last flashback

You know the type. The guy in an expensive suit with gold cufflinks who pushes you out of the way on the central line or at a taxi rank.
The suited travellers with expensive luggage who get to queue separately and board first, whilst they spend their empty moments in luxury airport lounges.
Although my family travelled a lot, we never travelled first class. My parents’ academic salaries never permitted that sort of thing. instead they always watched in amazement as such people wizzed by with an air of (self) importance, just as my father stood by in astonishment in Sydney airport a few months back as I was ushered through all formalities in seconds, having flashed a company card.
The thing I have tried to explain to them is that no one actually PAYS for that kind of service. It is almost always achieved through contra-deals, corporate packages or some other scheme.
So I find myself on the eurostar with my colleague, who fits the above description perfectly. Before going through security at the station, he slips off to the toilet with a cheeky grin and returns energised, having snorted the last of his supplies. Not that he would really have had too much hassle getting a wad of coke past security, but I just doubt by the end of the work day that he had that much on him. We catch the last train of the evening. We sit down and my colleague starts to discuss loudly his sex life, which most recently consisted of the boss’s secretary. An older uptight German businessman who is seated in front turns around and asks Z, my substance enthused companion, to be more quiet. Z tells him he can suck his English cock. I suggest we perhaps go visit the train’s restaurant, hoping to give the German long enough to fall asleep. Alas, my idea proved flawed, as within minutes we are moving back to our seat, armed with a huge bottle of champagne, crisps and glasses. Z is now going back into the history of his sex life, in an effort to explain why he is as he is. Periodically the topic of conversation wanders to the only thing we have in common: our office. We exchange company gossip and calculate the deals we are hoping to bring in this month. (“100 fucking grand, mate, ‘d be fucking wicked, can you imagine? Oh man, I’d be minted, I’d go back to Thailand for the weekend and do so much shit”…dreams Z).
From the corner of my eye I can see the older German is disgusted, not only by us, but by the other English guys behaving in exactly the same way at the other end of the first class carriage. Of course I am the only woman in sight, as the German is only one above 45. The last first class carriage of the night is filled by young English assholes who start chanting “EN-GA-LAND, EN-GA-LAND” as we pull into St. Pancras.
A year ago there was talk that this world was ending. Corporate lunches, first class travel, expense accounts- it was all supposed to be part of a decedent past that had landed us all in the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. We are still in that crisis, but scale of horror for now seems to have bottomed out, and even if we are not recovered, we are at least not getting any worse. So the cityboys have got their corporate credit cards back out, and have decided for now at least it is back to party time.