The Death of Corinne (7 page)

8

That Obscure Object of Desire

Peverel de Broke, Lady Grylls’s other nephew, the son of her late brother Lionel, was a year younger than his cousin Hugh. He was very tall and managed to look at once languid, athletic and rather distinguished. But for a weak-ish chin, he might have been thought handsome. Lady Grylls had observed that his was the kind of face that sixty-five years ago would have been considered incomplete without one of those silly toothbrush moustaches and a rimless eyeglass. The kind of man who would be equally comfortable in a dinner jacket and an old Barbour, thought Antonia. Peverel was clever, Hugh had observed, in that whimsical English way that disconcerts and misleads foreign diplomats. Lady Grylls resented what she called ‘Peverel’s tiresome propensity for meaningless badinage’. (She had been particularly annoyed by a joke Peverel had told in which somebody confuses Eton with Eden.)

Peverel’s sun-bleached hair and eyebrows in conjunction with his deep tan suggested an explorer who spent half the year in hot climes, which was not too far from the truth. He had returned from Shanghai a couple of days earlier. Peverel travelled round the globe in the capacity of a trend spotter, an unusual and, he had hinted, highly lucrative occupation, which his aunt for one refused to take seriously.

The night before, Peverel had sat explaining exactly what it was he did. He collected information for brands like Volvo, Intel, British Airways and Nestlé. He diagnosed and explored trends in everyday life. (Antonia thought it all a bit obscure.) He went to supermarkets where he stopped people, pointed to items in their shopping basket and asked why they had bought them. (‘Infernal cheek,’ Lady Grylls had said.) He eavesdropped on conversations on trains, planes, buses, beaches and boats. (‘Not at all surprised,’ Lady Grylls had said.) He and his colleagues never knew when a snippet of information might prove useful. They took what was happening ‘out there’ and translated it into ‘stuff our clients could use’.

Everybody knew that Helen Fielding had dreamt up Bridget Jones, but apparently it was a trend spotter who diagnosed the single white professional syndrome first. It wasn’t a trend spotter who invented the term ‘wigger’, to describe white youths copying blacks, but it was again one of Peverel’s colleagues who introduced it to the media.

Peverel had entered the drawing room and was looking down at what appeared to be internet downloads.

‘You’d be amazed to hear that from the very start of her career Corinne Coreille’s been the object of intense prurient speculation,’ he said. ‘According to a website called Rumour Has It, Corinne Coreille had simultaneous affairs with the octogenarian Charlie Chaplin and Sophia Loren during the making of
A Countess from Hong Kong
, though oddly enough she rebuffed Marlon Brando’s attentions. That was in 1967. A roll-call of her alleged lovers includes Maurice Chevalier, Brigitte Bardot, Mr Lark, Alain Delon, General de Gaulle –’

Lady Grylls gave her vast explosive snort. ‘Stuff and nonsense!’

‘– Peter Sellers, Simone de Beauvoir, a defrocked Italian priest and the teenage Prince Albert of Monaco, whose later inability to marry some have attributed to the effect Corinne Coreille had on him.’

‘This is not Corinne Coreille’s official website, is it?’ Antonia said.

‘No. Corinne’s official website is maintained by a Belgian called Bruno Van den Brande and it is bland and somewhat boring. Want to know what it says? Corinne Coreille’s career was at its zenith between 1967 and 1989. She started as a Piaf clone and a variety
vedette
, but evolved into an international star, part pop, part diva. She became an iconic and later a cultish figure in Latin and Germanic countries and in Russia – also, in Japan, where a Corinne doll was produced last year. In 1972 Corinne’s face became the model for Marianne, the symbol of France. She was painted by Warhol and photographed by Cecil Beaton, Horst and Norman Parkinson –’

‘Wasn’t she in some film?’ Payne interrupted. ‘Or did they only
consider
her for one?’

‘Well, Alfred Hitchcock told François Truffaut that he wanted to shoot a murder scene in a cabaret where Corinne Coreille sits and watches her doppelgänger perform on stage. Buñuel did give her a walk-on part in his film
That Obscure Object of Desire
. She isn’t credited. She appears for about two seconds.’

‘From such trivia is fanatical cinephilia born . . .’

Lady Grylls rolled her eyes at Antonia as though to say, Heaven preserve me from clever nephews.

‘Quite . . . An independent Swiss director intended to shoot a Gallic version of
The Wizard of Oz
, with Corinne as Dorothy, but plans were abandoned when the L.M. Baum estate objected strongly to the script on account of the “great number of inappropriate scenes” . . . The proposed title was
L
’
Histoire d
’
Oz
. . . What else do you want to know?’ The sheets rustled in Peverel’s hands. ‘In her prime Corinne modelled for Yves St Laurent and Chanel, but she has a particular weakness for Lacroix. She won the Euro-vision song contest in 1970. She performed songs from
The King and I
in French for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor at a soirée at their villa in the Bois de Boulogne on 4th July 1971.’

‘
Le Roi et Moi
?’ Payne murmured. ‘Doesn’t sound right somehow.’

‘She sang Russian gypsy songs at the Kremlin for the Brezhnevs, “Hands Across the Sea” at the White House, for the Nixons and later for the Reagans, and “C’est Si Bon” for the whole Communist Politburo of China. In one single year she gave three hundred performances on German television. She is a member of the controversial Kabbalah movement, which promotes an ancient brand of Judaism and promises immortality. She appears on a triangular San Marino stamp and an orchid in Liechtenstein was named after her.’

‘There seem to be the devil of a lot of websites devoted to her.’

‘A reasonable number – nothing like Madonna. Most are perfectly innocent but some are unwholesome . . . A little
too
esoteric even for my understanding . . . We are talking fetish.’ Peverel cleared his throat. ‘Mule, Octopus, Pendragon, Elf, Pigsnout, Oedipus R, Killerbitch, Flasher, Weasel . . . Some of these men – I assume they are men – are interested in Corinne’s hair, others in her hands. I bet you didn’t know that the little finger of Corinne’s left hand is as long as her index finger, did you?’

‘D’you mean there are people who get a kick out of that sort of thing?’ Lady Grylls suddenly guffawed.

‘They do seem to, yes. One chap calling himself Chiro-phile – Greek for “lover of hands” – has written several erotic poems on the subject of Corinne’s hands. He wants to “lay a little lick” on each individual knuckle . . . Another website – maintained by Sniffer – focuses on Corinne Coreille’s favourite scent.’

‘What
is
her favourite scent?’ Antonia asked.

‘Old-fashioned violets . . . Footspy, on the other hand, is intensely curious about the kind of shoes she wears. There are at least – let me see – twenty pages of photos of shoes. High heels, boots, sandals . . . It is alleged that these are all the shoes Corinne has worn over the last thirty years. Look.’

‘Goodness. Poor child. She does seem to attract oddballs.’

‘As usual, darling, you’ve hit the nail on the head . . . Now,
must
you smoke?’ Peverel sighed as his aunt lit a cigarette. ‘You know very well what Dr Morgan said.’

‘Spoilsport,’ Lady Grylls said somewhat childishly. ‘Or wet blanket, if you prefer.’

‘D’you mean me or Morgan?’

‘
You
. Morgan too. But you are worse than him.’

’Well, wet blanket would be the more appropriate expression,’ Peverel pointed out after a moment’s consideration. ‘Given your dangerous habit of leaving smouldering fags about.’

‘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
emp
êcheur 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 flam-boyant 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
à 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.’