Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

assistant if you’re moving on to greater things.’

22
     
    Cassie Cavanagh parle assez bien le Français mais son Espanol laisse à désirer …
    I drove back to Paris the following morning, keeping in the vague vicinity of the speed limit this time, although my mind was racing all the way. I was alternately overwhelmed with excitement and fear. I was no longer just a PA. I was going to have a real job, with real responsibilities. I was going to have to learn all about the wine business. I was going to have to learn Spanish. I was going to have to travel around Europe negotiating with wine makers. It was ridiculous. Me? Negotiating? It was terrifying.
    By the time I got back home to Clapham it was after nine and I was exhausted, every last scrap of nervous energy burned out of me. I went straight to bed, depite the fact that it was two o’clock in the afternoon, and fell asleep almost instantly. I dreamed that I was lost in a maze of grapevines. Every time I thought I had found the way out I would turn a corner only tofind that there were more vines ahead, stretching out as far as the eye could see.
    I was woken by the sound of smashing china followed by loud cursing. I looked at my alarm clock. It was after ten. I’d been asleep for eight hours. I dragged myself out of bed, threw on my robe and staggered into the living room.
    ‘Don’t come in!’ Jude yelled at me. She was standing in the middle of the room with a dustpan and brush, looking hot and bothered. ‘I’ve just knocked over the table lamp and there are bits of broken china everywhere.’
    ‘What are you doing?’ I asked, retreating a couple of steps into the hallway.
    ‘I’m packing.’
    ‘Jude, you’re not leaving for two weeks.’
    ‘But we’re sending out our stuff on Tuesday – everything that we’re not actually carrying, that is. So I have to pack up my books and pictures and things this weekend.’ She went back to her sweeping. ‘Sorry about the lamp, by the way.’
    ‘That’s OK. I never liked it that much anyway. It was a Christmas present from Celia.’ I shuffled back to my bedroom, put on my slippers and shuffled back again.
    ‘What was all that business about France?’ Jude asked, brandishing my note at me.
    ‘Long story,’ I said. ‘Do you fancy a cup of tea?’
    Over tea and toast I told her all about Rupert losing the contracts, the mad mercy dash to the South of France and about my promotion. She seemed pleasedfor me, although not as pleased as I would have imagined she would be.
    ‘Have you told Jake?’ she asked.
    ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘I haven’t really had time. I was thinking of taking him out for a celebratory dinner tomorrow.’
    ‘That sounds good,’ she said, but she still seemed rather subdued. Perhaps she was just feeling a bit sad about moving out.
    I took Jake out to dinner at the Bleeding Heart bistro in Farringdon. We sat out in the candlelit courtyard (where the beautiful Lady Elizabeth Hatton, the toast of seventeenth-century London society, allegedly had her heart ripped out by one of her many suitors) drinking champagne. Jake, like Jude, did not seem quite as delighted about my promotion as I was. He congratulated me, of course, and kissed me and told me how brilliant I was, but he seemed distracted. He also seemed very quiet. I’m all for comfortable silences, but after sitting across the table from him while he pushed his food around the plate, saying nothing for a good five minutes, I asked what was up.
    ‘I’ve been offered a job,’ he said at last.
    ‘That’s brilliant news! Why are you looking so miserable about it?’ He pushed his hand through his hair and smiled at me, a very sad smile.
    ‘It’s not in London,’ he said.
    ‘Oh. Well, where is it? Nowhere too northern, I hope.’
    ‘Not northern, no. Southern, actually.’
    ‘What, like Brighton? Brighton would be cool. And it’s only about an hour from London.’
    He took my hand. ‘No, Cassie, not Brighton,’ he said. ‘It’s in Africa.’
    ‘Oh.’ Neither of us said anything for a bit.
    ‘It’s a really good opportunity for me,’ he said eventually.
    ‘Whereabouts in Africa?’ I asked. Like it mattered. He might as well have been going to Mars.
    ‘I’d be starting out in West Africa, but I could be travelling around quite a bit. It’s for Unicef, you see …’
    ‘Matt got this you job, did he?’ Bastard.
    ‘Yeah – basically they want a photographer to travel around for six months or so,