Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista (31 page)

‘
Oui
?’

‘Monsieur Leveque?’

‘
C’est moi
.’

‘I’m a colleague of Mr Forsythe’s. I’ve brought some papers which he needed.’

He smiled at me.

‘We have another guest,’ M. Leveque announced.
‘
Mademoiselle
. . .?’

‘Cavanagh,’ I said. ‘Cassie Cavanagh.’

Rupert gawped at me. The elegant lady got to her feet and offered her hand.

‘This is my wife,’ M. Leveque said.

‘
Bonsoir, Madame
,’ I said, shaking her hand. There was a long, awkward pause. M. Leveque was looking at Rupert, expecting an explanation which was not forthcoming. Rupert was still gawping at me.

‘Perhaps the young lady would like a drink?’ Mme Leveque said eventually. ‘We were just tasting the Chateau Saint Martin from 1996. It’s really quite good.’

Finally, Rupert spoke. ‘I wasn’t expecting you this evening, Cassie,’ he said.

‘Oh, I know,’ I replied, accepting a glass of red from M. Leveque, ‘I just thought I’d drop the papers round, in case you needed them this evening.’ I handed him the contract. He smiled at me, shaking his head ever so slightly.

‘Ah. So you
do
have the papers,’ M. Leveque said, looking from me to Rupert and back again, his eyebrows raised.

‘Yes, of course – I wouldn’t come all the way here without the contract, would I?’ Rupert said, beaming at the Frenchman.

‘But I thought you left 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 I
expected. 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 of
sourcing 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 assistant if you’re moving on to greater things.’

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 to
find 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 pleased
for 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, documenting projects in sub-Saharan Africa. It’s going to be for a major report that’s published next year.’

‘Six months?’ I asked, incredulous.

‘At least six months. Maybe longer if they decide they want me to cover the Middle East as well. It’s a fantastic opportunity for me, Cass.’

‘Yeah, you said that.’

‘You’re pissed off.’

‘No! Of course not. I’m disappointed. I don’t want you to go away for six months. I don’t want you to go away for six days. I particularly don’t want you to be travelling around dangerous countries getting shot at and contracting nasty tropical diseases. I can’t believe Matt’s done this to me. No wonder Jude was weird this morning. She knows, doesn’t she?’

‘Yeah. He told her. I didn’t. I wanted to talk to you first.’

There was another long silence.

‘Well, six months isn’t for ever, is it? God, Matt and Jude are still together despite seeing each other about twice a year for the past five years,’ I pointed out, doing my level best to sound chipper.

‘Yeah, that’s true,’ Jake said. But I could tell what he was thinking. I was thinking it too: Matt and Jude had been together for two years before they were separated. Jake and I had been together a few months. It wasn’t the same.

‘Although … I was thinking …’ He started to say something but stopped.

‘What? What were you thinking?’

‘Before you told me about the promotion … I was thinking … You could come with me.’

‘To Africa? What would I do?’

‘I don’t know. Just take some time off. Travel with me. Have adventures. We could live on next to nothing – we can live on the salary that Unicef are paying me, plus I’ll have opportunities to freelance for newspapers, photography agencies, things like that. We could buy a Land Rover, a proper old one, not a Chelsea tractor, drive through jungles, forge rivers …’

‘… Get eaten by lions.’

‘Oh, come on,’ he said, slipping his fingers through mine. ‘Lions very rarely eat people.’

‘Jake … I don’t know. My idea of being adventurous
is mixing high street with couture. I’m not sure I’m cut out for … jungles and things. Christ, think of all the insects. I’m horribly arachnophobic, you know.’

‘We’ll stock up on bug repellent.’

I woke up the next morning at six, my head pounding. Too much champagne. I slipped out of bed and into the shower without waking Jake, dressed quickly and quietly and wrote him a note.

Not feeling too good. Hangover I think. Will call you later xxx

I crept out of the flat into the cool London air and walked up the hill to the tube. I wasn’t actually feeling that bad, but for some reason I just couldn’t lie there next to him in silence with everything that was going on in my head.

Back at home, I made a cup of coffee for myself and a camomile tea for Jude and knocked softly on her door. I was pretty sure Matt wasn’t around, but I didn’t want a repeat of the eyeful I’d got last time I walked in on Jude and her boyfriend unannounced. After a moment or two, I heard a muffled response.