Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

do it.’
    ‘You do realise, Ali, that once the baby is born it will be quite some time before he’s moving about on his own? They don’t start crawling till they’re about eight or nine months old. And even then he’shighly unlikely to be able to fling himself over the balcony.’
    ‘You never know,’ she said, tucking into her second helping of pancakes with blueberry compote. ‘In any case, I’m going to have to move sometime. It’ll be easier now than once he gets here, won’t it?’ I wasn’t sure that house hunting when seven months’ pregnant was likely to be easy, but once Ali gets an idea into her head she’s unlikely to be deterred. ‘In any case, I might not be working for a while after I have the baby, and that’s going to make it more difficult to get a mortgage, isn’t it? In any case, I was thinking of ringing round some agents this afternoon, just to see what’s available.’
    ‘I can help out if you like,’ I said, although I wasn’t sure when I was going to be able to help out, since I seemed to spend almost every waking hour at the office. ‘I could come along to viewings with you, that sort of thing.’
    Three days later, she rang me at the office.
    ‘I’ve found a house!’ she said excitedly.
    ‘Bloody hell, that was quick.’
    ‘I know, and it’s absolutely perfect. I really, really want it.’
    ‘How much?’ I asked.
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’
    ‘It’s up for auction next Friday. The guide price is two hundred and fifty grand, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I’m off to see a broker now,to get a mortgage agreed in principle. And I’m going to take a look at it this evening.’
    ‘You mean you haven’t actually seen it yet?’
    ‘No, but I can just tell it’s going to be perfect. Can you come with me tonight? It’s on St Mark’s Road. A stone’s throw from Notting Hill! Viewings start at six.’
    St Mark’s Road was a stone’s throw from the dodgy end of Notting Hill, otherwise known as Ladbroke Grove. But I could see why Ali liked the place. It was a little Victorian house with three bedrooms and a garden out back. The interior was gorgeous: dark hardwood floors, sash windows, a brand new kitchen and a master bedroom in the converted loft which had enormous skylights in the roof.
    ‘I know we’re in a crummy market,’ I said to Ali as we tiptoed around the place, trying not to bump into other viewers, nor to convey to them any excitement or enthusiasm about the place whatsoever, ‘but why is this place selling at auction? You would have thought it would go quite easily through an agent.’
    ‘It’s a repossession, apparently,’ Ali whispered back. ‘The guy who did it up was a property developer who took on too many houses, spent a fortune doing them up and then couldn’t get rid of them quickly enough. If it goes for anything like the guide price it’ll be an absolute bloody steal.’
    Later, over steaks at Black & Blue on Kensington Church Street I asked the obvious question.
    ‘Say it doesn’t go for anything like the guide price. Say it goes for considerably more. Can you afford athree hundred grand property if you’re not going to be working, Ali?’
    She chewed a mouthful of ribeye thoughtfully.
    ‘Not really. It depends how long I’m out of work for, I suppose. It isn’t absolutely guaranteed that Hamilton will sack me. Nicholas has actually been making quite encouraging noises since I told him I was pregnant – I think since there are so few women or ethnic minorities at the firm he reckons that having a single mother on the trading floor will be good for the company’s social responsibility rating. I don’t know. I’m not even sure I’m going to want to work as a trader once the baby comes.’ She sighed. ‘I have got enough for a fairly sizeable deposit – I had three years of good bonuses before last year, which was obviously rubbish, and I haven’t spent a great deal of the money. All I did was buy a car, rent the flat and go on a couple of holidays. What would be really helpful would be if I could get someone to move in with me.’
    ‘Got your eye on anyone?’ I asked with a smile.
    ‘What, like a man? In this state? Are you joking? I weigh more than half the forwards on the England rugby team, for God’s sake.’ It was true that she was starting to look fairly hefty. ‘No, what I need is a nice young Eastern European who’ll double as a lodger and