A Clean Pair of Hands (19 page)

By the time Lydia visited the Miltons in Branne, Annick informed them, her sister had survived and conquered most of the obstacles she had faced earlier, but the experience had taken a toll on her spirit. She no longer trusted people, especially men. She had become aggressive, and built a hard carapace, and was making her way in the tough career she had chosen, though she had become resentful because it was certainly not the intellectually more demanding path that would have been open to her if she had completed the course at Sciences Po.

Annick concluded, “Lydia doesn’t have a particularly romantic temperament – it’s not her style. She has no illusions about her poor chances of attracting a mate but I think she has come to terms with who she is.”

“She is lucky to have you to talk to,” said Thérèse, without further comment on Lydia’s situation. Then, having taken another sip of coffee from her plastic airport cup,

“Is it my imagination or is life particularly difficult for women in France? Do you see a difference between Paris and New York, Annick?”

Annick gazed into her cup before replying, “Yes, there are differences, but first remember that Paris is not typical of France and New York is not typical of the rest of the USA. They are both cosmopolitan hotch-potches coping at different speeds with new social norms and there are tensions.

“In theory, freedom is better than repression, but increased sexual freedoms have caused explosions in families and I think that women and children have suffered as a consequence, though you can’t generalise because all extremes live side by side.

“In the 1960s, Simone de Beauvoir was able to say that France had the legislative framework for equality of the sexes. Since then, we have proved that you can’t change male attitudes by law, but in the meantime women’s attitudes have changed and we are more responsible than ever for managing our own lives and behaviour.

“Leibnitz said, ‘To love is to be delighted by the happiness of someone, or to experience pleasure upon the happiness of another.’ So if he was right, the polyamour concept maybe a route to short-term pleasures for some, but it is not a route to longer term happiness.”

“So what’s your choice from the options available, Annick?” asked Thérèse, always ready to put the more personal question, “or am I being indiscreet?”

“No, your question is not indiscreet, Thérèse, but talking about my love life may be. Love is a great privilege. Real love is very rare, but I know it enriches the lives of the men and women who experience it. I would like very much to be part of a traditional couple like you and George, and I could accept the constraints that it imposes,
but there are so many pressures today which can drive couples apart and put temptations in their way. I just don’t know how things will turn out for us.”

“Will you get married?”

“There is no hurry. We are both making our way in our jobs and I guess if a baby comes along we will have to think about it seriously.”

“Doesn’t that mean the exit door is left open?”

“Yes, we just have to confront the choices as they come and there is an abundance of choice. The life we want is influenced by styles we are encouraged to adopt nowadays, and that is often at odds with happiness in married life. I can see that, and we just have to move at a pace we can cope with.

“Neither I nor my partner fit the new criteria of building sexual capital to attract lots of people. We accept that people evolve and standards change, but I feel that young women today are too obsessed with being ‘hot’. That means dressing and behaving in ways that attract the wrong kind of attention and it does not ultimately get them the relationships they desire.

“If you think longer term it’s better to be more low-key as it is more likely to lead to stronger relationships.” Annick paused, smiled broadly. “Do I sound old fashioned?”

Thérèse’s answer was to put her cup down and give Annick a hug. At this point the three looked at their watches, rose unhurriedly and strolled towards the boarding area.

While Michel and Charlotte were in business together, as an equal partner and centre-pin of administration and accounting, Charlotte controlled business and private transactions. So, from an early stage she had worked out how Michel was milking the cow and knew that he must be receiving large payments in cash to avoid VAT and reduce corporate tax. She was happy enough while she thought she was a beneficiary of that process, but since the sale of the company, how much cash Michel collected and how he spent it was no longer visible, and that had become a very contentious issue between them, especially since their separation. Charlotte was burning with resentment in the knowledge that he was in all probability spending their joint money on his adventures and on his mistress. Had the land in Haiti been bought with their jointly owned money and in Sonia’s name? Michel denied it. When Charlotte tackled him on this, and on the fact that he was continuing to spend from cash reserves, which remained hidden from her, he explained that now as he was no longer the business owner, there was no inflow of personal cash. Charlotte disbelieved this story like so many others. When she heard about the land deal in Haiti
she immediately referred to the bank statements she held, but there was no sign of the source of funds or of a payment for the land transaction.

Michel would not tell Charlotte where the money for the land had come from, so she concluded that she was increasingly being excluded from Michel’s financial arrangements and it strengthened her suspicion that he had large sums of money in off-shore accounts.

In a conversation with Thérèse, when asked why Michel was going to Haiti of all places, Charlotte quoted Michel as saying, “If there’s a possibility you may have to answer criminal charges, it’s best to do it from a long way away.” Thérèse wondered which threat Michel feared most and what form of protection he was planning.

After three years of separation and having consulted the family and her lawyer, Charlotte reached the conclusion that her initially hoped-for reconciliation with Michel was unrealistic. She had hoped he would tire of Sonia after a while and come back to her. But on the contrary, after Michel’s short-lived attempt at reconciliation with Charlotte, the relationship with Sonia seemed more together than ever and Charlotte’s fear was that the longer the present financial arrangements remained in place, the more their joint wealth was likely to leak into assets or accounts which could benefit Sonia or some other mistress.

Charlotte decided to follow Thérèse’s advice and persuaded Michel to come and see their lawyer with a view to initially separating their assets, to provide her with a clear view and sole control of her wealth and to open the way for a later divorce. According to a later conversation between Charlotte and Thérèse, the lawyer had explained to the couple that their position was one where tax would remove a large part of any settlement and Michel had
therefore decided not to cooperate in any disclosure. Charlotte now felt that she had no choice but to live with the current situation.

They sat around a huge oak-panelled, leather-topped desk in an office filled with books, files and spectacular sailing ship models. Colin, the lawyer, creaked back in his captain’s chair, steepled his hands and began, “I’ve known you both for some time and I believe you to be down to earth, practical, and pragmatic in business matters. Am I right?” They nodded. “Let me get straight to the point. The legal position is this – if you two decide to formally separate, you will be required to present a sworn statement of all your assets wherever they are held, and they will be valued independently and officially at your expense. When a decision is made to divide the ownership as a first step towards a divorce, the French state will impose a tax on the totality of your wealth.” He paused for effect, then explained the full financial implications and set out the details of the taxes that would be levied.

“Do you wish to leave now, or will you have another cup of coffee?” They stayed. Charlotte asked what other options there were.

“Living in sin may be untidy and emotionally irksome for both of you, but fiscally you will not do better.” He sat back in a self-satisfied way, with a rigid smile on his face.

Charlotte banged the desk with her fist. “I am not living in sin! He is!” She pointed to Michel and bowed her head hopelessly.

“I’m sorry Charlotte,” Colin added hastily, his smile quickly removed, “it was just an inappropriate expression. I mean that if one of you is living in concubinage, that characterises the relationship. I didn’t mean any reflection on you.”

After leaving the lawyer, Michel and Charlotte sat down
at a street café and ordered drinks. Michel leaned towards his wife. “Whatever he says about money, I will not agree to a divorce.”

“Why not?”

“I have my reasons.” He pursed his lips. Charlotte understood this was a sure sign that no further comment would emerge.

Charlotte went home and shared her thoughts with Thérèse, who had been advocating a clean break. When she heard the outcome of the meeting, Thérèse realised that Charlotte was economically and emotionally trapped. The tax imposition was extortionate and there was no way that Michel would reveal all his assets to his wife or the tax authorities, and secondly the status quo appeared to be a way for him to control Charlotte, who, whatever she said, was also handicapped by her residual love for Michel.

Thérèse and George agreed it was a mess and one that Michel could exploit to keep Charlotte on a string. He already found and delighted in every opportunity to meet her to discuss family or joint financial business and Charlotte always agreed to meet him, usually over a meal. Thérèse thought she must be a willing collaborator, signalling that she maintained possession of Michel to spite Sonia. Her real motives remained unclear, but it seemed odd. Although she said Michel’s lies and cheating had reached a point where she couldn’t love him anymore, this might not be a true expression of her deeper feelings, despite everything that had happened and all the pain she had suffered.

George Milton expressed his exasperation when he heard the latest.

“Why should we worry about all that? They worked together in the same office every day until he sold the business. They have cosy lunches to discuss ‘family business’,
so I don’t see why we have been pussy-footing around their sensitivities when Charlotte can’t bring herself to make a clean break because of the cost.”

“But she can’t, can she,” replied Thérèse, “there has been the complication of the fact that she still loved him until she abandoned all hope, and then it’s not just a question of the financial cost, she has to get his co-operation to make the separation.”

George puzzled over this.

“I am not a lawyer, but I know that people get divorced without the co-operation of the other party. She has every justification, so surely she could if she wanted to? It’s a complete mess just rolling on like this.”

“But look at it pragmatically, George. At least she controls the bank accounts,” added Thérèse.

“Yes, but that’s no big deal for Michel. He has various sources of income now and he can set up bank accounts elsewhere.”

There was no conclusion from the conversation, but the Miltons agreed it looked a mess and that Charlotte remained as economically and emotionally dependent on Michel as before their separation.

Although Thérèse and George sent Michel regular news of their movements and invitations for Michel and Sonia to join them, they were met by silence until one day they received a circular email from Michel in New York, where he was visiting his daughter Annick, and a new grandson. Broadcast to around a dozen addressees, it was an effusive and poetic outpouring about the stunning atmosphere, the overwhelming happiness he felt at being in NY and seeing first-hand all the buildings and sites with which the world thinks it is familiar and seeing how the people were free to express themselves in any way they wished. There was no personal information.

Thérèse contacted Annick to see how the visit had gone. “He came with his woman again. He keeps pushing her forward. I’ve told him that I don’t want her here, but he just says that if I want to see him, she comes too.” Thérèse responded to Michel’s message from New York with a more personal message, but there was no reply. After another month George sent a text message and email saying that he had understood that the silence was deliberate and inviting Michel to explain why he had cut himself off from them.

After a few weeks there came a muddled and hurriedly
typed SMS from Haiti apologising for the delay in responding because of poor network connectivity. Michel had to go up a mountain to obtain a signal. Yes, he had decided to put up a protective cordon to shield him from the stress of undiplomatic comments and veiled criticisms from Thérèse, but he would reopen communications with his aunt in September on his return to France. He expressed his love and emphasised that this message carried greetings from him
and
his
partner
Sonia.

Michel Bodin did not call in September 2012 and when George and Thérèse Milton contacted other members of the family in October, including his daughters, parents, and even the Mendeses, nobody had heard from him since his last text message to George Milton. Annick Bodin called some friends in Paris and they talked to the police.

The French police contacted counterparts in Haiti and asked them to check. It took a month before a report came back saying the local police had been to Michel’s address and interviewed Madame Sonia Alvarez. She had maintained that Michel Bodin left for Paris early in September. The police had found his white Mitsubishi Pajero in the Cap Haitien International Airport car park. However, there was no record of a Michel Bodin buying a plane ticket, or using his credit card. Having acquired this information and passed it on to the family, the French police filed a missing person report and showed no enthusiasm for further investigation.

Sonia Alvarez had been feeling for some time that things were turning sour between her and Michel, but the relationship had so far met most of her objectives. They had been together for over ten years now and since meeting Michel, her life had been transformed from one of constant
worry about money and survival, to one of financial comfort and sensual excitement. She had accepted early on in the relationship that in truth she was a sex slave, housekeeper, personal assistant and dogsbody, but in return she lived well, travelled extensively to glamorous destinations around the world, and had no more financial worries for herself and her son, who was now launching into a good career after completing two years of private study, thus compensating for some of his lost years in education.

Now she had only herself to think about and she was concerned at the increasing emotional price she was paying and, as she felt that she was now past her best physically, it was becoming harder for her to play the role of mature swinger that Michel had originally defined for her in the subculture he frequented. At first, when Michel introduced her to Johnny and Ayida Mendes, she took to the lifestyle willingly and with a frisson of excitement as her sexual comfort zone was extended by new experiences, some of which frightened her at first, but she had to admit, brought enhanced pleasures too. Once she overcame her inhibitions, and was considered to be a member of the community of daring adventurers, she tended to look down on ‘straight’ people, who were constrained by their puritanical morals, or were simply too unattractive to market themselves for recreational sex in the way she could. With Michel, Sonia had been able to free herself from constraints and enjoy the experience to the full by keeping herself in good shape physically and by using her increased funds to take care of her presentation. She was happy to be admired and openly approached by men in the way that Michel encouraged. The key to the right balance was consent. Michel and Johnny had coerced her to extend her boundaries of experience and she had become willing to allow that to happen, feeling confident that they
would protect her if necessary. However, once the novelty wore off, she was increasingly concerned that her protectors were also capable of becoming her exploiters. She was worried that, although in the past when she indicated that a limit of her fantasies had been reached and they relented, they had also shown that they wanted to push her further. Sonia’s boundaries did not extend to filmed gang rape and the more or less public humiliation scenarios that she had witnessed at the club. So although she was becoming concerned that there was a risk of things getting out of control, until they arrived in Haiti she had felt that uncertainty enhanced the excitement and she could still protect herself by using her influence with Michel, and therefore she continued to believe that she could trust the two men to look after her. However, recent events in Haiti had proved that her confidence was misplaced.

The single issue that created a rupture was Michel’s rejection of the need for her consent. No single explosive argument had done more to destroy Sonia’s faith in Michel than his frequent overstepping of her limits. Oh, he was never aggressive or violent about it, just extremely jovial and forceful in making fun of her if she didn’t comply. It forced her to the inevitable conclusion that ten years of her love for Michel lay in ruins. Maybe that was as much as she could have expected. After all, the relationship had served her original purpose. She must now decide what to do next, and knowing Michel, anticipate and counter any detrimental plans he might simultaneously be making for her. Michel, she thought, had become a monster, the product of his over-riding arrogance. Some of the very qualities that had attracted her to him she now hated and she was determined to take pre-emptive action to be the agent of his downfall.

A shabby, much-dented pick-up truck arrived in a dust cloud outside the smart, brightly painted wooden bungalow near Port de Paix, on the northern coast of Haiti. It gasped to a halt and the passenger side door cracked open loudly, causing the chickens and other animals to scatter. It looked as though the driver’s door of the pick-up must have been jammed shut by the obvious accident damage it displayed, because after a slight delay, two uniformed men emerged from the one working passenger-side door, wearing grey short-sleeved shirts and red and blue shoulder flashes with ‘PNH’, Haitian National Police badges, long white socks and trainers and sunglasses. The men put on blue baseball caps and approached the table under an awning, where Sonia was drinking coffee and eating a papaya.

“Madame Bodin?” asked one of the policemen.

“No. I am Madame Alvarez,” replied Sonia without elaboration. She was thinking that as she was alone she should exhibit some authority by not offering further information.

“We are policemen, Madame, and we are making enquiries. May we see your passport?”

“May I know why?”

“We have been asked to check on Monsieur Michel Bodin. Some relations in Paris have reported him missing and the French police have asked us to investigate.”

“I am Monsieur Bodin’s partner and he has gone to Paris.”

“When was that, Madame?”

“A few weeks ago, early in September.”

“Have you heard from him since?”

“No, but that’s not unusual because the telephone reception is so bad here.”

“OK Madame, let us see your documents please.”

Sonia got up and went in search of her handbag. Her pulse was thudding so much it sounded as though someone was walking behind her. She looked around and saw that the policemen were still by the table. She fought to keep control of herself. As she came back to the table, the men were standing facing her, eying every detail of her skimpy clothing and the way her body moved underneath. She smiled and presented her passport.

“Do you rent this place?” enquired the policeman who took her passport.

“No. Monsieur Bodin bought it in my name.”

“That would surprise me very much, Madame.” He made no further comment, but concentrated on flicking through the passport, reading or at least dwelling on every page including the blanks, leaving Sonia to think smugly that for her at least there had been a way to acquire the property, and doubting if this man could read the passport.

“Now, please tell us exactly what were Monsieur Bodin’s plans and intended movements when he went to Paris?” The policeman noted her responses and recorded the passport number in a large, lined, hard-backed exercise book with yellowing pages and battered cover, proving that he was more literate than Sonia had at first imagined. Before leaving, the police officers lifted a sun-bleached plastic jerry can from the back of the pick up and asked Sonia to fill it with water so they could top up their leaky radiator. The men watched Sonia’s hips swing as she carried the container to an outside tap which served a large water trough, and they continued watching as she bent over it while it filled. The jerry can once had a tap at the bottom, but this had broken off and been replaced by an ill-fitting cork which leaked once the can was filled. There
was still some water left in it by the time Sonia returned to the car.

The vehicle started with a noise like a cockerel and bumped away down the track from the house leading to the main track to town, leaving a cloud of dust drifting away with the light wind.

The policemen chatted in Creole, “She not worried. Not surprise he gone.”

“No, the
béké
has done a runner. I could take over though. Give her a taste of the tropics.” They both laughed and lit cigarettes as they bounced along slowly with a wisp of steam already rising from the radiator. They didn’t have far to go to town.