‘Well, Alfred Hitchcock told Francois Truffaut that he wanted to shoot a murder scene in a cabaret where Corinne Coreille sits and watches her doppelganger perform on stage. Bunuel 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 Eurovision song contest in 1970. She performed songs from The King and I in French for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor at a soiree 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 Chirophile – 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 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.’