Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista (13 page)

Walking down country lanes in the Cotswolds is not a bit like walking in London. There are no pavements. There is tarmac and if you’re lucky a bit of grass verge. If you’re not lucky there are just hedgerows into which it is necessary to fling oneself when yet another sports
car or SUV comes screaming around the corner.

I arrived at the hotel hot (despite the freezing temperatures outside), bothered, breathless and in quite a bit of pain (there’s a reason people spend a fortune on shoes). I had just run up the steps and was about to nip into the loo to fix myself up when, to my horror, a large black Rolls-Royce decked out with white ribbons – unmistakably the bride’s – pulled up. There was no time. I’d just have to go straight in. Picking bits of twig out of my hair, I flung my coat at the cloakroom assistant and slipped into the banqueting hall where the service was taking place, just seconds ahead of the bridesmaids.

I hid behind one of the enormous floral arrangements at the back of the room (rumour had it that the flowers for this bash cost upwards of fifteen grand. From my vantage point it looked like money well spent). Unfortunately, I could not see a single spare seat. I spotted Ali, about ten rows in, sitting between Sophie and Kate who were both wearing the sort of fascinators that Sarah Jessica Parker might reject for being over-the-top. She hadn’t saved me a seat. Helplessly I scanned the room once more – the music was starting up, the bride was about to enter, there was not a moment to lose – there! Three or four rows in on the groom’s side there was an empty seat right in the middle of the row.

I scuttled over and whispered at the gentleman on the end of the row, ‘Would you mind terribly moving along a bit?’

‘Yes, I would,’ he replied loudly. ‘People should arrive on time. Then they wouldn’t have any trouble finding a seat.’

The people in front were turning around and looking. The bridesmaids were hovering in the doorway, waiting to make their entrance. I pushed past the man at the end of the row, past his wife, past the impeccable blondes next to her, and so on and so on. People tutted and sighed dramatically as I inconvenienced them. Eventually I got to the seat. As I sank down into it, breathing an enormous sigh of relief, I saw him. Dan was on the other side of the room, a few rows ahead. He was looking straight at me. For a second, our eyes met. The woman sitting next to him whispered something in his ear and he turned away.

The service was a long one. I wept as though I were the bride’s mother, though her tears were unlikely to be quite so bitter. The woman sitting next to me handed me a Kleenex.

‘I always cry at weddings,’ she smiled at me. ‘It’s just so lovely to see two young people so in love.’ I sobbed even harder. Eventually, after what seemed like three hours of vows, songs and sermons, we were allowed out. I made a beeline for the ladies loo.

I sized myself up in the mirror. Not good. I still had a few remaining bits of hedgerow in my hair and my face was shiny and flushed from the two-mile hike. As for the outfit … I was wearing a strapless gunmetal-grey satin dress which I’d found in H&M – when I’d
tried it on in the shop I thought it looked simple and elegant. In the right light, if you squinted a little, it might just about pass for Calvin Klein. But now, in the ladies loos at Bramley House, standing in front of the full-length mirror, under unnecessarily harsh lighting, it just looked exactly what it was: cheap. Everyone would know. There I was, alone, in my cheap dress and scuffed shoes, and I had to go out and mingle with people wearing Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent, people wearing couture, for God’s sake, people who arrived by helicopter or at the very least by Rolls-Royce.

I needed help. I needed a friend. Having done my best to fix my make-up, I went back to the party. There was still a throng of people surrounding the happy couple (she did look very good in her dress – but then who wouldn’t look good in Vera Wang? – but I thought he looked a bit chinless) so I didn’t even bother to try to get close enough to congratulate them – they had far more important people to speak to. I made my way through the crowd, keeping my head down, anxious to speak to Ali or at the very least to get some champagne down my throat before I had to deal with the likes of Nicholas, Christa or worse. I had almost made it – I could see Ali was just a few feet away from me, standing next to the bar – when disaster struck. Paul Fitzgerald, the odious hedge fund manager who had tried his best to humiliate me the night of the office party, lurched into my path.

‘Hello there, love,’ he said, breathing whisky at me.
He was swaying a little; he must have started the party early, just for a change. ‘Dan not with you today?’ Dan had come to my defence the last time I encountered this slug. Today there was no one to help.

‘No, he’s not with me,’ I said, desperately trying to make my way past him.

‘Oh, no, that’s right, he’s here with Tania, isn’t he? Fantastic legs that Tania, they go all the way up. Must be difficult, splitting up, you know, with the two of you working together …’ He laughed a nasty, snorting laugh. ‘I do keep putting my foot in it, don’t I? You don’t work with him any more, do you? Where are you working these days?’

Abandoning any attempt to be polite I barged past Paul, shoving him into the gaggle of guests standing just behind him. Once again, there was much tutting and sighing. I finally arrived at the bar, grabbed a glass of champagne from the waiter and almost fell into Ali’s arms.

‘Oh, my God, I’m having a terrible day,’ I moaned.

‘There’s a lot of it about,’ she replied without looking at me.

‘Why, what’s up?’

‘Oh, nothing much, just … stuff.’ She was gazing into the crowd of guests, searching the room for someone. I noticed that the drink in her glass was clear and still, rather than champagne coloured and bubbly.

‘You on the wagon?’ I asked.

‘I don’t have to get completely pissed at every party I go to, do I?’ she asked crossly. Finally, she was
looking at me. Actually, she was looking me up and down. ‘That dress isn’t so bad,’ she said, giving me a half-smile. She put down her drink. ‘I’m just going to go and talk to Sophie. I’ll catch up with you later.’

Well, that was weird. She was cold, distracted, unfriendly and – I sniffed her glass – she was drinking water. She’d driven up here with Sophie. She’d been sitting with Sophie during the service. And now she needed to talk to Sophie again? Feeling confused and upset, I grabbed a second glass of champagne and knocked it back in one. A gaggle of Hamilton Churchill women walked past, eyeing me with disdain. Oh, God. I couldn’t just cower in the corner getting pissed. I had to get out there and mingle.

For about a half hour or so, I did quite well. I forced myself to go over and make small talk with Nicholas, who was surprisingly friendly to me.

‘We miss you in the office, Cassie. Christa’s terribly efficient but she doesn’t anticipate my needs in quite the way you did,’ he said, giving my arm a squeeze. I wondered whether he was drunk. Next up were Christa and Angela, the two who had shunned me in the street after the recent dog-walking debacle. They smiled at me stiffly.

‘How
are
you, Cassie?’ Christa asked. ‘It’s such a terribly difficult market out there at the moment, isn’t it? Have you managed to find any work?’

‘Oh, you know, this and that,’ I said vaguely. She smiled sympathetically. I resisted the urge to punch her in the face. ‘Actually, I’m thinking of taking some
time off,’ I lied. ‘Going travelling. Vietnam, maybe, or South America. London’s so
grey
this time of year, isn’t it? It’s just so dull.’

‘Sounds expensive. I didn’t know you were independently wealthy, Cassie,’ Angela smirked. I noticed that she had a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her shoe. That cheered me up.

‘There’s a lot about me you don’t know, Angie. In fact, I’m sure there’s a lot you don’t know about a lot of things,’ I said with a laugh. They stared at me, incredulous. I realised that I was feeling quite drunk. And that I was starting to enjoy myself. I moved on through the crowd, chatting amiably to those ex-colleagues who acknowledged my existence, and even managing to exchange a few words with the bride.

I was in the middle of telling Emily how lovely she looked when we were interrupted by a tall, dark-haired woman wearing what looked to me like Prada with a pair of Louboutins exactly like mine.

‘Hi, babe,’ the woman said, giving Emily a kiss on the cheek. ‘Don’t you look fabulous?’ She turned to me and smiled. ‘I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Tania.’ She held out a perfectly manicured hand. ‘But then you probably knew that, didn’t you?’

I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there, smiling stupidly at her, desperately trying to think of something cutting or clever or at the very least vaguely amusing to say. Nothing came to me.

‘You’re walking dogs now, I hear?’ she said. How the fuck did she know that? ‘What’s that like?’

‘It’s … uh …’

‘That good, huh? Still, you obviously enjoy walking. Because you walked here, didn’t you? I think we passed you on the way.’

This could not get worse. It just could not get worse. From nowhere, clutching two glasses of champagne, Dan appeared at her side. It had just got worse. He, at least, had the good grace to look ill at ease as he handed her a drink.

‘Hello, Cassie,’ he mumbled, looking at his shoes. ‘You having a good time?’

He shifted awkwardly from one foot to another, looking excruciatingly uncomfortable.

I didn’t say a word. Eventually, he looked up at me.

‘Are you all right, Cassie?’ he asked. He looked apologetic.

Tania slipped her hand into his.

‘Come, darling,’ she said, pulling him away from me. ‘Let’s go find someone fun to talk to.’

My champagne buzz well and truly killed, I retreated once more to the loo. Hiding in the cubicle, I wondered how in God’s name he had fallen for her. How could he have chosen to be with someone so cruel? It was almost enough to make me feel sorry for him. It wasn’t as though she had anything to fear from me: she was the one in the expensive dress and the great shoes. She was the one who had her man. What would make her want to stick the knife into another woman like that? The doors opened; people came and went. For the first time all day I felt safe. I wondered
whether it would be possible to nip out, get a drink and come back to enjoy it without attracting attention. Probably not.

I heard the doors open again and the cut-glass tones of Christa Freeman and Angela Chenowith ringing out.

‘God, she’s full of shit, isn’t she?’ Christa was saying. ‘All that crap about going travelling. As if. She’s obviously broke. Did you hear she’s walking dogs for a living these days!’ They laughed.

‘I know, my God, you’d have to be broke to come to a society wedding dressed like that. Hideous. I can’t even believe she turned up at all. The only reason she got an invite was because she was seeing that trader. What’s his name?’

‘Dan something. Great-looking but a total shagger. He’s slept with half the women in Canary Wharf.’

One of them pushed at the door of my cubicle. They fell silent.

‘There’s someone in here,’ Angela hissed. There was shuffling, then giggling.

‘Oh, Christ, I bet it’s her!’ There was more giggling and, eventually, the two of them left. I slipped off my shoes, rubbed my aching feet and did my best not to cry.

The good news was that I was on Ali’s table for dinner. The bad news was that the rest of the table was made up of Hamilton traders who spent the entire time talking shop and ignoring me. And so much for it
being a plus that I was sitting with Ali. She barely said a word to anyone, including me. She was behaving completely out of character – I couldn’t believe it. After dinner I cornered her on the terrace where she was smoking a cigarette.

‘Who did you tell about the dog walking?’ I demanded to know. ‘How is it that everybody seems to know about that? How is it that
Tania
knows about that?’

She sighed and flicked her half-smoked cigarette into the nearest plant pot.

‘I don’t know, Cassie, I might have mentioned it to someone at work. Is it really that important?’

‘Yes, it bloody is, actually. Haven’t I been humiliated enough? With the sacking and the Dan thing and the Tania thing?’

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, looking over my shoulder.

‘Who are you looking for?’ I asked. ‘What’s going on? You’ve been weird all night. Whenever I come near you, you act like you would rather be somewhere else. You’ve barely said a word to me all night. What is this? Are you embarrassed to be seen with me now?’

‘Jesus Christ, Cassie, not everything is about you! If you ever stopped moaning for just one second about how awful your life is you might actually notice that there are other things going on.’

‘So what
is
going on? Why won’t you tell me?’

‘I really don’t have time for this …’

‘You don’t have time? You don’t have time? Why?
What’s the hurry? Got to get back to Sophie and Kate, back to the important people?’

‘Something like that,’ she said, and walked away.

I went to the hotel reception and asked them to call me a cab. Mercifully, they could get one (it was only ten thirty, not many people would be leaving yet). Unable to face any more debilitating encounters I stood on the steps outside, shivering in the freezing night air, wishing I smoked. At least that would give me an excuse for standing out here.