Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

came home.
    ‘You’ll never guess!’ I yelled excitedly to her, running out into the hallway in a skirt and bra.
    ‘You’re thinking of becoming a stripper?’ she ventured.
    ‘I’ve got an interview! It’s just for a temp job, but I think it could lead onto something permanent.’ Actually the temp agency had suggested no such thing, but it never hurt to be upbeat.
    ‘Brilliant news, Cass. Do you think that warrants opening a bottle of champagne?’ I said yes, of course, and we settled down on the sofa with our glasses.
    ‘So when’s the interview?’ she asked me.
    ‘Friday,’ I said. ‘Friday morning.’
    Thursday passed fairly uneventfully in a blur of dog leads and job applications – two things I was hoping to be able to leave behind for good in a few days’ time. It wasn’t until the evening that things went downhill. Jake phoned at around six.
    ‘How’d the interview go?’ he asked, his tone flat.
    ‘It was fine . . . OK, you know.’ There was a long silence. I knew that something was up.
    ‘You know what, Cassie? I don’t know why you cancelled last night and right now I honestly don’t care. I find all this game playing unbearable. You obviously are better suited to rich City boys who treat you like shit.’
    He hung up, leaving me standing in the kitchen with the phone to my ear, red-faced and crushed.
    I wasn’t sure how he knew that I’d lied, but I had my suspicions, which were duly confirmed when Jude got home.
    ‘Did you talk to Jake at all today?’ I asked her.
    ‘Yeah. We had a bit of a weird conversation actually.He was asking what time your interview was, and I said it wasn’t until tomorrow, and he was really insistent that it must be today . . . Anyway. I did eventually convince him that it was tomorrow morning, and then he just went all moody and silent and walked off. What’s that about?’
    I admitted that I’d lied to him about the interview.
    ‘Cassie! You idiot. You could at least have told me that so we could have had our stories straight. In any case, you could have told him the truth. He’s a lovely guy, he’s not like—’
    ‘Dan? No, I’m sure he isn’t, but how could I have told him the truth, Jude? What was I going to say? “The thing is, Jake, I can’t go out with you tonight because I can’t have a shower and wash my hair. Why can’t I do that? Well, thinking that there was a slight chance that we might have sex on our first date, and being too broke to go to a salon to get waxed, I decided to attempt a bikini wax at home by myself and ended up giving myself second-degree burns on my inner thigh.”’ Jude started to giggle. ‘You see? Sometimes, truth-telling really is out of the question.’
    The only good news of the week was that the interview with the temp agency went well. I had five whole days of real work set up: five days in which I would put on a suit and heels and wedge myself onto the tube with the rest of London (oh, how I’d missed that), five days in which I would eat sandwiches from Pret A Manger and drink coffee from Starbucks withthe rest of London, five days in which I would not have to be dragged around the freezing, muddy Common with five dogs attached to my arm, five days in which I would not have enough time to sit around the flat, moping about how rubbish my life is. I was going back to the City. I was going back to work.

14
     
    Cassie Cavanagh is still laughing at Christa
    Bank balance: -£1,877.30
Weeks to go until the money runs out: One, possibly two. Unless I get very prompt payment for this temping job.
    Monday
I couldn’t believe how excited I was to start my new (temp) job. I’d hardly slept the night before, I was like a five-year-old on Christmas Eve. I woke up at six, leapt out of bed as though stung and began preparing myself for the day ahead. I nipped downstairs to the newsagents and bought not just the Guardian , but the FT , too. I washed and blow-dried my hair, put on the very best of the suits I had left (dark grey wool from Max Mara, very fitted, very elegant, very grown up) and a pair of high – though not so high as to look frivolous and flighty – red heels. I didn’t have to be at the offices of Simmons & Blaythe until nine, but I setoff early at quarter to eight anyway. I was leaving nothing to chance. This was the best opportunity I’d had in ages.
    Simmons & Blaythe is another London investment bank. It’s much smaller than Hamilton Churchill, and I quite liked the idea of