The domestic repercussions of the financial crisis have already hit home. Just ask the City wives, says Judith Woods
If you'd met Nick at a dinner party last weekend, you couldn't have failed to be impressed by his charmed life. With a glamorous wife, Louise, two daughters and a new baby, an extensive townhouse in Notting Hill and a high-flying City job, he had it all. At least he did until Monday.
Nick, who has just bought a chateau in France, was an employee of Lehman Brothers. Now he is unemployed, up to his eyes in debt (townhouses and chateaux don't come cheap) and struggling to come to terms with his change in fortunes.
What Louise makes of it is anyone's guess - she gave up her City job to have children, run the house and generally provide support at home. She intimated that she saw it as a partnership, almost like a business. And now the business has gone belly up - through no fault of her own.
"There just aren't any jobs and, frankly, nobody seems to want Lehman Brothers employees for the rare jobs that are up for grabs," says Nick. "I am literally going to have to sell up everything, and possibly retrain in another profession."
The knock-on effect the strain and upheaval will have on the couple's marriage will emerge in time. For now, Sandra Davis, head of Family Law at Mishcon de Reya, points out that the stress caused by money woes can expose deep faultlines.
"With the financial markets lurching from one crisis to the next, city workers will be more concerned with their immediate employment prospects than with their relationships," says Davis. "Lehman Brothers employees and their wives are waking up to the reality that their stock is a busted flush, and the trophy wives of other investment bankers will be looking to cash in their chips before their husbands' stock options and deferred compensation go the same way. Either way, the outlook for the unhappily married appears fairly bleak."
Masters of the Universe, even those brought to their collective knees, evoke even less sympathy than estate agents down to their last des res, but this is no time to observe that it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at how the mighty - or more precisely, the mightily rich - hath fallen.
Of course, the big boys - and girls - at the top understood they were in a high-stakes business where risk was the name of the game, a game, they have belatedly discovered, where there really are losers as well as winners. You may have little sympathy for the City suits, but spare, if you will, a thought for their wives.
Not only have they lost status, but their army of support staff is in severe jeopardy: whither the nannies, cleaners, dog walkers and personal trainers? What will become of the independent schools where they send their children, even the charities who benefited from their conspicuous largesse?
One proprietor of a popular and exclusive salon in West London has already been feeling the repercussions of Monday's meltdown, which comes after a difficult year anyway. "I honestly didn't realise I had so many clients who were non-dom wives until they started leaving London earlier this year and bookings dropped off dramatically," he says. "Now this has hit us - I don't expect the ladies who lunch will be coming in for daily blow-dries in the current climate."
The ladies, frankly, will be lucky to afford lunch, much less their regular nail bar fix or that twice-weekly trip to the dry cleaners. City restaurants and bars are already half empty as the ripple effects are felt far beyond the Lehman building, which one wisecracking ex-employee has described as a "31-floor job centre". If boozing businessmen are thin on the ground, socialising wives are in even shorter supply.
"City restaurants are clearly going to be affected by recent events," says Tim Brooke-Webb, publisher of Restaurant Magazine. "Style bars will also be hit, because there's a reduced amount of City bonus activity going on."
For those doughty wives affected by the City meltdown, domestic economies are inevitable on the home front; rumour has had it for some time now that Tesco lorries are starting to replace Ocado vans in even the leafiest parts of Kensington. New Year ski holidays are sure to be another prime casualty, along with long-haul breaks in the October half-term.
"We just don't yet know what the effect will be," says Casia Zajac at Abta, the travel association. "Although forward bookings remain strong at this stage, I'm sure events in the City will have an impact on the travel industry, as they will all over the wider economy."
"People are still assessing the effect on their hedge funds and portfolios," agrees Sue Ockwell, spokesman for the Association of Independent Tour Operators. "Our 150 members carry around 1.2 million people each year, who tend to be at the higher end of the spectrum in terms of wanting something tailored to their requirements."
Meanwhile, wives used to flying business class on their spouse's air miles will have to get used to slumming it with the masses in steerage. That's if there's anything left in the coffers once the school fees are paid. According to Jonathan Cook, general secretary of the Independent Schools' Bursars Association, phone calls from parents who have found themselves in unexpectedly straitened circumstances have started to trickle in.
"After paying the mortgage, the children's education is usually the top priority," says Cook. "It's something that parents plan well in advance, and once they've entered the independent sector, they will do whatever it takes to safeguard their children's schooling. But all schools have a little pot of money set aside to help parents who may be experiencing difficulties; they always try to make sure that the children's education doesn't suffer."
Cook expects that the full effects will be felt next September, when the numbers of new pupils may fall, and with them, school rolls. "Our experience from the previous recession is that it takes a little bit of time for this sort of thing to filter through."
While school fees may be sacred, smaller savings will be legion as wives set about trimming back their outgoings; gardeners face the axe, Norland nannies may well find themselves supplanted by Estonian au pairs, and caterers will no longer be called in to provide dinner for 20 on a Saturday evening. Not least because the house may not be in a fit state to receive guests.
"My Brazilian cleaner says three of her clients, two with husbands at Lehmans, have already called up this week, in tears, saying they will have to cancel her services," reports one female executive, who works in PR. "She charges £9 an hour, which barely registers if your husband is bringing home £300,000 plus bonuses, but suddenly starts to matter when the unthinkable happens and you don't even know if he's going to get paid at the end of the month."
But the unthinkable has happened. As the banking behemoth was brought down, by a mixture of hubris, greed and mismanagement, staff were left reeling by the merciless brutality of the end, as they were summarily ordered to clear their desks in 15 minutes, and prevented from sending external emails. There was no prior warning, no justification given; and the bewilderment and anger were palpable.
"Everyone has been going on about the big bonuses people were getting, but very often it was tied up in Lehmans stock, which couldn't be translated into anything else before five years had passed," says one female employee who put in 12 years at the firm, and is now left wondering if she can still afford her monthly BlackBerry bill.
Simon Halliday, a senior managing director at Lehman Brothers, joined in 2000 and watched it grow into what he loyally persists in calling a "fantastic business" - albeit not so fantastic that it could weather the current storm.
"We all face an uncertain financial future without jobs," says Halliday, 48. "I'm going to be in great financial difficulty as a result, but for now I've got a charity rugby match on Saturday to worry about that I'm organising for CRY - Cardiac Risk in the Young. When that's out of the way I'll be able to think."
But Monday is a long way off, and in the meantime headhunters are being besieged by Lehman casualties looking for new positions, many urged on, no doubt, by resilient wives who refuse to let their breadwinner sink into a self?indulgent depression, however tempting.
It's being predicted that Lehman won't be the only institution to fall, and the City is living on its nerves. As ex-employees flog off company memorabilia on eBay, buyers can invest in rucksacks and paperweights, T-shirts and badges.
"I've logged on and seen Lehman Brothers emergency evacuation kits on sale," says one disenchanted Lehman wife. "There's a smoke mask, goggles and a torch; frankly it would be more use if it had contained a CV and a month's salary."
Some names have been changed.
Last Updated: 9:12pm BST 17/09/2008 - Last Seen: 20/09/2008