in the opposite direction, eating up all your hard-won profit and more besides.
It was exciting, at times rewarding and at other times, excruciatingly nail-biting.
And it always felt vaguely shaming to me.
However much I dressed it up in fancy, technical terms, it was gambling, pure and simple.
And as several friends who knew me well pointed out, it was also a very long way from my original career plans.
But we had a golden six months and made a fair bit of money. This was all wonderfully new to me. For once I didn’t have to worry about bills or weigh up carefully whether I could afford a new mascara. And at last I could treat Mum and Tim to the little luxuries they’d never had.
But then things began to change. I think we started taking more risks. We’d ride a trend longer than we used to, in the hope that it would turn out to be ‘the big one’ that traders dream of – the one that clears the mortgage.
Big success was always just one more trade away.
Our profits started to decline and then it became a vicious circle. Because we were losing money, we’d heap on bigger stakes in a desperate attempt to offset our losses.
After one last terrifying gamble, I was left with absolutely nothing. Not even the train fare back home. Mum had to buy the ticket for me.
It was a rollercoaster ride that left me devastated – financially, physically and emotionally.
And at a time when I needed Carol’s friendship more than ever, she was no longer there for me.
When I told her I had no option but to leave London and move in with Mum and Tim, and that I was all packed and ready to go, she just stared at me and walked out of the room. She wouldn’t talk about it. She just shut me out.
She was acting like I was deliberately deserting her. But what choice did I have? I had no rich Daddy to pick up the pieces, buy me an apartment and set me up in business!
How could she possibly understand how hard it was to be forever counting the pennies, when she always had it so easy?
In our teens when we scooped up sale items on Saturday shopping trips, she’d sling her arm round my shoulder and laugh, ‘We’re just the same, you and me. We’ll do anything to bag a bargain.’
I’d force a smile when she said things like that. But deep down, it hurt. I’d be thinking, But no, Carol, we’re not the same. Why can’t you understand that?
Carol scrimped and hunted out bargains for the thrill of getting something for less. It was like an enjoyable hobby to her. And she did it partly so she could justify splurging cash on other things, like flying to New York to visit her sister or treating herself to the dress she saw in Vogue.
I scrimped because I had no money.
I didn’t find it fun.
We were definitely not the same.
When I get to the office at twelve-thirty, following a three hour muck-out of a particularly manky flat, all I want to do is collapse at my desk and read my emails.
But Carol calls me in the instant I arrive.
I look at her curiously as she checks something on her computer screen, wondering if she’ll mention the DVD from last night.
At last she looks up and I decide to take the bull by the horns.
‘That was strange last night, wasn’t it?’ I aim for upbeat. ‘I mean, seeing us all like that on TV. How we were then.’ My laugh sounds self-conscious. ‘The girls. Those clothes. The hairstyles.’
She crosses her arms and I catch a glimmer of uncertainty in her normally cool, green gaze.
I’ve unsettled her; crossed an invisible line by daring to be so familiar.
Next second, the iron shutter slams down and she looks away, hunting for something in a pile of papers.
‘They were great days, though, weren’t they?’ I persist, wanting a reaction. Any reaction, for God’s sake – if not wholehearted agreement, then sadness, maybe? Or anger. Just something.
A tell-tale flush creeps into her porcelain pale cheeks and she stares at me in silence.
‘I miss those days.’ I know I’m forcing the issue. But suddenly I’m quite sure that talking is the way forward. We’ve been distant and cagey with each other for too long. We’re not in the school playground any more, sending each other to Coventry on a childish whim.
She gives a contemptuous laugh. ‘Fond memories, eh? Well, I’m glad you see it that way because I definitely don’t.’
She pulls the file towards her and wrenches it open, and some of the pages spill out on to the floor. In a fury, she tears out the rest of the sheets and slams the file down hard on the desk.
Then she tosses a pile of invoices in front of me and tells me to go and sort them out.
I return to my desk, shocked to find myself close to tears.
I’m such a bloody idiot for thinking she might have been touched, like I was, by what she watched last night.
The ice around her heart seems, if anything, more shatterproof than ever.
Changed days, indeed.
In the past, Carol was always the first person I’d turn to when I was in trouble. She would have done anything to help me.
Like when she turned up, completely unexpectedly, at Dad’s funeral.
Dad died from pneumonia when I was sixteen.
It happened suddenly, during the summer holidays. I was staying with my Auntie Sharon, who had a house right by the beach, and when we got the terrible news, she brought me all the way back up North on the train.
I sat silently huddled into a corner of the carriage, staring out at the blur of sheep and fields whizzing by, heavy with fear and loss. Dad’s Multiple Sclerosis had been a major part of our lives but I’d never thought it would steal him away from me so suddenly.
Mum was five months pregnant with Tim.
I was shocked when I saw her. She had aged twenty years, her blonde good looks completely washed away.
The house seemed cold and unfamiliar. It was filled with people and – weirdly, I thought – the scent of flowers. There were bowls and vases of them all over the place, and the sickly smell made my nausea worse.
I moved from room to room in a daze. It was my duty to hold it together for Mum because if she saw me weeping, everything would dissolve into chaos. And we had to get through the funeral yet.
After the service, I stood in line as a conveyor belt of mourners pressed my hand and spoke kind words to me.
