A Clean Pair of Hands

by Oscar Reynard

  “So are you saying that there is no sense of duty, no morality in France or in most of the rest of the world?” prodded George.

  Michel struggled to reply, but after a long pause, “Where does morality fit? Morality is always defined by those in power.” He screwed up his face with intensity and looked up to the ceiling for inspiration. “In France you have the same extremes of good and bad as anywhere else. There are good and decent people who work hard and strive to improve the world around them, but the traditional simplistic concepts of good and evil have moved out to the opposite ends of the spectrum.” With his index finger he drew a line in the pool of beer on the table, then a circle in the middle of the line. “They have polarised, leaving a large grey area in the middle and in that area a lot of quite good things live alongside quite bad things without tension between them. The odious and the admirable coexist here. The political predators live alongside their prey and all they do is bellow at each other, exchanging insults and carry on using public money as if it were their own.

  “There is still an underlying morality that binds us to a common opinion on some things. But that’s what I was saying just now. It blinds us from taking a unique personal opinion and striking out against the majority view. This applies to business and politics just as much as to individuals. You are a member of professional institutes, George. I call them old boy networks because they are tribal. They all think the same. They pay experts to tell them what to think, so they all occupy the middle ground. I don’t belong to any, not that they would have me. I want to be on my own and I am prepared to take the risks associated with that. You’re a rational person, George, and you analyse business opportunities in your way, but I just deliver what people want without constraints, and then I work out how I can benefit. If I looked at a rational business case, it would get in the way of what I want out of life. Actually that’s not entirely true. I would like to be a moralist, but it doesn’t fit my plans for now. I speak about what pleases me. The rest is for intellectuals, they are the modern equivalent of monks. They have the time to sit and polish principles and express themselves in abstruse words. You’re a moral person, George, and I think it just prevents you being yourself and getting what you really want out of life.”

  “So what are you trying to get out of life at the moment?” probed George, shrugging but without reaction to the last assertion.

  “I want to understand moral psychology and use that understanding productively for business and pleasure. I am morally tolerant and I am happy to live in a tolerant society. I only believe in something if it benefits me. As I said, I’m not going to argue or fight for some hypothetical principle.”

  “So no constraints and no sense of social responsibility?”

  “None, other than to my family.”

  “Isn’t that perhaps one of the reasons why you have the kind of governments you complain of?” George enquired. “You know the saying: that if you want to change the world, first change yourself.”

  “Possibly, but I’m more cynical. I think that businessmen, politicians and workers dig in their heels to protect their interests and use the public good as a powerful argument, just as much as other individuals do when faced with change, but I think that in the case of politicians the inertia is because the economic and social problems transcend their ability to solve them, so they have to live within the structures we have and as those structures evolve, driven by global powers beyond our control, and once having accepted that fact, they just use their time and energies to fill their own pockets. Money is probably the only thing they will take away from a lifelong career in politics.

  “Consider this, George: who determines morality and true facts? It’s experts, or self-appointed interpreters of truth. In some theocratic societies where people don’t or can’t think for themselves they are considered necessary, and the experts become a respected part of the culture, so it’s easier for totalitarian regimes to build a following in those places. People are told what to think and do and are punished inhumanely if they show dissent, but that shouldn’t happen in a modern educated society where intelligent people can think for themselves and are left free to do so. That’s the tension in France. You have the educated political aristocracy and intellectuals, and a relatively unqualified mass who are being told what to think and do by a huge autocratic and bureaucratic middle class of civil servants and other leaders who have got such a good deal for themselves that they will never change voluntarily. You can see how minor civil servants and trade union leaders manipulate people for their own ends and there isn’t the same protection for, say, consumers as you have in the UK. Anyway, the end result is that I don’t take other people’s word for it. I take my position according to what benefits me, and I reject uncomfortable results.” Michel paused for breath.

  “Well I do start by taking some people’s word for it,” George begged to differ, “otherwise we would all have to make our way in the world from scratch. Have you heard the expression ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’? That’s how we benefit from the experience of others.”

  “Yeah! Who are the giants today, George? Select your giants from among our elected leaders. Is Mitterrand a giant? That’s reality. I don’t like reality; reality is relative; it depends on the angle of view you are taking. The greatest villains on earth all justify their actions in their own eyes; they pursue them determinedly, and they find or create beneficiaries to follow and protect them and name streets and places after them. Our leaders are a bunch of sophisticated connivers, and I don’t subscribe to these people who are considered to be culturally acceptable experts. Most of them are appointed by the people who pay most to have their interests represented.” Michel went on, “I have instincts, needs and desires just like everybody, but I subject them only to my own test of acceptability.”

  “So does everybody work to individual standards and morality, not accepting that there is a common standard?” argued George. “For example, you got married. When you did, that you were subscribing to a common morality, weren’t you?”

  “I didn’t seek to be married. Charlotte chased me to the ends of the earth.”

  “So, she showed that she was in love with you and wanted you more than anybody else. You must have wanted her too.” There was a long pause, and then Michel leaned closer across the table and adopted a more conspiratorial tone.

  “Charlotte trapped me by telling me she was pregnant. My mother said she should have an abortion and she arranged it, but the outcome was that we still got married.”

  “Hmm. You say she trapped you, but surely it takes two to have a baby?” George responded with a slight grin, though his previous idealised image of the couple was shattered by this revelation. So, it was real life all over again, he mused.

  There was another long pause after this while Michel reflected on his attitude when he married Charlotte. True, he hadn’t really been under so much pressure to marry once the abortion was taken care of, but it was convenient and she was the brightest thing in his life at the time. He wasn’t aware of the responsibilities that would come later and the expectations of those around him as to how he would fulfil them. He was now rewriting the rule book on that. But the obstacle ahead of him now was tangible. He felt the scale and thickness of it as if it were a castle wall.

  Michel steered in another direction. “In France we understand human passion, needs and desires. We are a virile society. The Anglo-Saxons are more cold-blooded and judgemental.”

  “I don’t see much evidence of that distinction nowadays. Let’s say that if there are measures of cultural differences, then one of them might be the degree to which we dominate passions by the exercise of judgement and application of the law, without which we become classical egotists and predators.”

  “Hmm, yes, and in that case there isn’t much to choose between any of the western cultures. That’s where a lot of politicians in so-called democratic countries fail. They are supposed to exercise judgement on our behalf but they a
re hopeless at it for themselves.”

  “You say that, Michel, as if you were claiming some moral high ground. You say the French understand human passion, and certainly French culture appears to indulge extremes of human passion, but I believe you are subtly using that tradition to justify exploitative male behaviour. Do you not think that at least some of the world has moved to a more equal society between the sexes, even if that doesn’t suit French men? I’m not just referring to the way sexual inhibitions have given way to more freedoms; most western countries have seen growing freedom for both sexes, I’m really questioning the attitudes that accompany those freedoms, whether they are given freely or reluctantly, whether the law insists and is applied effectively, and whether men’s behaviour has really changed. I think that France is particularly conservative and shameless in its exploitation of women, and that’s putting it politely. It’s more like a Mediterranean or Asian culture. You have equality at law, but men still openly exploit women wherever they have the power to do so.”

  “So you think the women are victims?” responded Michel incredulously.

  “In some ways they are, and there are plenty of examples of clear cut victimisation, but in the grey areas, which you described, it’s more subtle. You have examples of both extremes side by side as if both were acceptable. You have men who feel they appear more masculine by treating women as possessions, and there are women who want to make their way in the world by being more blokeish than the men, and others who play with and exploit the system to get what they want. But it’s not a free choice for them. They are working within a system of inequality.”

  “You are being boringly moralising, but possibly right,” conceded Michel, “we are sexist in all elements of our culture. I agree there is no equality, never can be, but men and women are not the same. Sure, if men have certain advantages, they want to keep them; women are free to either maintain their independence and stay out on a limb, or fit in with the rest and make concessions. We are not equal in nature.”

  “My point, Michel is that you complain about political privilege, exploitation and inequality, but you are not prepared to change your own behaviour and apply self-restraint to allow more freedom to others.”

  “Self-restraint is not the route to a happy life. They do that in monasteries. Listen, George, why do you think it’s normal to sleep with one woman?”

  “It’s normal for some, because if you really love someone, you don’t want to do anything to hurt them.”

  Michel cut in, “But what if it doesn’t hurt them? What if both partners are happy to look around?”

  “I agree that a lot of people these days persuade themselves, or are persuaded by the media, that it’s possible to have their cake and eat it, but not if they are really in love and want to spend the rest of their life happily with the same person. Someone always gets hurt, even if they don’t show it. You may underestimate the degree to which someone in love will try to adapt to meet the desires and match the behaviour of a partner. But that does not mean they are always a willing collaborator. Maybe we differ about the price of happiness, Michel,” concluded George. “You seem to believe you can get something for nothing, that you can have what you like without consequences. But I believe there comes a point where someone pays emotionally.”

  Michel pondered on this, and then asked, “Do you think Charlotte is submissive?”

  “I thought we were having a nice hypothetical conversation. I don’t think I have any opinion about your relationship with Charlotte. You seem to work well together.”

  “You are ducking the question, George. Do you see her as obedient and adapting to my needs? Be honest, yes or no?”

  “OK, since you put me on the spot, yes, I do think she is submissive. You have established your role, preferences and boundaries and she fits around you, but there is a tension there and one day it may reach a limit.”

  Michel did not rise to the implications of this. “I believe that no two women are alike, but their role is to be submissive once you have overcome their exterior defence. That’s part of the challenge.”

  “Michel, do you agree that men make two mistakes with women – either they assume that women want sex with anybody, or if not, they assume that a woman is not interested in sex? How you position your own attitude between those two extremes may reveal the difference between us two, and it may answer your own question about Charlotte.”

  “No, it’s not that at all,” countered Michel. “It’s really a question of whether a woman wants sex with me, and if not then she’s not interested in sex.” He smiled and closed his eyes contentedly.

  A few seconds later, Michel opened a now bleary eye and placed a forefinger over his mouth, resting his chin heavily on his thumb. He gazed down at the table and took a deep breath. After a minute, the open eye closed. It had just occurred to him that maybe Charlotte was not interested in sex.

  George Milton was not bothered that his question had not been answered and he didn’t comment further, thinking his interlocutor had fallen asleep. He sat quietly and thought about the elements of truth in what Michel had been saying, and as he looked around the place in which they were now sitting, it took on a more sinister aspect. He felt tired after the day spent in the open air. Michel had been completely lucid when they were talking and George appreciated the weight of his comments. He recognised that his own background and culture harnessed him to honest work as the means of survival, and he hoped that his confidence in the sincerity of the few politicians he knew was well founded, but he was concerned that Michel Bodin must consider him to be a dry stick sitting on a fence and judging others. It wasn’t like that. He felt he had a moral base and his own values, and generally knew where he stood at work and at home, so he would not be swayed by others where he felt justified in holding a line. But would he feel the same if he were living and working in France? Michel had thrown that honesty and set of values in his face this evening, but George was not Michel. George was committed to what he was doing and he worked in a very different business environment where, he believed, high-level criminality was an exception and more likely to be punished. He had made his choices, but Michel’s revelations and what he already knew about French culture brought him to make comparisons with Northern Ireland, with its long-standing local issues of intolerance and connivance, and in the rest of the UK, where abuses undeniably occurred, but usually the lid would eventually be prised off, the offences made public and offenders pilloried. In France, evidence of wrongdoing seemed to circulate among the whole population without judicial action being taken. Perhaps that was because the French President was the head of the judiciary.

  George eventually got up, paid the bill and took the car keys from a passive Michel. There was no more discussion on the way home.

  Chapter Eight

  The Pleasure Quest

  1990 – 2000

  ‘You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most rich and powerful. Don’t be afraid of satisfying them and even multiply your desires’

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist and philosopher

  Michel was in search of ‘stronger sensations’ as he put it. Publicly, that hunger was fulfilled by ever more exotic adventure holidays, fast cars and other material acquisitions. Those included BMW M3s and an M5, a red Jaguar convertible and a silver Porsche 911 Targa which he once said he drove from London to Paris in 5 hours and 15 minutes, including crossing the Channel by the new Eurotunnel.

  More secretly, Michel was enjoying the freedom of movement given by his work whilst apparently working harder and longer. Because he was the commercial front man for the business, he had to meet potential customers at times when they were available, and that was increasingly at night. He would come home for a light meal and leave at around seven in the evening when the traffic in the direction of Paris was thinning out, and return home at one or two in the morning, though sometimes that could extend to three or four. He was busier than ever and came and went,
held meetings, visited project sites and suppliers. He organised what he described as official and unofficial entertainment for his clients, and kept the money rolling in.

  After a long period of this regime he was dead-beat and feeling guilty as hell. He felt that he was betraying his wife and neglecting his family to a point of disowning them. He was spending more and more time entertaining prospective and recent clients in whatever ways they chose. That could mean expensive meals and attendance at major sports fixtures during the day, and strip clubs or a visit to his friend Johnny Mendes’s hotel at night. He resolved that he would try to do something about his sulking and often angry attitude in response to Charlotte’s questions. She deserved better. She was a good mother to his children, an excellent assistant in the business and she organised their family and social life efficiently. She must know that he was cheating. She couldn’t fail to know. He decided he wanted to keep her and he would look after her, come what may. Nevertheless, his quest for stronger sensations left him feeling that sex was no longer erotic enough for him to enjoy it with his wife. She was willing to experiment with him at first, but was quite unreceptive to some of his suggestions and he had to admit to himself that his secret life brought greater excitement and more fulfilment without her questions which he resented and which made him so angry.

  Charlotte was also looking for solutions, though most of her problems concerned the daily round of the social, educational and working life of a family with three girls successively advancing in their teens, administering a business, and looking after a husband who took little interest in any of the above – though he enjoyed the results - and being his model girl accessory as and when required. Charlotte had never loved anybody other than Michel and since her teenage years remained just as besotted and devoted to him. She admired his strength and joie de vivre and she shared his interest in the world around, though at times those strengths had put a lot of pressure on her to keep up. As a mother she wanted to spend more time with the children and be there for them. To a great extent she had succeeded, so the girls enjoyed a very close and confiding relationship with their mother. They enjoyed her company, good humour and wise advice, and they were proud of the fact that she looked like a star when she attended their school. The relationship was particularly close with Annick, who from an early age had shown that she was very protective towards Charlotte.