Martine
“Every so often a blue Volkswagen Beetle drove loudly through the dead-end street where my mother and I lived. I loved those cars, but one day my eyes got stuck on the driver. I saw the Beetle drive up to the neighbors, a boy with a white shirt and a red tie with polka dots got out. I stood there looking at him for a while and thought: I have to get to know that guy.
“A few days later I saw his car drive past the window again and I seized my moment. I stepped out the door in my sleeping dress. I rang the doorbell and an Englishman opened the door: the love of Filip’s sister, as I would later find out. I asked for the owner of the Beetle, whereupon I heard Filip shout from the living room: ‘Is that the girl next door?’ When I stood in front of him, he choked on his spaghetti. (laughs)
“My mother wasn’t home that evening, so I asked if he was coming to see a Marlon Brando movie that evening. I had to insist a few times, but eventually he said yes. Around midnight we went to a new wave club in Ghent where Ben Crabbé was performing. Just when Filip wanted to take my hand for the first time, around the end of the first song, I started cheering and clapping. All those cool frogs turned around in annoyance and Filip suddenly acted as if he didn’t know me. (laughs) They were not used to such enthusiasm there. His friends rolled their eyes and said, “Give it three weeks.” Those three weeks turned into at least 44 years.
“We found each other because we are outsiders. Our upbringing played an important role in this. My mom embraced her artistic side and opposed the business side that the rest of the family was taking. Mom let me take up ballet dancing, gymnastics and later go to drama school. Filip comes from a musical family and was raised in a similar way, which makes us both a bit of loners. We can be alone. When we hear Flemish while traveling, we turn around. We are not afraid of people, but they can be so tiring sometimes. (laughs)
“Before I met Filip, I assumed that relationships by definition had an expiration date. I was a flutter. I was afraid of losing my freedom, but Filip was able to curb that fear. He is incredibly gentle, patient and can handle my innate tendency towards doom-mongering well. My mother knew him, and she also loved him. I felt almost immediately that we were kindred spirits. His previous relationships ended because he was a musician, but I never thought about making him choose between me and his guitar. I didn’t want to deprive my loved one of his passion.
“We have built our lives in our own way, and the choice to live that life without children was a very conscious one. We knew that we would both continue to lead an uncertain existence, with irregular assignments and busy periods. When Filip played with Arno, he was sometimes on tour for four weeks. When I was in a busy theater period, we would communicate with post-its because one was always gone when the other came home. We couldn’t raise children in such a structure.
“That decision has never haunted us. Globetrotting became our priority. During the golden years of VTM I was a much sought-after model for foreign photo shoots, and Filip sometimes accompanied me. Bali, Mexico, South Africa: sometimes we were away five times a year.
“I hear from many couples that things don’t go so well once they retire, because they suddenly have to rely on each other much more, but we have always done a lot together. Our home is the nest we cherish so much: Filip in his music studio, me in my infrared cabin. (laughs) We can work together in the garden all day without saying a word to each other, and then curl up under a blanket in the evening: the highest form of romance. Sometimes I wake up at night and wonder what I did to earn all this wealth. I’m not really afraid of growing older, but I am afraid of the prospect of one of us being left behind.”
Philip
“Martine was 23 when I met her. She studied at the conservatory and I at the Sint-Lucas art school in Ghent. She mainly listened to French chansons, but when I looked a little deeper into her taste in music, she said: ‘I like this song. Do you know it?’ Suddenly ‘ZigZag’ sounded loud through the speakers: the song with which Once More – later Luna Twist – had won the first edition of Humo’s Rock Rally in 1978. She didn’t know that I was a musician with a record deal and was occasionally in the books. Pretty funny.
“I soon realized that I had met a special woman. That night of our first date we talked in the car for hours. I told her that as a musician I needed my freedom, but she understood me from the very first moment. We are wired in a similar way. We never considered each other as property. Realizing that that freedom was there and respected has always brought us closer together. Many relationships fail after a few years because partners form an ideal image of their other half: they try to model the other after the blueprint they construct in their heads. We never did, and I think that’s why we’re still together.
“That summer of 1980 we traveled together for the first time. With my Beetle we drove to the Italian Lake Maggiore. It was the first time that Martine had traveled with a man, so there was some resentment, for example about the type of hotels I wanted to check into: idyllic in my eyes, dilapidated in hers. (laughs)
“When we got back home, we moved in together. Martine, meanwhile, was a novice actress who completed one assignment after another. We made a reverse move: she became more famous, I disappeared a little more into anonymity. We have always been able to put this BV status into perspective.
Martine often plays the role of a flamboyant madam, which is why people expect her to be that way in real life. ‘Wow, you guys are so ordinary’ is a reaction that, strangely enough, we sometimes hear.
“We have always shared the sometimes crazy fan stories with the necessary humor. Like the time one of my female fans called our home and said, “My husband will let me sleep with you.” Martine and I had a good laugh about that. It never occurred to me to accept such offers. And the same goes for Martine. In the television and theater world, people sometimes get strange questions and confessions. (laughs)
“The older we get, the more our differences fade away. My positivism has tempered Martine’s negativism, and vice versa. I still wake up from her nightmares, and she from the laughter in my sleep. But less than before. Sometimes I see her worrying about the future. She always has. Especially the two times she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had to go through, I stood on the sidelines. When she came home after her surgery and looked in the mirror for the first time, I was standing next to her. The confrontation with her reflection was difficult for her. I still thought she was just as beautiful and I told her so right away.
“I am lucky that Martine is an extrovert woman who wears her heart on her sleeve. She has always allowed me into her cocoon, even when she felt fragile and insecure. It will always be ‘us against the world’, no matter what else comes our way.”
