A Clean Pair of Hands Read Online Free

in the main they were untrained, sloppy, casual and often turned up for work drunk. Huguette’s attempts to raise standards were initially studiously ignored by the men. What could a young blonde woman know about the work they did, even if she was the boss’s wife? Life just wasn’t like the way she wanted it to be and there were plenty of reasons why not.
    Huguette at first didn’t argue face to face, but when the men expected to be paid she would rigorously inspect their work before issuing a certificate of completion. Without a certificate of completion they would not be paid, and Huguette held the cheque books and cash. The cost of replacing fittings damaged during movement or installation would be deducted from pay; irregular tiling had tobe ripped out and done again, electrical installations had to be tested and shown to work; rubbish, including piles of beer and wine bottles, newspapers, remains of food and cigarette packs had to be collected and disposed of cleanly; piles of unused materials and debris had to be removed and the site left impeccably clean, ready for use.
    Quite quickly, things were done right first time; there were more pre-work consultations to ensure the right things were being done in the right way, a number of workers with uncooperative or unhelpfully independent attitudes were replaced, wastage fell significantly, job times reduced and customers were happy with the results.
    The fruits of their partnership included an only son, Michel, who was born soon after they were married, and the money the business brought in enabled Huguette, her husband and son to enjoy a life of nouveaux riches. Thus, in his teenage years, Michel could enjoy the madness of a ‘blouson doré’, a description applied to the spoilt children of wealthy and indulgent French families.
    Michel’s mother wanted him to miss out on nothing, so, as she was heavily committed to building the business with her husband, she expressed her love for Michel mainly through generous allowances and by turning a blind eye to his increasingly loose morals.
    Michel later described his life at that time as a lust for experience, to a point of wanting to kill himself. During his early teenage years, he was one of a gang of youths who, on warm summer evenings, gathered to drive around quiet suburbs on small-engined but ear-shatteringly noisy mopeds that only the French seem to tolerate, and for which no driving licence was required. Later, he drove his increasingly powerful motorcycles faster and faster, racing friends around Paris until one of them hit a traffic sign and subsequently died. Another jumped ared light as part of their games and was seriously injured in a crash with a lorry. Girls were attracted to the little band of high-spending youths, and sex was a commodity that required no relationship beyond sharing a ride on a motorbike as a prelude.
    Many acres of print have been published about violent political extremist groups that sprouted in the late 1960s across Europe, a time when horrendous crimes were committed by young people who were simply floating aimlessly and seeking excitement. That could have been where Michel headed next. However, just as he was beginning to tire of the easy life and was wondering where to find further stimulation, he was called up for compulsory military service.
    Although army generals wanted infantrymen and were not concerned about the future career prospects of their temporary charges, there was a steady undercurrent of unofficial negotiation in which wealthy parents could obtain favoured postings for their offspring. Clearly Huguette and François Bodin knew somebody with a lot of influence because Michel was posted to the island of La Réunion, to the east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. It wasn’t the most useful posting from a career development or character building perspective because he spent most of his time guarding the military airbase by walking the