There were about a dozen people in the room, from the bullish and sulky-looking, who gave the impression they’d been sent on this course as a kind of detention, to the utterly terrified, to one man who was digging in his briefcase and smoothing down his tie in a manner that made Issy suspect that he hadn’t told his family he’d been made redundant and was still pretending to go to work every day. She half grimaced around at everyone. Nobody made a friendly face back. Life was always easier, reflected Issy, when you were carrying a large Tupperware full of cakes. Everyone was happy to see you then.

A woman in her fifties with a tired, impatient face arrived on the button of 9.30, launching into her spiel so briskly that it rapidly became clear that the only people overworked in the current climate were redundancy resettlement trainers.

‘Now, starting your positive new life,’ she announced, ‘the first thing you must do is treat job-hunting as a job in itself.’

‘Even shittier than the one you’ve just been ousted from,’ said one of the young men with a belligerent sneer. The trainer ignored him.

‘Firstly, you have to make your CV stand out from the two million CVs circulating at any one time.’

The trainer spread her lips in what Issy supposed was meant to be a smile.

‘And that’s not an exaggeration. That is the approximate number of CVs being submitted for available vacancies at any given time.’

‘Well, I’m feeling empowered already,’ muttered the girl sitting next to Issy. Issy glanced at her. She was glamorous and perhaps slightly overdressed – with jet-black ringlets, bright red lipstick and a fuchsia mohair jumper that totally failed to conceal massive bosoms underneath. Issy wondered if she’d get on with Helena.

‘So how do you make yours stand out? Anyone?’

One of the older men raised his hand.

‘Is it acceptable to lie about your age?’

The trainer shook her head severely.

‘It is never, under any circumstances, permitted to lie on your CV.’

The girl next to Issy put her hand up immediately.

‘But that’s just stupid. Everyone lies on their CV. And everyone assumes that everyone else lies on their CV. So if you don’t lie on your CV, they’ll assume you have so that you’re in fact even worse than you’ve just said you are, plus if they find out you haven’t told a single lie on your CV they’ll assume you’re a bit stupid. So it’s a bad idea.’

There was a lot of nodding from round the table. The trainer ploughed on regardless.

‘So, you need to stand out. Some people like to use raised fonts, or even write their CVs in rhyme to give them that extra edge.’

Issy raised her hand.

‘Can I just say that I’ve been hiring staff for years and I hated gimmicky CVs, I always threw them in the bin. Whereas if I got one with no spelling mistakes, I’d interview them immediately. Hardly ever happened though.’

‘Did you assume they were lying on them?’ asked the girl.

‘Well, I’d mentally downgrade all their A-level results and their degree class and I wouldn’t press them too much on their love of independent film,’ said Issy. ‘So, yes, I suppose so.’

‘There you go,’ said the girl. The trainer had gone pink and tight-lipped.

‘Well, you can talk all you like,’ said the trainer. ‘But it’s still all of you who are sitting here.’

At lunchtime Issy and the ringleted girl fled. ‘That was the most hideous thing ever,’ said the girl, whose name was Pearl. ‘It was actually worse than getting the boot.’

Issy smiled gratefully. ‘I know.’ She looked around. ‘Where are you going for lunch? I was thinking Patisserie Valerie.’

Patisserie Valerie was a long-established fancy-cakes-andtea chain in London, which was always crowded and always a delight. They had a new vanilla icing she’d heard about that she was anxious to try. The girl looked a bit uncomfortable, and Issy immediately remembered how pricey it was.

‘Uh, my treat,’ she added quickly. ‘My redundancy payment is not bad, thank goodness.’

Pearl smiled, and wondered if she could make the sandwiches in her bag last till later. ‘OK!’ she said. She had always wanted to try the shop, with its fantastical-looking wedding cakes with icing spun out of impossibly small sugar roses and dramatically iced risers in the window, but it always seemed crowded and busy and hard to squeeze into, which made it the kind of place she normally avoided.

Ensconced in a tiny wooden booth, with black-clad French waitresses manoeuvring tarte au citron and millefeuille expertly over their heads, they swapped horror stories. Pearl had been the receptionist at a building firm where things had got gradually worse and worse. She hadn’t even been paid for the last two months and, seeing as she was raising a baby single-handed, things were getting slightly desperate.

‘I thought this might help,’ she said. ‘My Restart sent me here. But it’s just rubbish, isn’t it?’

Issy nodded. ‘I think so.’

Nonetheless, Pearl stood up boldly and squeezed her way over to the manager of the shop.

‘Excuse me, do you have any vacancies?’

‘I’m very sorry,’ said the man, charmingly. ‘No. Plus, you see, we are a small shop.’

He indicated the tiny tables, all pressed very close together. The lithe waitresses were hopping in among them. Pearl, frankly, wouldn’t have a chance.

‘You know, I am very sorry.’

‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘You’re absolutely right. I am too fat to work in a cake shop. And I’d make them feel so guilty they’d order the salad.’

Completely unbowed, she returned to Issy, who had spent the previous three minutes blushing hideously on Pearl’s behalf.

‘That’s exactly what the budget airline said. I’m not allowed to be wider than the aisle.’

‘You’re not wider than an aircraft aisle!’

‘I will be on the new planes they’re bringing in. Everyone has to stand up in them, packed in like cattle. They put a belt round your neck and attach you to the wall.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ said Issy.

‘It’s true,’ said Pearl. ‘Trust me. As soon as the belts stop decapitating the crash test dummies, you’ll be standing all the way to Malaga. On one leg if you forget to print out your boarding pass before you get to the airport.’