Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

them—’
    ‘At the hotel. I left them at the hotel. And my lovely assistant was good enough to bring them across.’
    ‘Well. Thank goodness for your . . . uh . . . lovely assistant. Perhaps not such a bad start after all,’ M. Leveque said.
    The Leveques invited me to stay for dinner, a delicious rack of lamb with a mustard and rosemary crust. Afterwards, M. Leveque, whom we were by now permitted to refer to as Alexandre, gave us a quick tour of the wine cellars. I was expecting a dank and dusty chamber beneath the chateau; but there were literally miles of tunnels running underneath the vines, lined with hundreds of thousands of bottles, some of them more than fifty years old and worth thousands of pounds. I was sorely tempted to nick one and slip it into my handbag.
    The tour completed, Marie-Louise (Madame Leveque) and I had coffee in the living room while Rupert and Alexandre disappeared into the study to talk business. A few minutes later they emerged, Alexandre looking quietly satisfied, Rupert beaming like an overexcited schoolboy. We said goodnight and I drove us back to the hotel.
    Rupert babbled excitedly all the way.
    ‘How on earth did you get here?’ he asked as we pulled out of the gates. ‘Christ, I couldn’t believe it when I saw you standing in the living room. I thought I was having some sort of psychic episode. What time did you get in to Bordeaux?’
    ‘Actually, I flew to Paris,’ I told him. ‘Then I drove. Breaking the speed limit all the way.’
    ‘Good for you!’ he chortled, slapping me on the back. ‘Cassie Cavanagh saves the day!’
    ‘Actually, it seemed as though you were doing pretty well on your own. Leveque wasn’t at all what Iexpected. He didn’t seem especially Anglophobic to me.’
    ‘He did warm up as the evening went on, didn’t he? But you should have been there at the start. When I told him I didn’t have the papers with me I thought he was going to throw me out on my ear. He’s definitely a man to be handled with care. You seemed to charm him though. You’re good with men, aren’t you? Nicholas told me that. He always had a bit of a soft spot for you.’
    The next morning I was enjoying a grand crème and a croissant on the terrace – an extremely civilised way to begin one’s Friday – when Rupert appeared. He looked bleary eyed and exhausted.
    ‘Ended up closing the bar,’ he admitted as he sank down into the chair opposite me. ‘The wine list here is fantastic.’ He ordered a coffee and smiled wearily at me. ‘I’ve just been on the phone to Olly. We’re thinking about making some changes at the office.’
    ‘Really?’ I asked, not sure whether to be excited or nervous.
    ‘Sales for the first quarter of this year are looking well ahead of our projections – it is amazing in this climate, but I guess demand for booze is pretty inelastic. Plus, I think we did get the pricing right. In any case, our figures are looking pretty healthy, even if I do say so myself. A lot of the demand is for New World wines – they are cheaper, after all – so we’ve decided that we’re going to give Peter the job ofsourcing South American and Australasian wines fulltime. Not sure where he’ll be based just yet – could be Buenos Aires, could be Sydney – but we’re going to need to replace him in London.’
    Buenos Aires! Lucky sod. I’d always wanted to go to South America.
    ‘So what do you think?’ Rupert asked.
    ‘Sounds fantastic,’ I said. ‘I’m so pleased that everything’s going so well. I’ll get onto drafting up a job description and advertisement as soon as we get back to London.’
    Rupert laughed. ‘No, I mean, would you be interested in taking over Peter’s role? I’d need to get you trained up first – you’d probably need to go on a course or two – but it’s really a learn-on-the-job type of thing. It would be very hard work, but the money would be better. Quite a lot better.’
    I nearly choked on my croissant. Promoted? I was getting promoted? I’d only just got the job full-time.
    ‘And of course there would be the opportunity to travel. How’s your Spanish?’
    ‘Um . . . non-existent really. I have schoolgirl French . . .’
    ‘Well, you’d have to take some language classes, too. But we’d really like you to take a more challenging role. You’ve done a great job for us so far. Of course, the first thing you’ll have to do when you get back is find someone to replace you – we’ll need a new