Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista (26 page)

‘We wouldn’t like you to take matters into your own hands like this again,’ Olly said, ‘but in this case, we’re going to let it slide …’

‘Provided, that is, that this turns out to be a reasonable investment,’ Rupert went on.

‘Ah, you see, that’s the beauty of it,’ I said, breathing an enormous inward sigh of relief. ‘This is my gamble. I decided, foolishly perhaps, to take a risk: I thought I would invest in doing an office makeover. If the investors who are coming tomorrow agree to put some money into the business, then I win and Vintage covers the cost – which,’ I said hurriedly, ‘was actually very reasonable. If they decide not to invest, I take the hit.’ Or Ali takes the hit, anyway, at least in the short term.

‘Although if the investors sign up tomorrow it will probably have absolutely nothing to do with the way our office looks, Cassie,’ Rupert said.

‘True, but at least they won’t be put off from the moment they step into the office,’ I pointed out.

Rupert harrumphed. Olly started to laugh.

‘What’s so funny?’ Rupert asked his brother.

‘The look on your face when you got here this morning. It was hilarious.’

Rupert started to laugh too. ‘For a moment, I thought I was having some sort of episode. It was just such a shock to walk in here expecting to see one thing and finding something completely different.’

‘Something better?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Much better,’ he agreed. ‘Go on, you go and get on with the post and the invoicing. And put together a statement of what you spent on this place, with the receipts attached.’

The following day I turned up for work almost more nervous than I had done on Monday. The next round of potential investors were visiting. Unless they gave us the nod, my finances would be taking a major hit. I spent the morning drinking so much coffee that by the time the men in suits were due to arrive I had developed a tremor in my left hand and was having palpitations.

The men in suits turned out not to be men in suits. Instead there were two preppy thirty-something blokes in jeans and rugby shirts accompanied by a very attractive, slightly older woman in a brightly printed Diane Von Furstenburg wrap dress and sky-high heels. I liked the look of them immediately.

‘What a wonderful picture,’ was the first thing the woman said as I showed her into the office. She was looking at Jake’s photo on the opposite wall. ‘Where did you find it?’

‘The photographer’s a good friend,’ said Rupert,
who had just appeared at my elbow. He winked at me. ‘Would you run out for coffees, Cass?’

The meeting lasted over an hour. I took this as a good sign – the last one had barely lasted twenty minutes. Eventually, Rupert stuck his head around the door and summoned me over.

‘There are a couple of bottles of champagne in the fridge. Would you open them for us, Cassie?’ he said, grinning like a Cheshire cat. ‘And then could you ask everyone to join us in the meeting room for a quick celebratory drink? Yourself included, of course.’

The investors, venture capitalists from a small but successful private equity company, had agreed to pay half a million pounds for a slice of stock (how much was not disclosed to the rest of us) in the company. Whatever the percentage they had purchased, Rupert and Olly seemed to think that they had negotiated a very good deal. We toasted our new partners and the future success of the business. Once the investors had gone, Olly raised a glass to me.

‘To Cassie, our new assistant-slash-interior decorator, without whom we might not have done such a fantastic deal.’ Rupert rolled his eyes dramatically, but he raised his glass anyway.

Life at Vintage Organics became a lot more hectic – and the learning curve a great deal steeper – once the cash injection had been received. With some money in the bank the firm could afford to seek out new suppliers in order to broaden its range: Peter and Fabio were
dispatched to Spain and Italy respectively to carry out in-the-field research. I was required to take on quite a bit of their workload, which involved dealing with suppliers, arranging meetings with possible new suppliers, endless correspondence negotiating prices and discounts on orders and a huge amount of desk research. I actually started to look forward to making the coffee and sorting the post as at least it gave me a chance to do something which wasn’t incredibly mentally taxing.

I found myself working long hours – eight in the morning until seven at night was not uncommon – with half an hour for lunch if I was lucky. I even had to go into the office on Saturdays to catch up with admin that I hadn’t been able to get finished in the week. I was still required to run all over town delivering urgent post, I was still asked to do the more boring, assistant-type jobs like picking up dry cleaning, managing Rupert’s diary and booking flights and hotels for Peter and Fabio, but I was also getting more and more involved in the real running of the business – and I was loving every minute of it.

The downside, of course, was that I was completely exhausted. I’d make it home by eight thirty, hastily cook myself something to eat and crash out on the sofa. My social life had died a very sudden death – I was just too tired to go out in the evenings. Jake and I spoke almost every night, but every time he asked whether I felt like doing something, I turned him down. After a couple of weeks of this, he sent me a
text, saying,
If you’ve changed your mind, just say so
. I rang him straight away.

‘Changed my mind about what?’ I asked.

‘About me.’ He sounded a bit sulky.

‘I haven’t, Jake, I’m just absolutely exhausted. I know it sounds ridiculous, but honestly, I’d be no fun if we did go out. I’m just feeling wiped out.’

‘Well, why don’t you come round to my place tomorrow then? I’ll cook, we can watch a DVD. Nothing strenuous, I promise.’

‘That sounds perfect. Around eightish OK? I’ll bring the wine.’

At seven fifty the following evening I was still at work, on the phone with an irate customer who had not received an order due to be delivered that afternoon. All my attempts at appeasing him – offers of discounts, vouchers, money back – were doing no good whatsoever; he had ordered the wine because he was having a drinks party that very evening. His guests had arrived and he was going to run out of booze in about an hour’s time thanks to our incompetence. I rang the delivery company. They couldn’t explain what exactly had gone wrong, but the two cases due to be delivered to Mr Richard Eames of 12 Gowan Avenue, Fulham SW6 were still sitting in their dispatch office. I suggested they deliver them straight away.

‘We don’t do deliveries after seven,’ came the reply.

I argued with, pleaded with and cajoled the delivery man for the best part of fifteen minutes, to no avail. There was nothing for it. I would have to do it myself.
I worked out that if I could borrow Ali’s car, I could get to the delivery company in Wandsworth by around eight thirty (traffic permitting), and then across to Mr Eames’s place by nine.

The first hitch was that Ali’s car was not available – it was in the garage for a service. The obvious thing to do would, of course, be to call a cab, but since Rupert didn’t even allow us to pay for couriered mail, I wasn’t entirely sure I could count on getting the cost reimbursed. And I was wary of spending without permission given the whole office makeover affair. Starting to get desperate, I was pondering the logistics of trying to transport a case of wine across south London on public transport when I noticed Andrei, the Deli Delivery man across the road, shutting up shop. Andrei the Deli Delivery man has a Deli Delivery bicycle, a bicycle which has a little trailer attached to the back in which he stashes his Deli goods for delivery.

I ran downstairs.

‘Andrei!’ I yelled at him across the traffic. ‘I need to borrow your bicycle.’

I hurried across the road, narrowly avoiding getting flattened by a taxi. ‘It’s an emergency,’ I panted. Andrei peered at me suspiciously.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘Are you hurt? Do you need to go to hospital?’

‘Not that sort of emergency. It’s a work emergency. I need to deliver a case of wine to south London by nine o’clock.’

There followed a short period of haggling over what the cost of borrowing his bicycle should be. We settled on one bottle of Vintage Organics claret and another of Pinot Grigio.

‘My wife likes it,’ he explained, as though requesting Pinot Grigio was something to be ashamed of.

The deal done, I hopped onto the bike, which proved heavier and more difficult to manoeuvre than I’d expected, and started pedalling south.

Halfway there I remembered that I was, at this very moment, supposed to be at Jake’s having dinner. I pulled over onto the pavement (thankful to have a quick rest) and dialled his number.

‘You’re not going to believe where I am at the moment,’ I panted at him when he answered.

‘Well, I take it since you’re phoning me that you’re not currently standing on my doorstep.’

‘I’m not, I’m really sorry—’

‘You’re not coming?’ he interrupted tersely just as I was about to launch into a witty and amusing explanation of my current predicament.

‘I’m really, really sorry, Jake. It’s a work crisis—’

‘Fine. See you when I see you then,’ he said and hung up.

Oh, bugger. I got back on the bike and resumed pedalling.

The good news was that, amazingly enough, I managed to make it to the delivery company and across to Mr Eames’s place by nine fifteen. I arrived, hot, sweaty and dishevelled, with his two cases of
wine and half a case of champagne by way of an apology for the inconvenience. He was not just mollified, he seemed absolutely delighted, if slightly alarmed by my appearance.

‘You’re the girl I spoke to on the phone?’ he asked as I lugged the second case of wine up the steps to his front door.

‘That’s right,’ I huffed. ‘I’m really sorry, but there was some sort of cock-up at our delivery company.’ I wondered whether cock-up constituted bad language. ‘So sorry for the inconvenience.’

‘Well. I must say I didn’t expect you to come here personally. Thanks very much. It really is very good of you.’

‘All part of the service,’ I said, smiling sweetly.
Never mind the fact that you probably just got me dumped
, I thought.
Just so long as your party goes well
.

By the time I’d cycled, slowly and wearily, back to Borough, where I chained the bicycle to the railings outside the Deli Delivery shop, and taken the tube back home it was after eleven. I sent Jake a text apologising once again and then went to bed. I fell asleep almost instantly. I dreamed that I was at the office, trying to compile an order for a client, but even though I had found all the right wines to fill the case there always seemed to be one missing.

There were no messages on my phone when I woke the next morning. I left for work with a heavy heart, the first time I’d felt that way in ages. I slouched into
the office feeling miserable, trying to think of ways I could make it up to him. All the ideas I had come up with by the time I reached the office involved copious quantities of champagne and very expensive lingerie, neither of which I could really afford right now. Plus, I had the feeling that the sort of tricks that worked on Dan might not be so successful with Jake. I might have to be more creative in future. I consulted
Less is More!
, which sadly didn’t have a chapter on cheap and innovative ways to placate an irate boyfriend. I supposed I could volunteer to go to the Polish film festival at the South Bank. Dark, moody, impenetrable, subtitled films might be my idea of hell, but he’d enjoy it.

As I pushed open the door to the office, Rupert greeted me like some sort of conquering heroine.

‘There she is!’ he boomed, spreading his arms wide as though he was about to hug me. ‘The woman of the hour!’ I smiled nervously at him. ‘I just had a call from Richard Eames who tells me that you personally delivered two cases of wine to him last night. Is that right?’

I explained what had happened, and that I’d thought it was probably best to go the extra mile (and donate the extra champagne) rather than lose a customer.

‘I looked through his orders and he’s been a pretty good customer since we opened, so I thought it was worth it.’

‘Abso-bloody-lutely!’ Rupert beamed at me. ‘That’s
excellent work, Cassie. Exactly the kind of thing we need. Well done. Now I’m just going to go and bollock the delivery people. They do that again and we’re going to have to find someone else to take care of the orders.’

I felt a warm glow envelop me, a feeling I had never had before. I realised with a shock that it was job satisfaction.

It was just after six when Rupert called me into his office.

‘I think it’s time your weekend started, young lady. You must have been worked very late last night. Take a bottle of champagne out of the fridge and go and enjoy yourself. You’ve really earned it this week.’

Excellent, I thought. I’ll nip home, change into something a little less comfortable and then turn up at Jake’s unannounced, brandishing a bottle of champagne. Hopefully that should go some way to putting me back into his good books. I was just heading off to the tube when my phone rang. It was Ali.

‘Cass,’ she said, her voice sounding oddly strained. ‘Can you come round?’

Perfect timing. ‘What’s up? Is something wrong?’ There was an odd wailing on the other end of the line. Oh, Christ, something
is
wrong. Oh, shit. She’d been for her twenty-week scan. ‘What is it, Ali? Is it the baby?’