Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

boyfriend. I supposed I could volunteer to go to the Polish film festival at the South Bank. Dark, moody, impenetrable, subtitled films might be my idea of hell, but he’d enjoy it.
    As I pushed open the door to the office, Rupert greeted me like some sort of conquering heroine.
    ‘There she is!’ he boomed, spreading his arms wide as though he was about to hug me. ‘The woman of the hour!’ I smiled nervously at him. ‘I just had a call from Richard Eames who tells me that you personally delivered two cases of wine to him last night. Is that right?’
    I explained what had happened, and that I’d thought it was probably best to go the extra mile (and donate the extra champagne) rather than lose a customer.
    ‘I looked through his orders and he’s been a pretty good customer since we opened, so I thought it was worth it.’
    ‘Abso-bloody-lutely!’ Rupert beamed at me. ‘That’sexcellent work, Cassie. Exactly the kind of thing we need. Well done. Now I’m just going to go and bollock the delivery people. They do that again and we’re going to have to find someone else to take care of the orders.’
    I felt a warm glow envelop me, a feeling I had never had before. I realised with a shock that it was job satisfaction.
    It was just after six when Rupert called me into his office.
    ‘I think it’s time your weekend started, young lady. You must have been worked very late last night. Take a bottle of champagne out of the fridge and go and enjoy yourself. You’ve really earned it this week.’
    Excellent, I thought. I’ll nip home, change into something a little less comfortable and then turn up at Jake’s unannounced, brandishing a bottle of champagne. Hopefully that should go some way to putting me back into his good books. I was just heading off to the tube when my phone rang. It was Ali.
    ‘Cass,’ she said, her voice sounding oddly strained. ‘Can you come round?’
    Perfect timing. ‘What’s up? Is something wrong?’ There was an odd wailing on the other end of the line. Oh, Christ, something is wrong. Oh, shit. She’d been for her twenty-week scan. ‘What is it, Ali? Is it the baby?’
    ‘Yes!’ she sobbed. Oh, God. This was awful. This was too awful. She’d lost it.
    ‘Oh, God. What’s happened? Have you miscarried, Ali?’ I asked softly.
    ‘No!’ she wailed even louder. ‘I just can’t do this. It’s insane! I can’t have a bloody baby. What was I thinking? What the bloody hell was I thinking?’
    I sighed. Jake was going to have to wait. As my mother had told me, girlfriends come first. Particularly pregnant, hysterical girlfriends.
    I did a noticeable double-take when Ali opened the door. My beautiful, tall, blonde friend, usually so perfectly groomed, looked a state. She was washed out and pale, racoon-eyed from all the crying, her hair scraped back from her face. She was dressed in a grey, holey T-shirt, a pair of boxer shorts and Ugg boots.
    ‘Do you know how much I weigh?’ she howled at me as I opened the door. ‘Eleven stone. Eleven fucking stone. I can’t believe this. It’s horrible.’ Given that Ali is five foot nine, eleven stone is actually not that bad at all. But since she’s used to being closer to a slender and toned ten stone, her distress was understandable. ‘Eleven fucking stone and I’ve still got twenty weeks to go. I’m going to be an elephant by the time this bloody thing is out of me.’
    ‘Don’t call it a bloody thing,’ I said. ‘You’ll feel guilty when you meet him or her. And eleven stone is not fat, Ali. In any case, you should just bloody enjoy it. It’s the only time in your life you’re allowed to be fat without being treated like crap by everyone.’
    ‘Easy for you to say, you skinny cow. And why have you brought champagne? You know I can’t drink. You’re just torturing me, aren’t you?’
    I explained about the champagne.
    ‘Have you quit smoking?’ I asked her.
    ‘Yes. I’ve quit smoking. I’ve also quit drinking, quit eating sushi, quit running, quit dancing, quit everything. Pregnancy’s rubbish. You can’t do anything fun. Except have sex, of course, but then no one wants to have sex with me looking like this. This is why people have husbands, isn’t it? They have to have sex with you when you’re pregnant.’
    ‘Ali, I’ve no doubt that there are still plenty of men in the world who’d be very happy to sleep with you if you asked nicely,’ I said, giving her a hug. ‘But what’s brought all this