Wonder Women

by Fiore, Rosie

  It was a bit mean of her, as she knew Miranda would already have organised everything that needed doing, and that Judith would now wander around the kitchen and then the house, quietly asking questions that, however innocent they might sound, would undermine everything Miranda had done. ‘Oh dear,’ she’d say. ‘Did you mix the mayonnaise into the potato salad while the potatoes were still warm? I always worry about salmonella, don’t you?’ or ‘Goodness me, Miranda, isn’t it wonderful how you young people don’t feel the need to scrub off limescale any more. You’re so much more relaxed than we were.’

  But after the drive from Ealing, Holly desperately needed a break from her mum, and most of all she wanted to drink a couple of glasses of Pimm’s very quickly without her mother commenting how young women now felt free to drink so much more than in her time – and in the middle of the day! Actually, make that three glasses, Holly amended. She wandered over to the barbecue, a monstrous gas contraption, where her brother-in-law, Paul, was expertly flipping burgers. ‘Those look good,’ she said conversationally.

  ‘Organic beef. Miranda made them herself.’

  ‘Ah, and the sausages?’

  ‘Organic, free-range pork.’

  ‘I always feel so much better knowing I’m eating a happy dead animal,’ Holly said sardonically, but she might as well not have bothered. Paul didn’t have much of a sense of humour. He was a man who dealt in facts, so he just ignored her comment and kept minutely adjusting the knobs on his gigantic barbecue. Holly was convinced that if he got the right combination of buttons and switches, the thing would just take off. He was a big Arsenal supporter, so she went for football as a safe topic of conversation. A few well-chosen questions and he was off, droning about formations, players being kept on the bench and the reasons for their recent humiliating defeat by Man United. Holly nodded at appropriate intervals while she chewed on Pimm’s-soaked chunks of cucumber.

  In the end, Judith prevailed and they ate lunch inside. The food was delicious, and Holly ate ravenously. She’d had enough Pimm’s to be able to ignore her mother’s barbs about her unladylike appetite, and Paul had served a quite simply lovely Chardonnay to complement the meal. Holly, pleasantly full of good food and booze, started to feel almost benevolent towards her dysfunctional family. She was sitting next to little Oscar in his high chair, who was gumming on a piece of bread roll and thumping his beaker of water up and down, loudly. He bashed his beaker close to Holly, and she reached over and banged the tray of his high chair with the flat of her hand. He jumped, a little startled, and then chortled delightedly, showing his two peg teeth at the bottom. He bashed again and Holly banged back. He let loose with an almighty belly laugh, a most delicious sound in the restrained atmosphere. ‘Holly, dear, don’t overexcite the baby,’ said Judith. ‘You’ll make him ill.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Holly shortly, forgetting to be polite. ‘I’m making him laugh, not bouncing him off the ceiling.’

  She banged again, and Oscar laughed so hard that he inhaled a chunk of bread, went purple in the face and started coughing and choking. Miranda leapt to her feet and whacked him sharply on the back. The nugget of soggy bread flew out. Both Miranda and Judith looked at Holly with absolute horror as if she had choked the baby herself, but Oscar immediately turned to Holly. ‘Again!’ he demanded.

  Miranda gasped. ‘He’s never said that before!’ She squeezed Oscar and kissed him all over his red little face. ‘Clever pickle! Do it again, Holly.’

  Holly banged the high-chair tray, Oscar bashed back and chuckled, then yelled, ‘Again!’ to the delight of his captive audience. They repeated the sequence over and over. It never seemed to get old. He was a dear little chap, Holly thought. She’d not paid much attention to him before: she’d always thought babies were rather dull, but she liked his round little face and his raspy chortle. He seemed simpler and less self-conscious than Martha. If she had kids (and in her present situation, she couldn’t imagine when that would ever be), she would like boys better than girls, she decided. Sturdy, fat-cheeked little boys like Oscar.

  Even Judith’s mood seemed to have lightened with Oscar’s mirth, and for once, conversation seemed to flow in a slightly less stilted way. Paul asked Holly about her work, and she told him a little about the shop.

  ‘It’s not a long-term plan, though, is it?’ said Paul bluntly. ‘Is there an opportunity for you to climb the ladder? Maybe do some management training? You’re not getting any younger, Holly.’

  ‘Paul!’ admonished Miranda. ‘Don’t be so rude!’

  ‘No, no, he’s absolutely right,’ said Holly. ‘I took this job as a stop-gap, just to give me time to think about what I want to do. I have to start again from scratch, but I might as well really think about what makes me happy.’

  ‘And what does make you happy?’ asked Paul. Holly was glad of his abrupt, businesslike manner. It made her articulate her thoughts, think in a more focused way. It was better than the rather woolly wanderings she’d been having on her walk to work.

  ‘I want to design clothes …’ she began slowly, ‘but I’m not entirely sure I want to run my own business. There were aspects of the business side of things I didn’t enjoy, and I wouldn’t mind not having to do them myself. I’d quite like to work with someone else, and I definitely don’t want to do evening wear again. Not for a long time.’

  ‘No evening wear?’ said Judith. ‘Oh, Holly, that’s such a pity! You’re so talented.’

  Holly gritted her teeth. She really couldn’t bloody win with her mother.

  ‘Well, I’m talented in lots of ways,’ she said tightly. ‘I can design other things, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ said Judith. ‘I know you’re very talented.’ She stared at her plate. ‘I just meant …’ but she let her sentence fade away.

  Paul ignored his mother-in-law’s interruption and kept his attention focused on Holly.

  ‘Knowing what you don’t want to do is a start,’ he said. ‘Now, how are you going to go about getting to do the things you do want to do?’

  ‘I … I don’t know yet. I suppose I’ll work up a portfolio, gather some of the designs I’ve done before, and then I’ll start digging around on the net for personnel agencies in the field.’

  ‘Set yourself a time limit for each step of your plan. That would be my advice,’ said Paul. ‘Don’t let your goals slip, or you’ll find yourself six months down the line and no closer to your goal.’

  *

  A few days later, Miranda was outside the nursery waiting for Martha when Jo came running up to the gate, breathless, her arms full of a big folder of papers.

  ‘Hello!’ trilled Miranda. ‘Such a long time since I last saw you! You haven’t been in the park much lately.’

  ‘No,’ said Jo, still panting, and checking her watch in relief. ‘I didn’t think I’d make it. I was in a meeting at the bank and it ran over.’

  ‘You can always give me a shout,’ Miranda said, ‘if you’re held up. Martha would love Zachy to come and play.’

  ‘Really?’ said Jo. ‘That might be a big help. Imogene’s going to a childminder a couple of times a week now, but I have another meeting on Thursday and I wasn’t sure I’d make it back in time to get Zach.’

  ‘No worries,’ said Miranda, and they swapped telephone numbers. ‘So, I’m curious. ‘All these meetings … what are they? Are you going back to work?’

  ‘Kind of …’ said Jo, a little reluctantly, but then she seemed to make up her mind. ‘I’m starting a business. A kids’ clothing shop. It’s all in the early stages now, but it looks as if I’m going to get start-up finance from the bank. I’ve seen some premises in East Finchley that might be perfect if I can get the lease. If it all comes together, I’ll be marketing like mad to all of you here at the school gate.’

  ‘That sounds so exciting! You’ll be a mumpreneur!’ said Miranda enthusiastically.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘It’s the new buzzword. “Mumpreneurs” are mums s
tarting businesses that fit in with their families.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jo, smiling, ‘I love a good buzzword. Well, I have a long way to go. Lots of problems to solve before we open the doors. My biggest worry is that at the moment it’s going to be a kids’ clothing shop with no clothes in it. You wouldn’t happen to know an amazingly talented fashion designer, would you?

  7

  JO, HOLLY AND MEL NOW

  ‘These are … wow!’ said Jo, paging through Holly’s portfolio as they sat opposite each other at her kitchen table. ‘They’re just incredible. The detail! And the finish on them! Oh, I love this one.’ She paused, looking at a floor-length silver evening dress, high at the front and cut low at the back, with a slim train like a mermaid’s tail.

  ‘It was one of my favourites,’ Holly said, leaning forward. ‘It was snapped up by a friend who’s a drag queen. He certainly had the legs to work it.’

  ‘A drag queen?’

  ‘That kind of retro styling always appealed to the queens … Doradolla was started in the spirit of high camp.’

  ‘I meant to ask you about that … Doradolla?’

  ‘Afrikaans for “fag hag”.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Jo, closing the portfolio and leaning back. ‘I mean, you’re an amazing designer, and you clearly know your way around a sewing machine, but this couldn’t be further from the kind of stuff I need for the shop. Our main focus would be clothes for little boys, you see … and not fancy wear-for-best stuff. Hardwearing, fun play clothes that don’t cost the earth.’

  ‘I know,’ said Holly, ‘Miranda told me about that, so I had a bit of a go … I made these for my nephew Oscar.’

  She reached into her bag and pulled out a pair of tiny denim jeans, baggy in the bum so they would fit over a nappy, with a soft, elasticated waistband. She’d embroidered them with stick figures and simple shapes: circles, triangles and squares, in primary colours. There were sturdy double-thickness pads over the knees. They were funky and adorable, and they looked like they’d withstand even the most determined toddler.

  ‘I shoved them in the washing machine on hot half a dozen times,’ explained Holly. ‘Obviously they need to be able to take some knocks. It took a few goes to find embroidery thread that didn’t lose its colour. And I also made these.’ She had two little cowboy shirts in brightly coloured plaid, roomily cut to allow for plenty of movement and with press-studs rather than buttons.

  ‘I took some pictures of Oscar in them.’ She passed her iPad over to Jo, who flicked through the pictures of a laughing Oscar among the autumn leaves in the park. He wasn’t necessarily a model baby, but he did look adorable in Holly’s simple, well-made clothes.

  ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about what kind of stock you might need,’ she continued. ‘I can take care of stuff like shirts and trousers, but you’d need more than that … coats for winter, and knitwear, and from the little boys I’ve been observing, you’ll need a good-quality, hard-wearing range of T-shirts too. And maybe also baby wear, and I wouldn’t know a lot about that. The challenge will be to get things made here in the UK at low cost. I’m pretty fast, but I’m not sure I can sew a whole shop full of stock by myself, and getting material costs down is key. You also need to think about how fast you can respond …’

  ‘Respond?’

  ‘Well, you won’t know what’s going to sell and what might be a dud. It’s difficult to predict, especially when you’re first starting out. You might get a run on a particular line and need to get some more in fast, and some things might just not sell at all, and you’ll have pre-ordered more. It’s one advantage of being your own supplier. It’s easier to be flexible.’

  Jo passed the iPad back thoughtfully. ‘Look, there’s no question I want to work with you. The question is how?’

  ‘Well, what are the options?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t got that far. I suppose initially I just imagined you’d be a supplier for some or all of the clothing. But listening to you talk … well, I want to lock you in my spare room and never let you go! You know such a lot. And you must know so many people.’

  Holly laughed. ‘Well, your spare room may be preferable to the one at my mum’s house, which is where I’m currently living, and I’m afraid I know no one in the business here in the UK. All my contacts are in South Africa. It’s a pity, because I do know an amazing baby-wear company in Johannesburg … they used to have a stall next to me at one of the markets. Oh, and if you decided to do something funky, there was a guy I knew who did the most stunning Hawaiian-style fabrics, which would make such sweet little shirts … And as for knitwear, there’s a collective of goggos – grandmas – in one of the townships who knit the most beautiful things. They’ve all lost children to HIV, and they’re raising their grandchildren, so it’s how they earn money.’

  ‘Wow! Well, couldn’t we make some of those connections work? I’d love to buy jumpers from the grannies, especially as we’d be supporting such a good cause.’

  ‘We’d have to look at shipping costs, and what the situation might be with customs, and we’d need to see what the lead times would be …’

  ‘Stop!’ Jo laughed. ‘Let’s go back a step. Holly, I would love to work with you. My business plan allows me two full-time members of staff, as well as a budget for design and manufacture of clothes, so I think I could pay you fairly. If you’d consider being my design and stock expert, I’d be thrilled.’

  ‘Not as thrilled as I would be,’ said Holly. ‘You have a deal.’

  ‘So, if you don’t mind me asking, what happened to make you leave your business in South Africa? It looks as if you had something great going.’

  ‘Ah, now that’s a long and rather gruesome story,’ said Holly, her smile fading. ‘We might need to save that one for a long evening and a large bottle of wine.’

  Jo glanced up at the clock. ‘Well, it’s past four o’clock, and anyway, it’s definitely evening somewhere in the world. Lee’s got the kids in the park, and our new working relationship is the perfect excuse to celebrate. And as it happens, I have an average-sized but very nice bottle of something in the fridge.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ said Holly. ‘But be warned, more than two glasses and I’m liable to start sobbing into my Chardonnay. Very unprofessional and unattractive, I think.’

  ‘I’ll reverse-medicate with chocolate if the need arises,’ said Jo, getting up to fetch glasses and the bottle.

  *

  Holly stayed in her job at the shop in Ealing for the time being, but she spent her evenings with Jo in planning meetings, or at home sewing prototype garments. Her co-workers from the shop grumbled that she wasn’t available for evenings out clubbing any more, and Judith gave a martyred sigh every time Holly bolted her dinner down and headed for the bus stop, or went back to her room to sew. She didn’t care what anyone else thought though; she was happy. It felt like the early days of Doradolla, but without the crushing stress. She was having all the fun with very little of the responsibility, and it was fabulous.

  Once the finance was in place, things started to move a lot faster. After months of wrangling, Jo got the premises in East Finchley she had long had her eye on. The area was perfect, with a great mix of well-off parents and more-average-income families, and within easy reach of many of the surrounding suburbs like Hampstead and Highgate, where there was plenty of disposable cash. The place Jo had found was on the high street and next door to a chain coffee shop. It was a double unit: a large, square space shop with a light airy feel and a big plate-glass window so that the exciting interior would be visible to passers-by.

  Lee had done the initial designs and Jo had gone to a Swedish playground-equipment firm to build all the fittings. They were used to meeting very high safety standards, and what they built was built to last, but it was bright and colourful, although it did make a significant hole in the money Jo had been lent by the bank. Holly supervised the design and ordering of the fittings to hang the clothes. Zach and O
scar served as reluctant but frequent models as she created her designs. Oscar would grumble or chuckle when she shoved him into something new, depending on whether or not she had a biscuit to bribe him with, but Zach was much more critical. If he thought something was fussy or uncomfortable, he would say so immediately. He also took the brief that these were supposed to be play clothes to heart, and as soon as Holly gave him something to try on, he would jump around, waving his arms, turn roly-polies and wrestle anyone who’d engage.

  Holly also set about finding reputable clothing wholesalers to fill the gaps in their range. With winter setting in, she knew they needed coats, and until she could make contact with the collective in Johannesburg and arrange an order and shipping, she needed to source knitwear, especially hats and scarves. A search on the Internet alerted her to a wholesalers’ trade show, which featured all sorts of children’s products but especially clothing, and she and Jo booked to go. It was in an exhibition venue near Angel, and they decided to make a day of it. Lee’s parents took Imogene and arranged to collect Zach from nursery, so Jo had no time pressure. She met Holly at Angel station and they went to a coffee shop for a leisurely breakfast.

  ‘The luxury!’ Jo laughed. ‘I can’t remember the last time I got to drink a whole cappuccino while it was still hot, or eat a whole pastry without sharing with two small people.’

  ‘Have two pastries,’ advised Holly. ‘You’ll need the carbs to sustain you through this.’ She pushed the catalogue and a piece of paper across the table to Jo. She wasn’t kidding about needing sustenance. There were hundreds of stalls listed, and Jo wouldn’t have known where to begin, but luckily Holly had done her online research and chosen fifteen companies for them to look at, which she had put into a list.