Wonder Women (45 page)

‘With all due respect,' said Kimberley, and her tone suggested that she didn't think much respect was due at all, ‘we've been leaders in the little girls' fashion market for twenty years. We know what works.'

‘More than one thing can work,' said Jo, a little tight-lipped. ‘Little girls can wear colours other than pink. They can imagine being more than just princesses or fairies. And I do not want to look at the girls' section in my shops and see a sea of bubblegum pink.'

Richard interrupted smoothly. ‘Kimberley, thank you for
your market insights. I think we've made our position clear. While I'm sure your pink selection is excellent, we will be looking for a wider range of colours.'

Kimberley nodded and made a note on her pad. It seemed that if the direction came from Richard, she was happy to take it. Jo was annoyed. She didn't want Richard to have to jump in and save her. She was perfectly capable of holding a meeting with a supplier, and she had done so many times before. She swallowed her irritation, smiled sweetly and said, ‘Could we take a look at some of your samples?'

That part of the meeting went rather better: Kimberley seemed happy to talk fine detail with her, and they discussed fabrics, styles and lead times. Richard was no expert in the minutiae of garment buying and he sat back and let Jo go over each item and ask questions. At the end of the meeting, they had a long list of styles they liked and an agreement that Kimberley's team would come back to them with a wider range of colour options.

Jo relaxed slightly. It had gone better than she had feared. Everyone was standing around the boardroom and chatting and she picked up a checked gingham dress with a big bow sash and a broderie anglaise underskirt. ‘This I love,' she said to Kimberley, trying to be genuinely friendly. ‘I'd love to order one for my daughter.'

‘You have a daughter?' said Kimberley, and raised an eyebrow.

‘Yes, she's eighteen months old, and I have a son, who's coming up for four.'

‘Wow!' said Kimberley. ‘And who's looking after them today?'

Jo bit the inside of her lip hard enough to make it bleed. ‘My husband is – he's a stay-at-home dad.' And even though she knew it was rude and unprofessional, she walked away.

On the train on the way home, she and Richard held a post mortem of the meeting. ‘I could see you didn't like her,' said Richard mildly.

‘Oh, could you?' said Jo sarcastically. ‘Did it show?'

‘It really did,' he said. ‘And while I agree that her company probably isn't the right wholesale supplier for us, what if they were? You can't let personal feelings come into it.'

‘That's where I disagree with you. Firstly, we would have to work closely with any supplier and trust them, and if that's the case, we have to know they have the same values and culture that we do. Secondly, I know my own business, I know what look we're trying to present, and I don't appreciate someone condescending to me and suggesting they know better. If she's a supplier, she should supply.'

‘She does have significant expertise in the sector …'

‘In one aspect of the sector. And I might have been more prepared to listen to her if she'd treated me like the founder of the company, rather than as your glamorous assistant. She asked me who was looking after my children!'

‘And why shouldn't she ask you …?'

‘You told her you had two-year-old twins. She didn't ask
you
who was looking after your children today, did she?' Richard shook his head. ‘Thought not. No one ever asks fathers. They just assume the wife is at home doing the job that she's meant to do. But if a woman has small children, the assumption is that she's letting her kids down by being out at work.'

She knew she was ranting, and she had to stop. The whole day had been a chain of disasters, beginning that morning with the Easter bonnet and the chaos at home. It had made her on edge and defensive all day, and maybe she hadn't been as objective and professional in the meeting with Kimberley as she should have been. She stared out of the window at the countryside, washed with rain. Was this how her life was going to be? Lurching from crisis to crisis? Crushed with guilt that she was letting her kids down, and then crushed with a different kind of guilt that she wasn't giving her all to build the business she loved and believed in? Never mind her husband, her extended family, her friends … the people for whom she currently had no time at all. There was another whole world of guilt there.

‘Richard,' she said, ‘how do you do it? How do you make it work?'

He looked up from his iPad, surprised. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, to get to King's Cross by nine, you must have left home at … what?'

‘Seven.'

‘Were the twins awake?'

‘No. Neither was Rachel.'

‘So you left without seeing any of them, and you'll be back home when?'

‘I'm staying in town for drinks with an old work friend, so I shan't see the twins before they go to bed. Rachel might still be up, but I doubt it.'

‘And how do you feel about that?'

‘Well, sad that I won't see them of course, but they're
with Rachel. So I know they're happy and well. And we'll have fun this weekend. We're taking them for their first pony ride.'

‘So you don't feel guilty at all?' Jo said incredulously.

‘What's this all about?' Richard looked hard at her. ‘What's brought this on?'

And before she knew it, the whole story of her hideous morning spilled out. ‘So I'm sitting here crushed with guilt, because I'm a terrible mother, an incompetent businesswoman and probably a rubbish wife and friend too. But is it just me? Or is it all women? Can men just go off and work without a moment's worry? Is it just working women beating themselves up, because they're running to catch up with themselves and failing at everything?'

Richard leaned back and put the tips of his fingers together as if he was a psychoanalyst and Jo was the patient. If there was a couch on the train, she was sure he would have told her to lie down.

‘Now, I've been a husband for a lot of years,' he said. ‘And as a man, when you come to me with a problem, my instinct is to offer practical solutions. But I know from years of living with Rachel that that isn't always what women want. Do you want me to commiserate and say that your life is difficult and I'm so sorry? Or do you want my opinion on how to fix it?'

Jo laughed for the first time that day. It was exactly the argument she had with Lee all the time. When she had had a bad day, Lee would ask lots of penetrating questions about what had happened, and would often make suggestions about how she could have done things differently. In reality,
what she usually wanted was a cuddle and a glass of wine and a bit of, ‘Poor love,' while he stroked her hair. But this was different. She couldn't go on feeling like this, and Richard was a successful businessperson and a parent – and, more crucially, not her husband. Maybe he had some insights.

‘Let's hear your opinion.'

‘I didn't learn a lot in the world of banking that was useful,' began Richard, ‘but one thing I did learn is that guilt is a useless emotion. It doesn't help anyone and it hinders you.'

‘But how do I stop feeling guilty, when I can't—'

‘Be everything to everybody twenty-four hours a day? You can't. So stop trying. Organise your life so that panic situations like this morning don't arise; give your kids the best of your attention when you're there, and trust that between you and Lee and the other people responsible for their care, they're getting lots of love and attention.'

‘That's easy for you to say, but—'

‘Here's what I think about your morning,' said Richard. ‘Hire a cleaner so your washing and ironing is done, and housework isn't something standing in the way of family time.'

That was tiresomely practical, Jo had to admit. Someone who came to do the heavy cleaning once a week and dealt with a stack of ironing would lessen their stress significantly.

‘Secondly, put everything in your diary. If Zach's Easter bonnet had been diarised, it would have happened.'

‘But that's so clinical, making diary entries to remember to care for my children …'

‘Did you remember without it?'

‘No, but—'

‘You're busy. Make a note. Why is that something to feel guilty about?'

Again, Jo had to nod.

‘And do me a favour – ring up my technology guy, Angus. Get him to set up your laptop and phone and so on so you have what you need, when you need it. Arrange it so all your devices synchronise automatically and you always have all your files. You can't plan for everything. You can't plan for a sick child, an accident, or someone else's incompetence. But you can do a lot to make your life easier just by putting a few things in place.'

If Lee had made those suggestions, she would have yelled at him. She would have said he was accusing her of being a bad mother, or of being hopelessly disorganised. But Richard managed to sound dispassionate and practical about all of it.

‘So if we're not going to go with Kimberley Lytton's company, what's the next step?' she asked.

‘Well, I think we learned a lot from that meeting about what we do and don't want from a supplier, in terms of culture, financials and attitude. Let's put all those things down in a list and we can share it with Gary and Holly when we get back to London.'

‘Good idea,' said Jo, opening her laptop and firing it up. ‘Let me put a few things in my diary, and we'll get working on it.'

She opened a to-do list in her email program and wrote:

• Hire cleaner
  
• Online grocery shopping
  
• Book tickets for children's show at the arts centre
  
• Babysitter for Saturday night
  
• Take Lee out for dinner
  

‘Right!' she said brightly. ‘Item one: less than ten per cent pink stuff. What else is on our list?'

Since the party debacle, Serena had been on especially good behaviour, but she had resisted all Mel's efforts to have a heart-to-heart chat, insisting she was fine, that going to an unsupervised party and getting drunk had been one-off mistakes she would never repeat, and refusing to expand on any of the things she had said when she was lying on the bathroom floor. ‘I was drunk and crazy. I don't remember what I said, and I'm sure none of it was true.'

The morning after the party, when Serena was still asleep, Mel had gone around to Izzie's house. She rang the doorbell loud and long, and after three rings Romana, the sulky au pair, opened the door. She had obviously just woken up and she looked like a grumpy Persian kitten, all smudged eyeliner, ruffled hair and attitude. When she saw it was Mel at the door, her eyes widened.

‘I think the girls are still asleep …' she began, playing for time.

‘Serena is asleep, you're right. But she's asleep in her own bed, at home, after I found her drunk and crying in the street in the middle of the night. We're not even going to
discuss what Izzie did to cause that. Please go and pack up Serena's things and bring them to me.' There was no real satisfaction in yelling at this girl, however petulant and lazy she was. But Mel had to yell at someone. She knew Serena would never forgive her if she yelled at Izzie, or if she got her hands on Triggah, which she would dearly love to do, so she continued, ‘And you might as well start packing your own things; because I'll be letting Izzie's parents know that you let two fifteen-year-old girls go to a party where there was no adult supervision.'

When she got back home, Mel sat down at her computer and logged into Facebook. The first thing she saw was that Serena had changed her relationship status to ‘single'. She breathed a sigh of relief. There were a few messages on Serena's wall from friends saying ‘How RU?' and sending hugs and kisses, but she had not responded to any of them.

On the Friday afternoon nearly two weeks later, Mel's phone rang just as she was leaving the shop. She saw that it was Hamish and checked her watch: surely he must be in the middle of his work day?

‘Hello, stranger,' she said. ‘On a coffee break?'

‘Well, a lifetime coffee break, as it happens,' said Hamish happily. ‘I've given up my job at last.'

‘Wow. Congratulations.'

‘It's all a bit up in the air, to be fair. My flat in London has been sold, and I'm waiting for them to finish rewiring my cottage in Devon, so I'm living on a sleeper couch at my brother's place at the moment.'

‘So unemployed and of no fixed abode?'

‘Pretty much. I wondered if there might be a plate of that
fine bolognaise on offer at Mel's soup kitchen any time soon?'

‘Well, I always do my best to help the homeless and indigent. Free tonight?'

‘As it happens, yes.'

‘I might be able to rustle up a chop or something for you, if you're lucky. Come around about six.' She hung up, smiling.

Serena seemed pleased that Hamish was coming for dinner, and even helped Mel with the cooking. When he arrived, she gave him a hug and sat talking to him in the living room while Mel finished preparing the food and set the table. Mel tried not to mind that Serena seemed to be much more chatty and forthcoming with Hamish than she ever was with her. Still, it was good to hear her giggle again. As she put the plates on the table, Serena came into the kitchen.

‘Look at this, Mum!' she said, holding up a book. ‘This is Hamish's latest. He brought me a copy, and he signed it and everything!'

Mel took the book from her. It was really odd, seeing Hamish's name printed on a book cover. She flipped to the title page, where he had scrawled, ‘For Serena, Warrior Princess, and her awesome mum, Queen Mel, Love, Hamish.'

‘It's for both of us!' said Mel, pointing to her name.