A Clean Pair of Hands Read Online Free Page A

perimeter with a dog, but it was safe and there was an attraction to offset the boredom. He was followed by a besotted girlfriend, Charlotte, and together they spent all of his free time in a thatched cabin or beachcombing for magnificent nautilus shells which formed the central attractions of a collection that Michel brought back to France.
    Once his military service was over, Michel found that his dissolute school years and consequent absence of educationalqualifications left him little alternative but to settle into the family business, for in France, academic qualification is the only recognised key to career opportunities in the public and private sectors. One could say that he pursued the only career that nature fitted him for, but it turned out to be an excellent move for him and for the business. He shared his mother’s drive and ambition, and he had the wit and cunning to channel it in ways which added significantly to the company assets once he had learned from practical experience how the business worked, and especially how it depended on good personal relations with the clients, an art that he soon mastered.
    Huguette and François Bodin were in many ways a dream team. They were intelligent fighters who would do what was necessary to achieve success. They were powered by acquisitiveness and their frenzy for visible wealth was amply rewarded. One might have expected a clash of Titans from time to time, but, although François was an archetypal alpha male, he adored Huguette and always gave way to her. Michel noted this, and later commented that his father was a sheep, rather than a wolf. He said this about his father although their relationship was normally respectful. But it was his mother’s outrageous ostentation that Michel admired and copied and he was determined that he would show he was her equal. He also learned from his mother that once you were locked onto making money as your first priority in life, other sentiments could take a back seat. You could always be generous with money as a substitute for affection. The roots of her pugnaciousness extended back to another generation when Huguette’s mother, who lived through the Second World War in occupied Paris, fought for food and subsistence. She would push to the front of queues on some pretext of priority, and amazingly got away with it by pure assertivenessand aggression. “You get what you’re prepared to fight for,” was her motto. By the end of the war, poverty was widespread, but Huguette’s parents survived and managed with meagre resources to bring up their two children, Huguette and her brother. Both children had high ambitions, though as things turned out they exercised them very differently.
    Charlotte had been in love with Michel since the age of fourteen, and having followed him to the other side of the world, no-one was surprised that once established in his new job Michel married her, and by their late twenties they had three daughters, Annick, Estelle, and Lydia.
    With time and experience, Michel proved capable of taking further responsibilities for the business, but his parents were not yet ready to relinquish absolute control, a situation which resulted in a build-up of friction from time to time, especially between Michel and his mother. By now they were effectively rivals. Their differences came to the surface because whilst Huguette considered the French tax authorities to be public enemy number one, and therefore to be opposed at every opportunity, she had very strict standards for dealing with clients, an area where Michel tended to have a more flexible attitude. Later, as his parents moved towards retirement and to pursue other interests, they handed control of the business to Michel and Charlotte, and it took another forward leap under the impetus of Michel’s new initiatives which included discarding some of his parents’ ethical constraints.

Chapter Three
The Cash Machine
    1980s
    ‘The