R Raichev - The Death of Corinne

‘I do nothing of the sort.’ Lady Grylls blew out a smoke ring provocatively. She seemed to have decided not to lose her temper with him. ‘You are what the French call un empecheur de danser en rond.’

‘Somebody who prevents others from dancing in a ring?’ Payne translated dubiously.

‘Dr Morgan said I should smoke less. A rule with which I have complied.’ Lady Grylls scowled at Peverel. ‘I used to smoke ten a day, now I am down to eight, so yah-boo sucks to you.’

‘Corinne’s kissing the Pope’s hand!’ Antonia exclaimed as she stood peering over Peverel’s shoulder. ‘Is that really the Pope or a look-alike?’

It was the Pope himself, Peverel said. Corinne had sung ‘Ave Maria’ at the Vatican in 1985. (It was Peverel’s Italian scout who had provided the information.) Catholics regarded Corinne as some sort of a holy vierge figure and a candidate for sainthood. She was reputed to have healed a little girl of a particularly disfiguring birthmark by merely touching her. Once her singing career came to an end, she’d go into a nunnery, or so it was alleged. Corinne Coreille had made a much-publicized vow to serve God. An aunt of Corinne’s, her father’s sister, had been a Mother Superior at a convent near Lourdes. That must have fuelled the speculation.

‘And now, ladies and gentlemen – from the sublime to the ridiculous -’ Peverel held up another sheet for their inspection – ‘I Want To Be Corinne… A trannies’ website.’

Antonia smiled. She could see how Corinne Coreille’s fringe, dramatic mascara-ed eyes, elaborate frocks, demure nun-like manner and stylized gestures made her an impersonator’s delight.

‘Corinne has become something of a gay icon,’ Peverel went on. ‘The reason, I suppose, is obvious. She never married – she’s led a reclusive and rather enigmatic existence – her appearance has never changed – she has stayed young and beautiful. Her speciality is the melodramatic, tear-drenched chanson on the subject of hopeless love. She’s been dubbed the French Judy Garland.’

Corinne Coreille’s songs – one of Peverel’s four gay scouts had reported – were currently favoured listening in Old Compton Street in London, at some particularly flamboyant locales in Berlin, in certain Tangier tavernas, as well as on the beaches of Mykonos. On a more elevated note, Corinne Coreille was said to have inspired Tennessee Williams’ last unfinished play, in which an alcoholic baseball player can make love to his wife only when listening to the songs of a mysterious French chanteuse whose parents have been devoured by African lions.

‘One young American apparently slashed his wrists as he lay in a hot bath while listening to Corinne sing “Mad About the Boy” in French,’ Peverel went on. ‘The dead boy’s mother – incidentally, his name was Griff – seems to have gone mad with grief.’

‘Really?’ Antonia looked up.

‘French farce meets Greek tragedy,’ Payne murmured. ‘Or am I being too awfully callous? Agamemnon did die in his bath, didn’t he?’

‘Lesbians admire Corinne for being sensual, pure and discreet,’ Peverel continued. ‘They insist she is one of them – a vanilla.’

‘I haven’t heard so much nonsense in my life,’ Lady Grylls said.

‘The suicide story – how did your scout get hold of it?’ Antonia asked.

‘There is a website that’s been constructed by the dead boy’s mother. It’s she who tells the gruesome tale in some detail. She writes under the nom de guerre of Saverini. She appears to be some super-rich heiress and quite demented to boot.’

‘Saverini?’ Major Payne frowned thoughtfully.

‘Saverini appears in several photos in which she is seen posing with her son. It is impossible to say what either of them really looks like since in each photo they wear some kind of elaborate fancy dress. They appear as mustachioed grenadiers, as eighteenth-century madams wearing powdered perukes and covered in patches, as little Lord Fauntleroy and the Earl of Dorincourt, as a pair of jolly sailors, as sinister nurses and as kneeling nuns.’

‘How perfectly ghastly,’ Lady Grylls said.

‘A fearful Freudian nightmare, I entirely agree. Saverini explains that she often has dinner a deux with the marble urn containing her dead son’s ashes. She expresses the opinion that Corinne Coreille’s CDs should be boycotted and that Corinne herself should be despatched to Devil’s Island. She also reports that her son has made attempts at contacting her… My cartridge was running out of ink, so I didn’t print any of it.’

Lady Grylls shook her head. ‘Don’t tell me that anyone can put idiocies like that on the internet.’

‘Anyone can – and they do it all the time. Why don’t you try it sometime, darling? We are already connected. Who knows, you may even be able to get a good price for Chalfont on eBay.’ Peverel winked at his cousin. He reached out, took a piece of cake from the cake stand and started munching lazily. ‘Do you think I might have a cup of tea? Thank you, Antonia. You are the only one here who cares about me… Incidentally, Corinne Coreille also plays a part in the metrosexuality phenomenon.’

‘What is metrosexuality?’ Lady Grylls asked.

‘That, darling, is a subject you could introduce when you preside over the next session of your local Women’s Institute. Metrosexuality,’ Peverel explained, ‘is where straight men do things that are decidedly gay, like wearing salmon-pink shirts, putting on fake tan, having their eyebrows “done” and their nails buffed – as well as listening to songs from musicals and to Corinne Coreille. This last applies mostly, though not exclusively, to the Continent.’

There was a pause. ‘That all?’ Payne said.

Peverel took a sip of tea. ‘You want the extreme trivia as well? Corinne is allergic to cats. Detective stories frighten her. When she was a girl, she was passionate about playing poker with her grandmother. She displayed a distinct gambling streak, though in later life she was too busy to ever visit a casino. Her favourite toy was a glove puppet called Miss Mountjoy, a rather bossy governess-y character in a turban. Miss Mountjoy was forever telling people what to do or not to do.’

‘I remember Miss Mountjoy.’ Lady Grylls nodded. ‘I was staying with them in Paris once and Corinne followed me around the house with that damned puppet on her hand, saying, “You smoke too much. Smoking is bad for you. You must stop at once.” Earlier on Miss Mountjoy had told Ruse off for putting too much make-up on! Corinne was driving everybody potty. She was seven or eight. Long time ago.’

So Corinne does have an authoritarian streak, Antonia thought. ‘What about her more recent activities?’ she asked.

‘Well, in 1990 Corinne Coreille started slowing down and then there was a sudden five-year hiatus, when she simply disappeared from view,’ Peverel said. ‘That was in 1997, a month after she had the Legion d’honneur bestowed on her.’

‘I imagine her disappearance unleashed more rumours?’ Payne said.

‘It did. Hope this is not getting too tedious. That she’d become a lay nun in Jerusalem, that she’d got married to a lion tamer, that she’d died and been buried secretly, that she’d opened a florist’s shop in Dieppe, that she’d married a transsexual illusionist, that she was paralysed after a car crash and could only breathe with an oxygen mask, that she’d renounced all her wealth and become a nurse in a leper colony in Zanzibar.’ Peverel paused. ‘Well, Corinne Coreille resurfaced with a triumphant concert in Osaka, Japan, last November. Here are some pictures from the concert.’

‘What did I tell you? Unchanged,’ Lady Grylls wheezed. ‘And she’s wearing a Chanel dress.’