The Death of Corinne (15 page)

19

The Birds

We didn
’
t meet them until some time later
. (Antonia wrote in her diary.)

Ma
ître Maginot came down
fi
rst. She was clad in a magenta
gown that swept the
fl
oor and a silk turban with a brooch pinned
to one side of it
–
only part of the brooch was visible, a bird of
some kind, made of silver, from what I could see, the rest being
hidden within folds of the turban. She also wore pendant ruby
earrings and a ruby necklace and a curious red string bracelet on
her left wrist. Her hands are veined, her nails long and varnished
red, and she wore several large-stoned rings. She looks tall but,
as I discovered, that is due to the high-heeled shoes she has on.
Her appearance was striking and extremely theatrical. She might
have been the high priestess of some esoteric cult
.

There is something seriously wrong with her face, the result,
as Jonson had told us, of a stroke. Her eyes give the impression
of having been sewn into slits and consequently have a Chinese-looking
slant, which gives her face the cast of an Oriental
warrior. They lack mobility and she seems to
fi
nd it dif
fi
cult to
blink. Her complexion is the colour of raw veal and she tries to
improve it, rather unsuccessfully, by applying some very white
powder. Her brows have been plucked and pencilled over. Her age
is dif
fi
cult to gauge. Mid-sixties, at a guess
–
maybe older. The
cruel set of her mouth and jutting lip lend a ferocity and a
distinctiveness to her expression. Her voice is unpleasant. She
speaks with the venomous rasp of a predatory creature
.

I felt a leaden oppression descend on me the moment I laid eyes
on her. I seem to possess the kind of morbid sensitivity to
emotional atmosphere which, according to Hugh, is common to
lovers and housewives. Introductions having been made, Ma
ître
Maginot hardly spoke to me, didn
’
t so much as glance at me, in
fact. Hugh looked rather distinguished in his maroon smoking
jacket and she
fi
xed her eyes on him quizzically for a couple of
moments
.

It was the petrifying gaze of a Medusa, he said later. Unless
she wanted a toy-boy for some unspeakable sexual practices
and he
fi
tted the bill. He expected her tastes to be shockingly
kinky, he said, warming to the fantasy. Clearly, she was the
dominatrix type
.

Provost handed round pale sherry of exceptional quality.
Ma
ître Maginot sat next to Jonson on the sofa and addressed
herself to him, exclusively. She berated him for having failed to
make sure the
fi
eld would be clear for their arrival. She spoke in
a loud enough voice for me to hear. She and Corinne were not
having the privacy they had expected. Corinne was jumpy and
tense. Corinne found it impossible to relax in the company of
strangers. Ma
ître Maginot looked from me to Hugh, rather
pointedly. (Did she really believe Jonson could have shooed us off
the premises?)

She went on breathing toxic dragon-fumes at him. Had he
checked the house from top to bottom? Every single room? The
cellars and the attics? The pantry? The outbuildings? She
seemed to doubt whether the search had been thorough. He had
conducted a search the day before, but not today? Would he
repeat that? Not today? She threw up her hands in dismay. But
that was exceedingly remiss of him! What had he been doing
with himself? Was that why she had employed his services? To
lounge about? To kick his heels? She was so enraged that her
turban shook. Suddenly
–
and rather bizarrely
–
she reminded
me of the glove puppet Corinne had had as a child. The bossy
governess
–
Miss Mountjoy
.

A fresh search must be conducted tonight, she said, raising an
admonishing fore
fi
nger. We shall do it together. We
’
ll check every
part of the house and the outbuildings. We shall go over it with
a
–
what was that ridiculous English phrase?
– fi
ne-tooth comb?
Yes
–
after dinner. I saw Jonson nod agreement
.

Lady Grylls
–
resplendent in a light green silk dress with
trailing sleeves
–
was clearly determined not to be intimidated or
made angry by Ma
ître Maginot. As the latter held forth, Lady
Grylls assumed a mock-solemn expression by drawing the corners
of her mouth downwards while rolling her eyes. She kept
nodding with exaggerated portentousness. Once or twice, when
she was sure Maginot was not looking, she gave us a wink
.

It was getting late. Provost had come in twice to say that
dinner was ready. Ma
ître Maginot turned to Lady Grylls
– ‘
Is
that man reliable? Have you checked his credentials? Has he been
with you long?
’
To all three questions Lady Grylls answered
placidly in the af
fi
rmative.
‘
I think we should go ahead and eat
now,
’
Ma
ître Maginot said eventually. Corinne was probably on
her knees, praying to the Holy Virgin. Corinne had been in a
strange, fatalistic mood the last couple of days. Corinne
’
s nerves
had been torn to shreds. Ma
ître Maginot blamed that crazy
American woman
’
s letters with their wild assertions. And of
course the death threats. Nonsense of course, nothing but empty
threats, but so terribly unsettling for poor Corinne. (If she thinks
they are empty threats, why does she make such great fuss over
the security checks? A contradiction, surely?)

It was as we were sitting down to dinner that Corinne Coreille
joined us
.

No meeting ever matches up to one
’
s prevision of it. In my
mind I had consigned her to a third world, one ruled by unreason,
miracles and magic; I had imagined her to be as foreign as
the sphinx, and now felt startled and disappointed at how
normal she seemed. All right, she clearly wore tons of make-up
and her glossy chestnut hair was most probably a wig, but apart
from that there isn
’
t anything particularly extraordinary about
her. She was clad in a high-collared dress of very light blue, with
a red bow at the neck, and she had a red string bracelet on her
left wrist, the same as Ma
ître Maginot. I smelled her scent
–
old-fashioned
violets
.

She doesn
’
t look
fi
fty-
fi
ve. That of course could only have been
achieved through very recent and rather superior plastic surgery,
conducted by the most skilful of Swiss surgeons. She might also
have had shots of Botox. It
’
s the hands that betray one
’
s real age,
but Corinne
’
s were smooth and unpigmented, without a single
liver spot. I marvelled at that until I discovered that she was
actually wearing
fl
esh-coloured gloves, with the nails painted in.
That was the only real oddity about her
.

‘
You remember Hugh of course?
’
Lady Grylls boomed
.

Corinne gave a sweet smile.
‘
Oh yes,
‘
she said.
‘
I remember
Hugh. The Royal Albert Hall, 1969. You had a little limp, yes?
Result of playing
“
footer
”
? I hope your foot is better?
’

‘
Much better, thank you,
’
Hugh answered, poker-faced.
‘
I
’
ve
had
–
um
–
suf
fi
cient time to recover.
’

‘
Thank you very much for the
fl
owers,
’
Corinne went on in
her shy voice.
‘
They were lovely . . . How is Amanda? Is she still
fond of her dog Bernard?
’

‘
I am afraid Bernard died back in 1974, I think.
’

‘
Oh, I am extremely sorry!
’
Corinne looked genuinely distressed
.

Could she really be so peculiar, I wondered
–
or had she
decided to put on the kind of performance that would con
fi
rm the
popular perception of her as a person who was completely out of
touch with reality?

There was a little commotion as we took our seats at the dinner
table. Ma
ître Maginot refused to sit with her back to the door, so
Aunt Nellie
’
s seating plan underwent a last-minute change.
‘
We
must be able to see who comes in. We all need to be extremely
vigilant,
’
Ma
ître Maginot said, looking round the table
.

Dinner was superb. Mashed avocado with crisp bacon, prawn
pancakes, and these were followed by roast grouse. We had
champagne
fi
rst, then red burgundy, then Sauternes (which
I didn
’
t drink, but Hugh hailed as
‘fi
rst-class
’
.) Lady Grylls was
served
fi
rst, before any of us, in the ancient feudal manner, the
idea being that in the event of the food being poisoned, the
hostess would gallantly succumb, and her instant death would
be a warning to the rest of the table to abstain
.

Ma
ître Maginot drank a fair amount of wine. Lady Grylls
hadn
’
t stinted herself
–
she could be a wonderful hostess when
she chose to. We were served by Provost and son Nicholas, both
clad in black-and-yellow striped waistcoats and white gloves.
Like the waiters at Maxim
’
s, Aunt Nellie said vaguely
.

Conversation was rather strangled and uneasy, at least at the
start. It was punctuated by unnerving silences. There are limits
to the kind of small talk people can maintain in the face of
mysterious adversity without appearing ridiculous. How could
we have pretended that this was an ordinary social visit, when
we all knew that it was anything but? Ma
ître Maginot maintained
her air of disapproval. Jonson didn
’
t say much. He and
Corinne had exchanged nods and smiles, but they didn
’
t communicate
in any other way in the course of the evening
.

‘
It is cold here. I am particularly susceptible to colds,
’
Ma
ître
Maginot complained.
‘
England is a cold country. I do not normally
drink much but I need to keep myself warm. These English
country houses, they are always the same. I started reading a book
on the plane. A detective story, as it happens, set in an English
country house. It was quite absurd, but I felt disturbed by it.
I can
’
t say why. I left it on the plane. I never
fi
nished it. I
’
d
forgotten how much I hate that sort of thing
–
but you must take
my word for it that it was quite absurd.
’
Ma
ître Maginot was
becoming voluble, no doubt mellowed by the wine she was drinking.
‘The Hunt for
–
No, I can
’
t remember what it was called.
Some unusual name. For some reason it gave me the creeps.
’

‘
Antonia writes detective stories,
’
Lady Grylls said, but
Ma
ître Maginot grimaced as though she had bitten into a lemon,
shook her head vigorously and said that that was not a subject
she wished to discuss
.

‘
What are these red bracelets you are wearing?
’
Hugh asked
.

‘
The red string wards off the evil eye,
’
Ma
ître Maginot
explained.
‘
We are both daughters of the Kabbalah. When somebody
is as famous as Corinne, she needs protection. The red
string only looks like red string but in actual fact it carries great
powers with it.
’

Pudding was served. Delicious crème brûlée, and there was a
second choice: frothy chocolate mousse. Corinne had two helpings
of the latter, I noticed. Lady Grylls asked about Corinne
’
s
Osaka concert last November. It was Maître Maginot who gave
us an account of it. (She seems to be taking her duties as
Corinne
’
s spokesperson too literally.)

‘
It was magni
fi
cent,
’
she breathed.
‘
Truly triumphant. Sublime.
Corinne was in superb form.
’
Warmed by the good wine,
Ma
ître Maginot was slipping into the known Parisian tendency
of linguistic in
fl
ation. Her French accent had become more
pronounced.
‘
There were six encores.
’