Free Pinstripes by Faith Bleasdale Page B

finishing-school to become a career woman. Look at your mother. At your age, she was married with James. You should be thinking about doing the same,” her father growled.
    Clara was always pleased to see her brother, but never more so than at that moment. James strode confidently to their table, shook his father ’s hand, kissed his mother then his sister, sat down and poured some champagne. Clara envied him. Envied and loved him. He was tall, good-looking, sweet, bright and hard-working. He was also male.
    The conversation soon turned to business, as James and his father debated the future, the past and the present. Clara sipped her drink and watched her mother, who had cultivated the perfect wife qualities. She was decorative, classy and, most of all, she had an intent look of interest on her face as the men talked business, even though it was not only boring but double-dutch to her. If her mother understood a word of what was being said, Clara would eat her fur coat.
    Eventually she had had enough. “Do you want to hear how my business is?” she asked, trying to get her father’s attention and to sound important.
    “ Of course,” James replied.
    “ No,” her mother said.
    “ Clara, I wish you’d stop pretending and give up that silly job of yours,” her father said.
    Clara beamed at them and excused herself to go to the ladies ”, where she put a much-needed line of cocaine up her nose.
    As the powder hit, the sensation took away the desire to scream, and replaced it with calm. Nothing mattered. Everything was under control. She could handle it. She knew her parents only wanted her to turn into a carbon copy of her mother; she knew they would never appreciate that she needed something of her own. She herself could barely understand it. She was doted on, adored, lusted after and wanted. No one had ever expected anything from her so she didn ’t know what she should expect from herself. She knew she didn’t want to end up as her parents wanted her to, but she was also dangerously close to it. Her parents thought she was too pretty, rich and stupid to work. She hated the thought that they were probably right: that being pretty and rich had got her the job, and although she denied that she was stupid, she didn’t understand what she did.
    At finishing-school her teachers, who had all loved Clara, were bitterly disappointed that, unlike her mother, she had been so uninterested in their classes. She had not learnt to play a musical instrument, or the art of dressing a dinner table and she certainly couldn ’t cook. They felt she was useless.
    Clara ’s father had been upset. He had wanted the school to turn Clara into a good marriage prospect, and he belonged to a generation who believed that women should have talents. Brazenly Clara told him that she would hire a cook, a table-dresser and a musician. To which her father replied that women had to oversee their staff and if they could not do their jobs, they would not know how to supervise them. Clara replied that she would marry a man with no class who would never know, and her father said she was a waste of space. The row was never resolved. Clara’s mother watched them, fiddling with her pearls and never quite catching Clara’s eye. Eventually Clara stormed out, went to find James and cry in his arms.
    That was how Clara had sunk into her confusion. She moved into a three-bedroom flat in South Kensington, which her father had bought her after a particularly nasty row. From the moment she started living there Clara loved London. She caught up with old friends and made new ones. She discovered the joy of parties, shopping, drugs and men. Clara ’s life involved being out all night, sleeping all day and occasionally going for lunch with friends. She had a different man every night, and every night she was at a party or a club, and she was as high as a kite. She did what her parents expected her to do.
    Her parents thought this was a good development. She was