‘Can I get you a drink?’ I asked. ‘Vodka? Wine?’
    ‘Nooo!’ she wailed, and blubbed even harder.
    When she’d finally stopped crying and I managed to move her from the floor to the sofa, she asked for a cup of tea. As I handed it to her, she said, ‘I’m pregnant.’ I almost dropped the scalding tea in her lap,