Free Girl in the Dark by Anna Lyndsey Page B

working can provoke a surprising degree of moral condemnation; if she then reveals the reason, the reactions range from horrified withdrawal to the advocacy of New Age therapies, instructions to pull herself together, because everyone has mood swings, or a recommendation to submit herself to the Roman Catholic Church. Friendly, polite and keen to please, Véronique finds it difficult to give her interlocutors a suitably robust response.
    Véronique attends various adult education classes, “… but they are very female—the only people I meet are elderly ladies!”
    “What classes are you going to?” I ask.
    “Ceramics, life-drawing,” says Véronique, “and Tai Chi.”
    “Perhaps you should try something with more appeal to men. What about a walking group?”
    “I have joined a walking group, but it also consists only of ladies.”
    Véronique and I speculate regarding what French men might be doing, as they certainly are not attending adult education classes.
    Eventually Véronique solves the problem by joining an Internet group called
“On va sortir,”
where people link up to go to concerts, exhibitions and so on.
    One day she announces that she has met a young man called Nicolas, a counsellor and therapist. Relationship counselling is one of his specialities.
    “He has classic Alsatian good looks,” says Véronique, who, as a native of Alsace, frequently uses this adjective.I really should be used to it by now, but I cannot help myself: every time Véronique says it, large brown dogs with pointed ears lope across the display screen of my mind.
    “For our third date,” says Véronique, “he asked me to go with him to a sauna in Germany. There was a sign on the wall telling people not to talk, so we sat on our towels in a huge room, in silence, surrounded by naked Germans. It was spooky.”
    “So … were you naked as well?” I ask faintly, feeling very buttoned-up and English.
    “Oh yes, but that’s quite normal. In French saunas everyone is naked, but at least one is able to chat.”
    It is for the joy of such unexpected vignettes that I am indebted to Véronique.
    It soon becomes clear that Nicolas is more interested in analysing their relationship than in having it; specifically he is interested in improving Véronique so that she becomes a more suitable partner for him. Even eager-to-please Véronique realises this is rather one-sided, and they part.
    Véronique’s English is very good, but every so often she struggles to find an exact translation, or I use an English idiom that she does not understand. We have great fun working out the French equivalents for “white lies” (
pieux mensonges
), “public spending cuts” (
la rigueur
), “champagne socialist” (
la gauche caviar
) and many other fine expressions.

Tales of Telephone Friends 2: Tom
    Tom was a partner in an IT company, until, in his late thirties, he became ill, in a way similar to, but not as severe as, my own. No longer able to function in modern office environments—although never, luckily, affected by daylight itself—he has had to find another, home-based life.
    His partners in the company buy him out and he decides to use some of the money to build an eco-house for himself, his wife and three children. It will be extremely energy-efficient, and its running costs will be exceptionally low.
    I hear about the progress of the house. “The difficult thing,” says Tom, “is making the whole place properly airtight, so that you retain the maximum amount of heat. I’m trying to get hold of special seals for the edges of the windows, and for the joins between the walls and the floor.”
    “If it’s completely airtight,” I ask, “what about ventilation?”
    “There’s a single air inlet with a small electric pump. In the summer you can cool the air coming in and in winter you can heat it, if you need to, but it’s amazing how much heat human bodies generate, if you keep it in and don’t let it escape.”
    “If the