Free Pinstripes by Faith Bleasdale

escape spending the evening in her depressing room. Her French class routine involved leaving the office at six, driving home, changing into her casual uniform of jeans and jumper, eating dinner, leaving at a quarter past seven and arriving, by scooter, at the local adult education centre at half past.
    Virginia had thought long and hard about what evening class she would do. When she first moved to London she took classes to help her get a social life: she had tried pottery, art history and badminton. She had not made a single friend, or motivated herself in any way. The French class was as unsophisticated as the language was sophisticated. Its intellectual demands were few, and Virginia was nowhere near being fluent, but she believed that, one day, she would be if she kept going.
    There were seven people in the group, which was taught by a frazzled middle-aged Frenchwoman. Virginia sat next to Pat, a housewife who had ideas of moving to France when her husband retired. She was plump and grey, and Virginia often wondered if she really had a husband. Two girls were taking extra lessons to help with their GCSE’s. A man of about fifty, called Graham, wanted to learn French to go with his Spanish and German conversational skills. Completing the group were the Trout sisters, two women of about eighty as far as Virginia could tell, who giggled through the lesson and had so far never uttered a word of French.
    Virginia applied herself to the class with the determination she applied to everything and she was good. Madame often said that she was the best in the class and she was a natural. Virginia basked in the pleasure of such a compliment and she tried harder and harder each week. The reality of the class made being the best quite easy, but at least she was the best somewhere.
    After the class, Virginia hung back. The two girls rushed out of the classroom then Pat picked up her massive tote bag and trundled off, buckling under its weight. The Trout sisters collected their walking sticks and moved slowly out of the room, while Graham, the international conversationalist, stopped to ask the teacher something.
    Tonight, Virginia waited to speak to Madame. “I just wanted to tell you I’m really enjoying the course,” she said shyly.
    Her teacher smiled. “You are the best pupil I’ve got.” They laughed, and as Virginia had now collected her weekly compliment, she left. She didn’t think about how sad it was that the only person in the whole world who was nice to her was her French teacher; she thought that at least she had someone to be nice to her.
    She drove home, had a shower and went to bed. The difference between the French night and any other night was that after the class she went to bed smiling.
     
    ***
     
    Clara looked at the screen again. It was changing constantly, but she didn ’t know why. She hated numbers. Tim was away on business in Paris, but would be back tomorrow with perfume, chocolates and a story about French whores. She could hardly wait.
    Sitting at her desk, she checked her calendar and realised that she had to go to dinner with her family tonight. She checked her bag and felt relieved to find a wrap of cocaine sitting at the bottom. At least she would be able to cope with her parents. She called James and checked that he would be joining them. Clara had had what she thought was a good day, but wished that Toby would stop looking at her in that lovesick way – she still felt guilty about him.
    Clara knew that she had a problem. She knew she was an addict. She believed she was addicted to sex. Ever since she had experimented with her roommate at boarding-school, Clara had been insatiable. She had climbed out of her bedroom window on numerous occasions to meet boys from the nearest boys” school. In the holidays, she slept with her brother’s friends, much to James’s annoyance, and when she was sent to Switzerland, she developed a predictable liking for ski instructors. But it had always been