R Raichev - The Death of Corinne

‘Hard to say. Well, they didn’t make any fuss over her. They went picnicking en famille at the Bois de Boulogne, though I suspect their hearts weren’t in it. They were infinitely happier inventing systems for winning at roulette. I didn’t mind a flutter every now and then myself, but with them it was an obsession. They talked about little else at dinner.’ Lady Grylls paused. ‘Lethal gamblers – the term might have been coined with them in mind. I found that quite tedious, eventually. Still, I was quite shocked when they died… They died together, you know.’

Antonia looked at her. ‘They… died together? What happened?’

Cat and Mouse

Eleanor Merchant put away the letters. She had suddenly lost interest. She had a copy of the International Herald Tribune on her lap now, but wasn’t reading it. She had finished her tarte au citron and her tea. She couldn’t say she had enjoyed her tea, but then she couldn’t say she hadn’t enjoyed it either. Food no longer interested her. Citron – chocolat – as a matter of fact it was all the same to her. She went through the motions, though. She knew she had to eat in order to be able to go on, that was all. To go on, so that she could carry out what she had come all this way for. Her mission.

All the way to Europe. From Boston to Paris and now from Paris to London. By plane, cab and, on one dreadful occasion, the Metro. She hated trains. A long journey – a torture, really. Well, travel was derived from the word ‘travail’, which did mean ‘painful effort’ – it came from the Latin trepalium, a three-pronged instrument of torture! (Eleanor had taken full advantage of her superior education. She had thrived in the rarefied atmosphere of tricky conjunctives and ablative absolutes.)

She was glad she had left Paris. She had found Paris extremely disappointing. Nothing like the lush and colourful romantic image projected by films and photographs. (An American in Paris – the famous dance scene beside the Seine!) The great Eiffel Tower was little more than a rusting monstrosity. The celebrated haute cuisine had given her indigestion. Then there was the incredible rudeness and arrogance of some Parisians. Parisians seemed to hate Americans.

That tune they were playing on the intercom at the moment… ‘Paris Is For Lovers’… The kind of song Corinne Coreille would sing; perhaps she did sing it. Songs and travel agents made Paris sound like some sort of geographical Viagra. The aphrodisiac city. The city of love. The city for love. Love of course meant… sex. Eleanor’s lips pursed squeamishly – she had never liked sex much… Griff had been to Paris several times, each time with a different inamorato, or so she had gathered. (Griff, for some reason, had objected to her use of the word ‘inamorato’.) Including the one about whom she had made that disparaging remark. Owen.

Eleanor had had dinner with Griff and Owen once, at New York’s Algonquin hotel and famed watering hole. Griff had worn claret-coloured lipstick… She hadn’t cared much for Owen, in fact not at all. Too aggressively butch, too ‘jock’ for words. She could remember little about their conversation, apart from it being puerile, suggestive and incredibly silly.

‘I love Jesus,’ Owen had said. ‘No, I love Jesus more than you,’ Griff had said. ‘You are not worthy of kissing Jesus’ feet,’ Owen had said. ‘I would like to kiss Jesus’ feet,’ Griff had said. ‘As a matter of fact,’ Owen had said rather complacently, ‘I kissed Jesus the other day.’

Jesus, it turned out, was actually the name of a Brazilian boy they were both in love with.

They had then talked about their intention of joining a sect known as Lykaion, whose members seemed to believe in ‘unleashing erotic energy’ and achieving unparalleled pleasure through pain and violence – self-mutilation came into it – some such pernicious nonsense. At one point Owen had smilingly started to twist Griff’s little finger – slowly, backwards. Eleanor had feared it might snap and had nearly shouted to him to stop, but Griff seemed to enjoy the experience. Griff had made a little moaning sound and tilted back his head. Eleanor had always considered herself a woman of the world and yet she had felt shocked and sickened by the spectacle. That kind of thing, she had reflected, has little to do with love. Griff and Owen had been very drunk by then. They had started arguing about the ingredients that went into the making of a drink called kyon. They seemed entirely oblivious of her presence.

Griff had mentioned a Paris club called Le Chevalier d’Eon situated on the Rue des Anglais. It was one of his haunts. He had boasted of meeting an English composer there, someone who had been so taken with him that he had made him the central character of his next, so far unperformed, opera. Buenas Dias, Bello Diablo. Eleanor had found the libretto as she had been sorting through Griff’s possessions, among the silk dressing gowns, Chervet ties, the Max Factor make-up, Maria Callas CDs, Pierre and Gille posters, black-and-white photos of the improbably named Lya de Putti. (A silent movie actress of the demented diva type, as she had discovered.)

Eleanor had gone to take a look at Le Chevalier d’Eon on her first evening in Paris; it had been a pilgrimage of sorts. She had discovered the place swarming with gendarmes. It had looked like a raid. She had stood not far from the club’s garish facade, listening to some of the conversations. There had been a partouze – an all-male orgy. Well, it was that sort of place.

She glanced out of the train window once more. The contrast couldn’t have been greater. Green meadows, cows and sheep, neat farmhouses, red post boxes, a pub called the Severed Head, overcast skies, a steady drizzle… A pastoral picture. Not cheerful exactly, but it had a reassuring effect on her. ‘England, England,’ Eleanor sang out. ‘Green and pleasant land!’

People’s eyes fixed on her curiously as they passed her table. Even when silent, she attracted attention. Her face was over-made-up. Her lipstick was the brightest of cyclamen and every couple of minutes she reapplied it to her lips. There were lipstick smudges on her nose and chin. She was wearing a beige picture hat in the mid-1930s fashion, set at a slant to cover one side of her face. Her wispy hair showed from underneath the hat. She had had her hair dyed strawberry blonde the day before, at the hairdresser’s at her hotel. She was wearing a pair of egg-yolk yellow gloves. She had a white fur stole draped round her shoulders. It was rather grubby after the fall she had had outside the Gare du Nord. Eleanor had suddenly felt light-headed. Those pills, she supposed.

(Le Chevalier d‘Eon, she now remembered reading somewhere, was a historical figure – an eighteenth-century French nobleman who sometimes wore a dress and a cap as a challenge to ‘traditional gender roles’. He had given the name to the condition known as ‘eonism’.)

The table in front of her was covered with a great number of objects, the whole contents of her handbag, in fact. There were the letters, her lipstick, her passport, receipts from her hotel, wads and wads of dollar banknotes held together by rubber bands, two handkerchiefs, her psychic journal, two unlabelled jars full of various multi-coloured pills and capsules, a paperback of Henry James’s ghost stories, her purse containing euros as well as silver dollars and a book of travellers’ cheques.

She had been looking for something, she couldn’t say what. It had been a frantic search and it had gone on for some ten minutes, but in the end she had given up. The surge of manic energy having subsided, Eleanor was overcome by fatigue. She was filled with sadness and apathy. Leaning back in her seat, she closed her eyes and thought of her mission.