A Clean Pair of Hands (14 page)

The next big event in Michel’s life was a new love. At first it was a secret love, of which he spoke to nobody except Johnny, but it took over his mind to a point where he felt very exposed to discovery. Much of his life was transparent to those around him, so he had to maintain the really well-hidden secrets very diligently. He persuaded himself that this new relationship was an intellectual meeting of minds. They shared the same passions and they thought about each other day and night.

He knew it would have to come out eventually. After three months he could hardly contain himself, but his new love persuaded him to keep the secret. Sonia Alvarez was separated from her husband and desperate to find a man with the means to support her and her son. At first Michel declined to get involved in any kind of new relationship requiring finance. But as time went on, he softened, and by the time the deceit reached a crisis point he was ready to accept Sonia’s terms. She was the perfect lover; a friend par excellence, he could share all his thoughts with her, they could talk about anything, and she understood everything. It was perfect, but what about his family? More than ever he wanted to be free to pursue his magnificent love story, but he still wanted to retain Charlotte for practical,
financial and emotional reasons. As each day passed and their relationship worsened it would become more difficult for Michel to influence Charlotte in the direction of his all-embracing solution of mutual understanding and tolerance.

At the Bodins’ home, the scenes and arguments multiplied, largely because Michel’s ability to lie was no longer enough protection against Charlotte’s intuition. She knew that he was sharing his life with someone else. It wasn’t the first time he had been unfaithful, but Charlotte’s radar never failed, so much so that Michel could have believed she had supernatural powers. He felt that he didn’t, couldn’t love her anymore, but Charlotte at least had one important element of power over her husband; they were equal partners in the business and she had complete control of the joint accounts and investments, and as she felt the danger to their marriage increase, so she held on tightly and watched the flow of money for clues. She had only ever loved Michel, but she had reached a point where she could not trust him anymore and was fully aware of a heightened need to look after her own interests.

During celebrations for the millennium in their rented flat in Paris, the coolness between Charlotte and Michel was publicly obvious. Michel was absent for long periods and when the rest of the family arrived for dinner, the atmosphere remained tense. Most of the family guessed the pair must have had a row, but the full truth was revealed only later.

The festivities reached a climax at midnight with a spectacular firework display on the Eiffel Tower, which the family viewed from the large balcony. The air was cool and damp and there was little to see until layer upon layer
of glowing flares and exploding rockets poured out of the tower for about half an hour. By the time the show was over, the spectators felt the elation of passing a milestone. The 20th century was over and it felt as if new cards had been dealt. In fact there was no such luck, for everybody had to continue playing out their lives with the hand of cards they held and manage the consequences of their earlier moves.

The morning after the party, George Milton was having breakfast alone in the alcove next to the Bodins’ kitchen at around ten thirty. There was a padded bench seat, a couple of wooden chairs, and enough bread crumbs, shards of crust and drops of jam on the table to indicate that someone, probably Michel, had eaten breakfast earlier and left. George had managed to cut his section of French bread in half length-ways, buttered it and applied a liberal dose of honey. When he tried to bite through the bread, he remembered why sharks have saw edges to their teeth; they are perfectly adapted to eating French bread. The more he bit and the more he pulled and twisted the bread with his hands, the more gobs of honey oozed over his fingers. He was just getting up to wash his hands at the kitchen sink when Charlotte appeared, looking unusually pale and stern, and came forward to kiss him. George explained what was happening to his breakfast and instead of the peal of laughter he anticipated, Charlotte just smiled weakly for a few seconds. Then she patted George lightly on the chest, bowed her head and walked back into her bedroom with her hands over her face, shaking her head.

“There’s something wrong with Charlotte,” announced George to Thérèse. “I don’t think it’s because of anything I said, but she just started crying and went back to her
room. I don’t know if Michel is still there or not, but I thought you should find out what’s the matter.”

There was indeed something wrong. The two women sat on Charlotte’s bed and she told Thérèse that she had found a letter in a pocket of one of Michel’s jackets as she was preparing it to be dry cleaned. It was from a woman thanking him for the generous Christmas present and explaining that she had taken herself to Bali for the holiday period, understanding that Michel had to spend time with his family. She would make it up to him later when they met – in the most lurid detail. It was signed, ‘Your little cat, S’.

Thérèse was not altogether surprised, though saddened at this new element of confirmation of her worst fears. She tried to comfort Charlotte but there was little to be done for now in the way of reassurance and pumping her up for the inevitable battles to follow. Thérèse had to leave her to take the next steps on her own. As Thérèse moved towards the bedroom door, Charlotte called to her, “Do you think I dreamt our love story?” Thérèse returned and they hugged each other tightly. Both had tears in their eyes. There were no more words.

Thérèse and George left the apartment soon afterwards, taking Annick on a shopping trip to buy her a belated Christmas present. They knew that Michel would be back sometime, so they intended to leave their hosts alone to face their new reality. As the morning progressed and the shopping was complete, George and Thérèse talked to Annick about her parents and what they had just heard, and she proved to be glad of the opportunity to discuss openly all that had been consuming her for some time. Charlotte must have confided in her daughter to a great extent because she stood in the busy street with tears running
down her cheeks, articulating the hatred and disgust she felt towards her father.

“I can understand that he no longer loves her, but he was a coward and a liar to treat her that way. He has killed our relationship and I will never be able to trust him as my father again.” George and Thérèse held onto her in silence and after a few minutes they continued walking through the crowded city, found a restaurant where they had lunch together, and learned more about recent events in the Bodin family from Annick’s perspective.

Meanwhile, in the apartment, when Michel returned, Charlotte coolly put the letter on the table in front of him. She intended to ask him to explain, but at first the words dried in her mouth. Michel realised he had passed the concealment phase and now had to make some directional choices. His wife accused him of deception and persistently lying to her. She told him that he had no talent for dissimulation and she had seen all along that he was a dishonest coward. When she cooled, Charlotte asked why it was that she didn’t need the kind of decadence that Michel sought in order to be happy. She asserted that the world they had shared still had a lot to offer and they had had a good life to enjoy until he decided to hurt others in the pursuit of his pleasures. She added, “You have proved to be just one of those despicable people who were given paradise, but wanted freedom. Well, you’ve got it, and I hope you realise now how much you have hurt me. My only regret is that I was too afraid to leave you earlier. I should have done it long ago.”

They sat in silence. Michel was not of a mind to reply and add fuel to the conflict. Charlotte was meditating on the situation. Then she said, “Do you know what all this signifies? All I have now is a terrible nostalgia of life with you. I have had some very hard times and sometimes my
nerves couldn’t cope, but I think I have the strength now to go and make some new friends and a new life.”

To Michel, it was almost a relief. Now he would be honest and open with her. He wanted to maintain good family relations, but he still felt compelled to pursue his objectives to the absolute limit. There was no going back. He explained his plans to Charlotte. He would make financial provision for her if she would agree to him freely pursuing his ‘leisure’ interests. He suggested that she should become involved and together they would live life in a happy, more open partnership. He explained that his temperament demanded a change which they both had to face.

Charlotte felt the drama overwhelming her and she almost shouted at him, “My tolerance has a limit and you have reached it with your sordidness and despicable self-deception. As for your temperament,” she spat the words in his face, “it’s got nothing to do with temperament. Your problem is pride and your inability to accept that you are who you are now, and that is not the person you were.” To Michel’s dismay, Charlotte would have none of his new proposition.

“I am your wife, remember, and you are deigning to offer me a position as one of your concubines. Is that it? You are one bag of slime. Get out!”

After a few days of fuming, Michel left the conjugal apartment and found alternative accommodation. They agreed to live separately, though they remained partners in the business and parents of three daughters.

How could she fight him? Some women among her friends were prepared to take their unfaithful husbands as they were, even accepting that they were having casual affairs within their circle of friends, but although Charlotte still loved Michel, he had humiliated her repeatedly
and intended to go on doing so with her permission. Well, she wasn’t going to be such a pushover. For the time being, there wasn’t much she could do about his new girlfriend Sonia, except hope they would rot together.

She felt as though the immediate instrument of torture, the uncertainty, had been removed and she withdrew into a depressive solitude.

It was nearly two years later, in 2002, before Thérèse and George Milton next met Michel Bodin at a hotel in Evreux, to the west of Paris. They were heading for a channel port on their way home after staying at their second home. Michel rode out alone from Paris to meet them on his new motorcycle and they had lunch together. His appearance had changed to that of a middle-aged rocker with shaved head and stubbly beard, expensive leather trousers, a macho jacket with metal accoutrements, and his attitude had hardened. Gone was any attempt to conceal or justify his behaviour. Instead he challenged head-on anybody who dared to comment on his lifestyle. This time he pre-empted questions by opening up with his views. He reiterated that for him, the human race was made up of wolves and sheep. He was determined to be a wolf.

“I don’t pretend to live by anybody else’s moral code. Morality is an invention of those who don’t dare to get what they want. Who else does it benefit?”

He maintained that he was acting responsibly towards his wife, who by this time looked as though she was in mourning. A couple of years earlier, with her long, straight black hair and pale complexion, she resembled the American singer Cher. But by this time, she had aged
and looked more like a bad imitation of Morticia from The Addams Family. Her conversation was almost exclusively about her health and the treatment she was having for her various ailments.

Michel repeated his assertion that he was looking after Charlotte and he was ensuring that she wanted for nothing. She was a beautiful woman and she would soon find someone else. “If you really love someone, you must be prepared to give her freedom.”

George nearly choked on his lunch on hearing this, but decided not to inflame the situation by responding to Michel’s moralising. By contrast, Thérèse was not going to accept Michel’s postulations without giving honest feedback. She described to Michel how his changing behaviour over several years before the separation had not escaped the concern of the family, and she related how they had all suffered from loss and the stress of having to manage the new set up diplomatically and without showing disloyalty to Charlotte or Michel. She put it to him that his explanations were still only revealing part of the truth. She asked for no clarification, but advised him that he was playing a dangerous game on several fronts. “I sometimes wonder, Michel, if your world is populated by other people, or whether you feel like an isolated entity.”

“What do you expect, Thérèse?” Michel riposted. “I don’t feel isolated because I have a very good understanding with Sonia. You and the family expect me to act what you call ‘normally’. Normal is a poison. Nothing in life is certain and you have to take initiatives to make things happen. I have decided to obey my own sentiments and follow my passions, so to that extent I am alone and I accept that some pain is necessary to achieve that, but I have lots of friends who share my views and they accept me as I am.” Thérèse was going to ask whether the pain was
to be endured solely by Michel, or whether he expected the whole family, and especially Charlotte, to share the burden, but she decided to keep her thoughts to herself.

On his way home, Michel reflected on this conversation. He had intended to clear the air with Therese and normalise relations, but he accepted that he had probably made a mess of that. So instead of elation, his head was full of gloom and anguish. During the early part of his journey he was tense and nervous, allowing his speed to build to over a hundred miles an hour on the A13 motorway before getting into a more controlled mode. He was confused. He had thought that just as people get used to modern art, so they would get used to the fact that social norms were evolving and they should accept that he had joined that evolution. He had accepted it as part of his moral code; he would look after Charlotte, especially as she was still a feature of his plans, but things had started to go wrong and they kept going wrong since the moment she had confirmed the existence and name of his mistress.

It was Charlotte’s fault that things were not working out the way he had intended. He ought to wring her neck. He pondered upon two options: have her murdered, or find her another partner so she would move into a different orbit. He laughed out loud at the realisation that the thought of having his wife killed had entered his mind. Then he thought about the possibility in more detail. He knew some people who might recommend an operator for a sensitive job like that. But what if it was botched and could be traced back to him?

There were several reported cases where husbands had hired killers to dispose of their wives and the killers had talked. If it led back to him, that would put the lid on all his visions of the future. He recalled the attempt to abduct Charlotte in the underground car park. That was
almost certainly organised by Schmitt.
Huh!
he thought;
if a woman with a pepper spray could see off two hired kidnappers, it would be potentially too dangerous to attempt to dispose of her cleanly
. He would keep that idea in abeyance.

“I am a bastard,” he whispered under his breath. His thoughts moved on.

Curiously, it was only after his conversation with Thérèse that Michel understood the depth of disapproval in the family and the full effect of his actions on Charlotte. Until now, he had been able to convince himself that the world was made up of people like his friends, who felt they could act as they pleased without hurting anybody, or didn’t care much if they did. His mind went back to when he had announced to his mother that he had separated from Charlotte and wasn’t planning to go back to her. Huguette initially tried to dissuade him. She had fond feelings for her daughter-in-law and insisted that she would always try to encourage them to stay together.

“Why can’t you live together now, you have always seemed so happy?” asked Huguette.

“I just don’t love her anymore,” was Michel’s reply. At that point, Huguette decided not to argue. She accepted that there was nothing more she could say to turn the course of events, so the conversation paused before moving onto something more banal and the break up was never mentioned again. As there was no form of reproach from his mother, Michel had anticipated that the rest of the family would follow the same line, but he had underestimated his aunt.

Thérèse had made it quite clear that she considered that most of Michel’s friends represented a nadir of self-ishness and self-indulgence, and if he wished to continue deluding himself, that was his affair. She told him that she still found it curious that Michel should expect that he
could be infinitely variable in his behaviour while those closest to him and who revolved around him should be absolutely stable and predictable.

Thérèse had asked, “Is there a stable central kernel in you that you would call ‘yourself’, Michel, or is everything about you re-configurable according to your latest passion and your friends’ latest indulgences?”

Michel hesitated. “No, I would have to invent a single description of myself. I am what people see and that can be anything.”

“Does that mean you can do or think anything without consulting your conscience?”

“I don’t know about conscience, but there are situations where I think ‘this isn’t me’ and I try to head in a different direction. I tell the truth, but not all of it because I don’t have the words to describe it. I am not good at introspection. That’s why I have difficulty expressing myself to you, Thérèse. I understand your questions and I know what you are looking for, but I can’t reply. I come out of conversations with you thinking more deeply about myself and as a result I am more able to cope with my life, but not in a conventional way. I can more easily extract myself from the herd and run free from the rails that convention wants to put us on.”

“Do you have
any
durable ideals or moral standards?” The tone of the discussion tensed.

“My family and protecting them.”

Michel looked up and smiled ruefully, lowering the corners of his mouth in a characteristic gesture of resignation. He raked his front teeth unconsciously with the top edge of his thumb and said nothing more.

Michel’s father, who was an absolutely dedicated monogamist, had been knocked back when, during a walk along
a river bank on the outskirts of Paris, Michel announced the separation.

“I personally think you are killing the best thing that happened to you, but it’s your life. I’ve had temptations too.” He reflected for a while. “But I always put my relationship with your mother first.” The pair hardly spoke for the rest of their walk. François asked no questions, and Michel felt no obligation to elaborate.

As he continued to reminisce about these conversations on his way home, Michel came to his senses with a jolt when a lorry buffeted past him. Unconsciously he had let his speed drop to thirty miles an hour on the motorway. He cleared his head, accelerated again and was home in less than an hour.

Thérèse and George had listened calmly to Michel’s brand of logic, but later summarised their feelings by agreeing that although they disapproved of his conduct, they felt a family loyalty to him, whatever he had done. However, they would always retain their affection for Charlotte and hoped to maintain contact with her, though for the past year she had retreated into a shell and was quite uncommunicative. Charlotte later said she was too embarrassed to talk. She was psychologically crushed by the unavoidable fact of her husband’s infidelity and the choice he had offered her – participate or be side-lined. Her underlying difficulty in reaching a firm and rational clean-break decision was that she was irremediably in love with Michel and they still worked in the same office, with everyday contact to keep the kettle boiling. But a limit had been reached. She was not prepared to make herself a public laughing stock such as happened when Michel tried to hire one of his girlfriends as a secretary. The woman gave herself all sorts of airs but was useless, and Charlotte fired her within a week without knowing how she got the job in the first place.