Wonder Women (6 page)

‘Well then,' said Lee, leaning back in his chair, ‘go for it. Do the research, and I'll help any way I can. If you need to go and meet with people, I can take time off to look after the kids, or my mum could help.'

She started small. In the afternoons, when she had both kids, she went on a few excursions, visiting high streets in the local area, looking for possible premises. She wanted to go more upmarket than Hendon, but not as exclusive as Hampstead. Golders Green looked possible, or the Broadway in Mill Hill. Or maybe Finchley or Muswell Hill. She found herself peering through the windows of vacant shops, trying to imagine them transformed. So far she hadn't found anything that blew her away, but she knew the space was out there somewhere.

In the mornings, when Imogene napped, she started trawling through websites with information about starting a small business. There were hundreds. Many of them were dense and badly written, some of them just offered motivational claptrap – ‘you can acheive any thing you want to, think of your dream and you can make it a Reality'-type nonsense. But she found a few that offered useful checklists and pieces of advice. She learned about SWOT analysis and PEST analysis, and she started to draw up a spreadsheet of possible start-up costs. There were lots of gaps and many things she couldn't begin to put numbers to, but it was a beginning.

She particularly liked a blog by a woman entrepreneur called Louise Holmes-Harper, who wrote in an easy, witty
style, and whose ideas seemed simple and practical. Best of all, Louise H-H wrote quite a lot about balancing work and childcare. There was one particularly funny post about how much a busy mum starting a business could achieve during the average toddler nap time. It struck a chord with Jo, so she commented on it, and Louise H-H sent her a warm personal message in return.

That gave Jo courage, so she drafted an email and, after much hesitation, sent it off to the address on Louise Holmes-Harper's website.

She didn't expect to hear back from Louise any time soon, but a reply came within the hour.

She had added a link to the page on her website which advertised the seminar. It wasn't expensive, and it was to be held at a hotel in Kingston, easily accessible by train or road.
The sessions were during the day on the Saturday and Sunday … Totally doable if Lee was happy to have the kids on his own for the whole weekend.

She forwarded her email and Louise's response to Lee's work address, adding a question mark at the top. She knew he'd understand what she was asking, and sure enough, within half an hour he fired back a message saying:

It was all the encouragement Jo needed, and she filled in the online form and paid for the course there and then. Once she had done so, and had looked at the programme in more detail, she started to get quite excited, and began typing up a list of questions related to each of the sessions. When she looked at the three A4 sheets she had filled, she had to laugh at herself. She was going to be that annoying swot, sitting right in the front with her hand in the air, constantly interrupting to ask more questions. Still, it was wonderful to feel stimulated again.

*

On Saturday, Lee drove her to the Tube station, and she kissed him goodbye. Imogene and Zach waved cheerily to her from their car seats in the back. They looked perfectly happy to be spending the day without her.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd caught a Tube without a pushchair, an excited toddler and at least two
enormous bags, so it felt very odd to get on to the train with just a satchel. She took out her notes and questions and her copy of the day's agenda, and by the time she got to Waterloo, she'd been through them ten times over. At Waterloo, she treated herself to a coffee and a magazine, and found her train to Surrey. She rang Lee, who answered his phone in a whisper.

‘Everything okay?'

‘Fine. You?'

‘Fine here too. I'm sat on the sofa watching
Monsters Inc.
with Zach, and Imi's asleep on my chest.'

Jo let out a sigh she hadn't known she was holding on to. ‘That's great. Well, I'm on the train, on my way. I'll give you a shout at the first tea break.'

‘Have fun, love,' said Lee.

The train pulled out of Waterloo and Jo sipped her coffee, stared out of the window and leafed through her magazine. She felt as if she was going on holiday.

The hotel where the seminar was being held was close to Kingston station and she got there just after nine thirty, half an hour early. She found a chair in the foyer of the hotel where she could see the door of the conference suite and sat down. She felt unaccountably nervous. This was the first proper work-related event she'd been to in more than three years. She felt very out of practice and conspicuous. She jumped up and went to the loo to check her hair and makeup and make sure she had no baby porridge or snot anywhere about her person.

When she came back, there was a tall woman with dark red hair laying out conference packs on the table outside
the meeting room. She must be Louise Holmes-Harper's assistant. Jo hung back a bit and looked around. There didn't seem to be anyone else who looked like a conference attendee in the foyer yet, but then what would they look like? It was a seminar for people seeking to start a small business, and that could be anyone. She plucked up her courage and edged over to the table where the woman was painstakingly lining up name badges. There were quite a lot of name badges, Jo noted with relief – at least twenty. She had had an irrational fear that there would only be about five of them sitting around a table, embarrassed, trying to fill gaps and pauses with questions.

‘Hi,' Jo ventured. ‘I'm here for the small-business seminar.'

‘Hi!' said the woman. She looked about forty, and she had a wide, friendly smile. ‘Let me guess. You must be Jo Hockley.'

‘Wow. Good guess.' Jo smiled. ‘Sorry, I'm really nervous.'

‘Ah, I remember from your email you said you'd been at home with your kids for a while. I know how you feel; it can knock your confidence.'

The woman unbuttoned her jacket and took it off, and Jo realised that she was pregnant – not very far along, maybe fifteen or sixteen weeks.

‘You're Louise Holmes-Harper,' said Jo, rather unnecessarily, because the woman was busy pinning on a name badge that made that clear.

‘Sorry, yes, of course I am. I thought you knew.'

‘I thought you might be Louise's glamorous assistant.'

‘Sadly I don't have one of those,' laughed Louise. ‘I try to keep costs down when I do these things … I know people
are spending their own money to come on this seminar, so I want to give them as much as I can for a good price. I do the setting up, the photocopying – all the housekeeping tasks. I also pour a mean cup of tea!'

She seemed so warm and easy-going that Jo already felt more at ease. ‘Well, as I seem to be the first here, I can be the teacher's pet and help you, if you like.'

‘Thanks, that would be fab,' said Louise. ‘Could you pop these notes into each folder, and make sure each person gets a pen and a notepad too? I'll go and double-check the laptop and projector are working; I have a morbid fear of being let down by the technology. I like to be sure that things will just do what I need them to do, when I need.'

She left Jo packing folders and went through the doors into the other room. Jo sneaked a look at the delegate list, but it was just a list of names. There were roughly equal numbers of men and women, but no indication what areas of business anyone might be interested in.

Once she had finished organising the notes, she looked around the hotel foyer. There were a few people standing around uncertainly: a middle-aged woman in a tweed skirt and sturdy shoes clutching a battered old briefcase, two teenage boys, looking uncomfortable in shirts and ties, an elderly chap who was sitting at a table looking at an iPad, and three or four men between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. She backed away from the table before anyone could approach and ask her questions. Just then, Louise came back out of the conference room and stood behind the table with a bright smile. She winked at Jo. ‘Could you come over and get the ball rolling?'

Jo went up and signed in, gathering her delegate pack and name badge. The other people straggled after her and formed a queue. Louise indicated that she could go through, so she walked into the conference room, where chairs were set in a single row, forming a neat semicircle facing a screen. She dithered, then put her folder and bag on a seat slightly to the left of centre and fetched herself a cup of tea. One by one, the other people came into the room. Nobody seemed to want to make small talk, at least not yet, and they all sat rather awkwardly, folders on laps and balancing their teacups, until Louise came in.

She checked her watch. ‘Hi, everyone. So glad you all made it. Everyone who should be here seems to be here, and we're all set to start on time. Miracles will never cease! Let's begin with some introductions. As you've probably guessed, I'm Louise Holmes-Harper, and I'll be running the seminar. I know that for each of you, your business idea is the most precious and valuable thing you have, so the one rule I'm going to insist on is that you don't tell everyone exactly what your idea is. Today, we're going to be focusing on general skills that will be useful whatever your business, and in the one-on-one sessions tomorrow with the various experts you can talk more specifically about any help or information you need that is particular to your field. Still, it's important to get to know each other, so I'm going to ask each of you to tell everyone your name, and one little-known fact about yourself. So, let me start by saying that my name is Louise, and I've never been able to spell the word “occasion”. One
c
, two
s
's? Two
c
's, one
s
? And the last part:
i
,
o
,
n –
i
,
o
,
u
, n? It gets me every time!'

She laughed warmly and it made everyone else laugh too. ‘You see?' Louise said. ‘Confessions are easy. Let's start with you, Eric,' she said, indicating the elderly man sitting on the far left of the semicircle.

‘My name is Eric Pocket, and for years I've told everyone I don't have a middle name, but I do, and it's Hillary.'

This got a good laugh too. Next in line was one of the teenage boys.

‘I'm Daniel, and there's this one Coldplay song I secretly like.'

His friend next to him looked utterly horrified. ‘You WHAT? I can't believe you! Coldplay? Wow.'

Louise pointed to the friend. ‘Now, now! It's your turn.'

‘Hi, I'm Chris, and I totally judge people by their taste in music.'

Daniel looked unimpressed. ‘It's supposed to be a little-known fact about you. Everyone knows that about you. Even people who've just met you.'

‘Okay,' said Chris, leaning back and stretching his legs. ‘I used to sing treble in the church choir.'

Daniel was so astonished at this he was speechless.

‘Well, clearly that one WAS a surprise!' said Louise. ‘Next …'

It was Jo's turn. She'd been enjoying everyone else's confession so much, she hadn't thought about her own. ‘Er … um … I'm Jo, and I once dressed up as a pineapple and gave out leaflets for a travel company?'

She got a smattering of applause for that one, but nothing like the one for the middle-aged tweedy woman, who announced baldly, ‘I'm Maureen, and I've been doing yoga
for thirty-five years. I can put both feet behind my head.' She got a standing ovation. By the time they'd gone around the circle, the ice was well and truly broken, and before they knew it they were into the first session, where Louise talked them through limited companies, partnerships and sole trading.

*

In Hendon, Lee was enjoying every minute of his solo-daddy day. He'd loved sitting quietly with the kids to watch a film, and when Imogene woke from her nap, she was lively and playful and kept pulling herself up on the furniture and Lee's legs. Zach was playing on his sand table in the garden, but he kept running in to tell Lee about some adventure his dinosaurs were having in the sand. When he saw Imogene was up and playing, he wanted to kiss her and carry her around, but Imogene was having none of that. She crawled determinedly under the kitchen table and sat there, giggling to herself.