The Importance of Being Emma Read Online Free Page A

much she’d changed physically. The only photos I’d seen of her were the slapdash efforts of my sister-in-law Izzy, whose camera lens was always focused on her kids. More often than not Emma was just a blurred face, or hardly visible under a pile of chubby little arms and legs.
    So, no more Mouse. It was the end of an era.
    But the dawn of a new one, neatly summed up by that headline, ‘Gentleman’s Relish’. Ironic, of course; when I’d first caught sight of her earlier today, my thoughts had been anything but gentlemanly …
    I closed my file with a snap. Time for the Board meeting.
     
    ~~EMMA~~
    I couldn’t resist checking Batty’s seating plan from across the boardroom table. At one end of a long rectangle she had ‘HLW – Henry Woodhouse, Managing Director’; at the other, ‘MGK – Mark Knightley, Non-Executive Director’. I knew what the G stood for, of course. The Knightleys believed in recycling the same solid old-fashioned names, as if promoting themselves as fine specimens of English manhood; the father was George James and the two sons were Mark George and John James.
    My parents had been more imaginative; my sister and I were named Isabella Maria, Izzy for short, and Emma Carlotta. That was all down to Sophia, our Italian mother, who died in a car crash when I was three and Izzy was twelve. She’d apparently been a breath of fresh air in Highbury – outspoken and headstrong, but charming with it. It made me wonder how she’d coped with Dad, although Mark once told me that he used to be full of energy.
    On Batty’s plan, I was at right angles to Mark: ‘ECW – Emma Woodhouse, Marketing Director’. Next to me was ‘PTW – Penny Worthington, HR Director’, then ‘JM – Jon Marshall, Operations Director’ and ‘TSW – Terry White, Sales Director’. Opposite was Batty herself, ‘MEB – Mary Bates, Company Secretary’, then Harriet and finally ‘PE – Philip Elton, Finance Director’.
    Finance, yawn, was my least favourite MBA subject and Philip himself was new to the company. I’d only met him once before, briefly, whereas I’d known the others for years. One of my priorities was to make them forget I was Henry’s little girl and accept me as an equal.
    Fortified by a cup of nettle leaf tea, Dad opened the meeting and welcomed the new faces. We went through apologies (none), minutes of the last meeting (approved) and then to the substance of the meeting, the directors’ reports.
    Everything was fine until my turn came. I’d persuaded Dad to give me a slot on the agenda, as I wanted to share my marketing plans with the Board and get some early buy-in. I’d prepared a presentation on my PC, then found there was no projector, so everyone had a paper copy of my slides instead.
    I started with a brief review of our markets and competitive position. I listed the emerging trends in consumer demographics and buying behaviours and other factors, such as some pending EU food legislation which would adversely affect one of our longest-running lines.
    ‘ Any questions at this stage?’ I asked.
    Everyone was silent. Dad had his head in his hands, as if the picture I’d painted was all too much for him. Then Mark, who’d been scribbling notes throughout my presentation, leaned forward. I tensed; somehow I knew a lecture was on its way.
    ‘ Your analysis is too limited,’ he said. ‘You need to look at competition in a broader sense. For example, what are the trends in eating out as opposed to staying in and cooking with Highbury Foods products? And your focus is all UK, you should be selling world-wide. Expat communities would be an ideal target market for your traditional English product lines.’
    ‘ Such as Gentleman’s Relish,’ Terry said, with a wicked grin. ‘Now where did I see that mentioned in the press recently?’
    I closed my eyes for a moment and debated which of the two to castrate first, metaphorically speaking. I decided to ignore Terry and deal with Mark.
    ‘ I