Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista (25 page)

‘Shall I call you back later?’ I asked. ‘You sound … busy.’

‘I’m thinking!’ she protested. ‘I’m just … thinking about it. How about if I lend you the cash, you do the makeover, and if they like it, they repay you and you repay me?’

‘No, Ali, you can’t do that – I can’t risk your money.’

‘Why not? I’m a trader. I like risk. You should go for it. Stick everything on one of my credit cards and then pay me back as and when …’

‘You may like risk, but you also like a return, Al. I know you.’

‘The return is your brilliant career,’ she said. ‘It’s an investment in you.’ She can be very sweet sometimes. ‘Anyway, I’ll lend you the money, but I won’t be coming in to do the DIY. You know that’s not my thing. Get Jude to help out with that – she’s good at that sort of crap. And that new boyfriend of yours …’

‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

‘Yet.’

‘Yet. You’re an angel, Al. I owe you one.’

‘I’ll remember that when it comes to drawing up the babysitting rota, I can promise you.’

Armed with Ali’s credit card details I ordered seven
ergonomic desks and chairs, a new meeting room table, two new filing cabinets and a set of chic red and white blinds which matched the Vintage Organics company logo perfectly. They would be delivered on Saturday afternoon, the furniture company assured me. The window cleaner could come on Saturday morning.

At home, I told Jude about my plan. She listened in silence, fidgeting manically with her worry beads all the time.

‘This is either a brilliant idea or it’s the worst idea you’ve ever had,’ she said nervously. ‘I can’t make up my mind.’

‘Me neither. But I’ve done it now – the stuff’s all ordered so it’s too late to turn back. Can you help me?’

‘Course I will. Matt’s off on Thursday so I was just going to be spending the weekend moping around the flat anyway. Shall we rope Jake in, too?’

‘I think we should.’

I left the office at six on Friday night as usual, but I didn’t return home. Instead, I rendezvoused with Jake and Jude in a bar around the corner. They were both dressed all in black. Jake had brought a balaclava.

‘Just in case,’ he said. ‘This is a covert op, after all.’

After a quick sharpener or two we headed back to the office. As expected, there was no one there – the employees were all long gone and Rupert and Olly, who usually work until nine or ten, had both been given the three line whip to attend some family gathering, so
the were gone too. The door was locked, the lights were off. The three of us tiptoed into the office, locking the door behind us. I turned on the lights.

‘God, it is horrible,’ Jude whispered.

‘I know. When does the van get here?’ I whispered at Jake.

‘Eight,’ he replied, in a completely normal voice.

‘Shhhhh,’ Jude and I both hissed at him.

‘Why? There’s no one around, the building’s deserted.’

He was right, but this was the part of the plan that was making me most nervous. Jake had arranged for a friend of his to bring a van round so that we could get rid of all the old furniture and pull up the carpets before the new stuff arrived the following day. To anyone who saw us doing this, under cover of darkness on a Friday evening, it might well look as though we were just stealing. Technically, I supposed, we were actually stealing, since we were removing company property from the premises without permission. Jake’s friend, Stan, was going to take the furniture and store it in his garage, so it could be returned should Rupert and Olly veto the whole plan, so it wasn’t really theft as such. It wasn’t as though we were going to sell the stuff. Still, the whole thing was making me very jittery.

I took all the papers out of the nasty metal filing cabinets while Jude set about moving the rest of the stuff into the corridor and Jake began the laborious task of carting it down three flights of stairs.

‘Bet this isn’t the second date you had in mind,’ I said to him.

‘Not exactly, no,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Perhaps next time we could do something just the two of us? Maybe something that doesn’t involve back-breaking manual labour?’

Fortunately Stan showed up a bit early and was able to give us a hand. By nine o’clock we’d cleared the place, and no one had so much as given us a sideways glance.

‘You’ve just got to act like you’re authorised to do whatever you’re doing,’ Jake assured me. ‘Trust me, I spend my life barging into places I’m not supposed to be in order to get a picture. If you just act like you own the place no one will ask you any questions.’

We stayed in the office until eleven thirty, pulling up carpets and taking down blinds. The parquet tiling underneath was actually in pretty good shape. All it would need was a buff and a polish and it would look pretty good.

‘The walls are kind of bare, though,’ Jude commented. ‘It would be good to have some nice art up there.’

‘Yeah, but nice art you really can’t buy on the cheap,’ I said, ‘and I’m not putting up crappy posters. We’ll just have to deal with the basics this weekend.’

The following morning, Jude and I got up early to go into the office. We had to stop off at Gabriella’s on the way to borrow her special floor buffer – apparently an essential household item when you have dogs and children – and at Sainsbury’s to stock up on cleaning
products. By the time we got to Borough, Jake was already sitting on the steps outside drinking a coffee. At his side were three large canvases.

‘Thought you might like to borrow these,’ he said, turning one of them around. It was a photograph of a vineyard at dawn, the mist just rising off the vines. It was beautiful. ‘I took some shots when I was on holiday in the South of France last year. They’re a bit postcard-esque, but they’re not bad. I got them printed up onto canvas a while back. I was thinking of selling them. What do you think?’

‘They’re gorgeous,’ I said to him, carefully turning the other canvases around. One was taken in late afternoon, with the sun turning the leaves a reddish-gold, the other was a shot of a chateau and the vineyards surrounding it. ‘Probably not one of our chateaux, but frankly, who cares? They’re stunning.’

By the end of the weekend the place was transformed. The floors were polished to a shine, the new blinds were hung and behind them were windows you could actually see through. The new furniture, while hardly top quality, all matched, which gave the place a feel of professional uniformity. And Jake’s photographs were absolutely perfect. We hung one in the meeting room and one in Rupert’s office, but the largest was reserved for the wall opposite the main entrance: it was the first thing that you saw when you came into the room and it set the perfect tone.

For a few moments after we’d finished, we all just stood there, admiring our handiwork.

‘It’s like a completely new place,’ Jude said. ‘They have to like it. They just
have
to. If they don’t, they’ve got no bloody taste and no sense either.’

‘Too right,’ Jake agreed, slipping his hand into mine. Not for the first time the contrast between Dan and Jake was thrown into sharp focus – the idea of Dan giving up a weekend to help me redecorate my employers’ office was nothing short of laughable. And Jake had not only helped, he’d actually managed to make the weekend fun.

It did look better, infinitely better, but I was still terrified. After all, I had suggested a makeover to Rupert and he had specifically vetoed it.

‘I’m not going to get any sleep tonight,’ I said.

‘You will if we get you pissed enough,’ Jake replied, and we all repaired to the pub.

Cassie Cavanagh
may have a future in interior design

I wasn’t sure whether I should go into work early, so that I could be there to start explaining as soon as they all turned up, or whether I should turn up late – give them all the time to soak in their new surroundings, to process the change, to let off some steam if needs be. I wasn’t just worried about Rupert and Olly. I was worried about the other staff members, too. After all, they barely knew me, I’d only just turned up, and here I was reorganising everything, going through all their desks, removing their things and placing those things in new desks. I wondered whether that was a huge invasion of privacy. I suspected that it probably was.

In the end, I decided that I would go in a little late. I dawdled on the way, stopping at the Deli Delivery place across the road from the office for a cup of coffee (£1.50 as opposed to £2.35 at Starbucks – and they remember my name).

‘Morning, Cassie,’ Andrei, the cheerful Russian behind the counter greeted me. ‘Usual?’ As Andrei made my latte I checked my phone. I already had three text messages, though all from my accomplices.

How pleased/pissed off are they?
Ali asked.

Fingers crossed, Cass. Sure they’ll love it
, Jude said.

Good luck, gorgeous. If they don’t appreciate you, tell them to stick it
, was Jake’s advice. I tended to agree with him. I’d done my best, with the good of the company uppermost in my thoughts and if they didn’t like it, sod them. All the same, it might be an idea to sweeten them up a bit, too.

‘Actually, Andrei,’ I said, ‘could you do seven lattes? And I’ll take some of those pastries, too.’

Laden with beverages and baked goods, I made my way slowly up the stairs, my heart thumping in my chest, my hands starting to shake. I pushed the door open. They were all there, all six of them, standing in the main office, looking around, expressions of bewilderment on their faces.

‘Has someone got a fairy godmother?’ Melanie was asking.

Fabio was clapping Olly on the back.

‘What a great surprise!’ he was saying. ‘Eees so much better than before.’

Rupert and Olly were regarding each other in utter confusion. I coughed to attract attention to my presence and put the tray of coffees and bag of pastries down on the nearest desk, the one I had allocated to myself. Everyone turned to look at me.

‘Morning!’ I said cheerfully. ‘Would anyone like coffee?’

No one said anything for a minute. Then Aidan came across to me.

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ he said, grabbing a latte and a pain au chocolat. The others began to converge around the table.

‘Hang on, hang on a minute,’ Rupert said. ‘This is your doing, I take it?’

‘That’s right,’ I said, trying to sound as confident as possible, ‘I thought—’

‘In my office,’ he said coldly. ‘Now.’

Rupert sat down at his new desk. Olly followed us into the office and closed the door behind us.

‘This is not going to work out, I’m afraid,’ Rupert said. I tried to say something but he held up his hand, silencing me. ‘I understand why you did this – it all looks very good – but I explicitly told you to leave the presentation issue. You cannot simply take matters into your own hands like that.’ His voice was low, but his face was turning from its usual mahogany to an angry puce. ‘Leaving aside the issue of you going through everyone’s desks to transfer their personal things, you simply disobeyed me. And you’ve been here for two weeks! I’m sorry. Take your things now, and be on your way.’

I couldn’t say that I wasn’t prepared for that, because I had been. I had hoped that he would look past the fact that I’d done the complete opposite of what he’d asked me to do and just appreciate the good
work that I’d done, but I knew that there was a risk I’d get the sack. I’d gambled and lost. But even though I had known the risks, this still felt like a punch in the gut. I’d tried so hard. It just felt unfair. I wasn’t simply upset, I realised, I was also quite angry.

‘I’m sorry,’ was all I said, my voice trembling a little. I didn’t see much point in explaining. My motives were pretty obvious. I was heading for the door when Olly stepped out in front of me.

‘Hang on a sec,’ he said. ‘Could you just wait outside, Cassie? Just for one minute?’

I went back into the main office. The others stopped munching on their pastries and turned to look at me.

‘You are completely insane,’ Melanie said, grinning at me. ‘This is brilliant! I can’t believe you did it. Did you do this all by yourself?’

‘I had some help,’ I said.

‘What are they going to do?’ Peter asked. ‘Is Rupert throwing a hissy fit?’

‘I’ve been sacked,’ I said glumly.

‘That’s ridiculous!’ Melanie said, placing her hands on her hips. ‘OK, it was kind of an unorthodox way to go about things, but this place looks great. Plus you can actually find things in the filing system.’ The others nodded enthusiastically.

‘Good croissants, by the way,’ Peter said. ‘I think we should make this a Monday morning tradition. We could take it in turns to buy if those tight gits aren’t prepared to shell out …’

At that moment, Olly opened the office door. He
glared at Peter. I wasn’t sure whether he’d heard the ‘tight gits’ remark, but it looked as though he might have done.

‘Would you come back in please, Cassie?’ he asked. I followed him into the office, carrying a latte each for my masters in the hopes that it might appease them.

‘You like to do things your own way, don’t you?’ Rupert said, accepting the latte from me. ‘In a way, I rather like that …’