Goddess (25 page)

A
BRIGHTLY LIT SALON
. Saturday afternoon. The Comtesse entertains visitors, as she always does at this hour. Today, though, she sits in the farthest corner of the room with Comte d’Armagnac and fights against the tears that threaten to ruin her new silk brocade.

‘Surely you must be mistaken.’

‘Not at all, Comtesse. It was your protégée, La Maupin. I am certain of it. Cut her own wrists with a dagger.’

‘She would not be so silly—nor so pathetic.’

‘Nobody imagined so. But there you have it. Stupid girl.’

There’s a squeak from the other end of the sofa. ‘You say she took her own life? I assumed she’d perished in some dreadful duel.’

D’Armagnac sighs and turns to face his wife. She is enjoying this far too much.

‘Please, madame. Lower your voice.’

She doesn’t. ‘Suicide seems unlikely. She always seemed so—well—cocky.’

‘She failed to take her own life, my dear,’ says d’Armagnac. ‘The difference is significant. Particularly for her.’

His wife beckons her friends closer, the better to discuss this new turn of events, given that earlier in the day they had entertained a rather heated debate on whether or not the singer could be buried at Versailles. They had thought it improper. Even less so, now that it appears the woman is not even dead.

D’Armagnac turns back to the Comtesse, who is twisting her scarf into a damp ball between her hands. She can’t bear this talk a moment longer, but cannot appear to care.

‘It’s all nonsense, Comte, you’ll see. The opera season starts again in three weeks.’

‘I know,’ he says. ‘
Phaëton
—one of my favourites.’

‘La Maupin is cast as Climène.’

‘She would be perfect.’

‘And she will be there, on stage, as glorious as ever, mark my words.’ She can almost see it, hear it.

‘If only that were so, Comtesse. I dearly wish you were right. But my surgeon saw to her wounds himself. At my request. I was shocked at his report. Shocked. It’s a sorry business.’

‘And over du Bouillon?’ she says. ‘Really? I can’t imagine it.’

‘So it would seem.’ D’Armagnac’s voice drops to a whisper. ‘You and I, Comtesse, know that it is unlikely. He is nothing but an extremely pretty pair of legs. The cause of her great sorrow appears to be the soprano—the blonde one. Her name escapes me. Sang opposite La Maupin in the
Métamorphoses
last year. Rather vapid but a lovely voice.’

‘Moreau? Fanchon Moreau?’ It comes out as a hiss.

‘That’s the one.’

‘Surely not. I can’t believe it.’

‘True enough, or so they say.’ He appears to be enjoying the tale, the truth.

‘But what happened? Why would she do such a thing?’

‘Unrequited love, apparently.’

‘Nonsense,’ says the Comtesse. ‘Julie is worth ten of Moreau. It must be something else—something … deeper—for her to take such a step. Such a sin.’

‘She is brave, certainly,’ says d’Armagnac. ‘But prone to the dramatic gesture.’ He knows it better than anyone alive.

‘Still, Comte, I cannot fathom it.’

‘Do you remember the story of the ball—the three duels?’

‘How could I forget?’

‘I wondered then …’

‘She is foolhardy at times.’

‘It’s more than that. She simply doesn’t care, the way we do, about the world, about herself. Never has. Believe me, I have known her since she was a child.’

‘After all these years, to throw her life away over that—that—’

‘A good thing, then, that she did not succeed.’ D’Armagnac pats the fist clenched in the Comtesse’s lap. ‘You’re right. She will return to the stage, triumphant. She will show them all. You and I will glory in her triumph.’

‘Quietly.’ She tries to smile.

‘As always. The world must never know of our interest in this matter. Julie must never know.’

‘But still. I should go to her.’

‘I wouldn’t, my dear. She’s proud in her way. She wouldn’t want you to see her in distress.’

‘I’ll give her a good shaking,’ she says, with a ferocity he’s never heard before. ‘That’s what I’ll do.’

The Comtesse ends the salon early, pleading a headache. It’s not a lie—not completely. She feels a familiar cramping behind the eyes, a slight fever—or perhaps fury. She can’t tell. She knows Julie—the pet, the wayward child—knows her arrogance, knows what the breeches and bravado conceal; knows how impossible it is to touch that spirit, and cannot believe—not for a moment will she believe—that drudge Fanchon Moreau could be the cause of such heartbreak. But she understands herself too well to ignore the ache of longing, of jealousy, of all the hours she has spent watching Julie sing and brawl and transfix Paris, wishing she could, just once more …

She shakes her head. No. She will not have it. She saw it from the first moment—Julie cannot be possessed. The others don’t realise. That young fool d’Albert, the men who hang about the Opéra. Julie is too fine for them, too unruly. She eludes them, and they don’t know why. They think they can tame her, but that’s impossible—and why must they try? The only way to keep her close is to set her free. But now something has shifted. Something the Comtesse doesn’t understand.

There’s an answer, of sorts, waiting in her boudoir. A woman. The servants say they tried to stop her but she insisted, and she’s famous, a singer, they didn’t know what to do. So here she is.

The Comtesse almost runs to her boudoir. Could it be?

It isn’t.

Fanchon Moreau dressed carefully before setting out. She’s heard all the stories about the Comtesse—from Julie, from the street gossips. She’s seen her, now and then, sweeping through the corridors at the Opéra as if scared she’ll catch some disease. Which is fair enough. People do. Even rich people—and then they blame the Opéra, the crowds, the stink. As if they’re better than us. As if we’re dirty. Fanchon bathed this morning, just in case, and splashed scent between her breasts. Chose her favourite gown, the one she ordered especially for the reception at Versailles. Her earrings were a gift from the Dauphin, brought all the way from Venice. Or Constantinople. Or somewhere.

Fanchon is smaller than she appears on stage—her waist so tiny it looks almost as if the two halves of her body are joined by a scarlet thread. The Comtesse can’t help but stare. It’s not often she sees such an extravagance of colours, of satin, of face paint. In the theatre, at the Opéra, at a distance, yes. But not here, perched on one of her own gilded chairs like a parrot. The woman’s scent—of rotting tuberoses and geranium—is overwhelming.

The Comtesse inclines her head ever so slightly and smiles. ‘Mademoiselle Moreau. A pleasure.’

‘Comtesse. You know why I’m here.’

‘I can’t imagine.’

The Comtesse waves her footmen out of the room.

Fanchon watches them go. ‘It’s about Julie. Of course.’

The Comtesse sighs. ‘I understand she’s unwell.’

‘Cracked,’ says Fanchon. ‘I don’t know. You have to help her.’

‘Me?’

‘She trusts you.’

‘What could I possibly do?’ Her heart might break. Right here. Now. She smiles again. ‘I have no influence over your … friend.’

Fanchon leans across and grabs at the Comtesse’s hands. ‘Pig’s arse. Look. I know what you’re thinking. It’s not like that.’

Her palms are sweaty, fingers gripping tight. The Comtesse sits back in her chair, but Fanchon moves closer, whispering. ‘Everyone’s saying that what Julie’s done—they think it’s about me. But it’s not. I swear to you. Julie and me, we have fun now and then—well, usually, although she’s been very dull lately. But that’s all. She doesn’t love me—she doesn’t love anyone. Not really. I can’t touch her. So she’d never … it’s just not like that.’

The Comtesse wrenches one hand free. ‘I still don’t—’

‘She needs you. She won’t listen to me.’

‘She has committed a terrible sin.’

‘But she’s crazy,’ says Fanchon. Tears spill down her cheeks, leaving trails of bare skin through the paint. ‘She has been for months. It doesn’t count if you’re crazy, does it? Last week I found her weeping over a strand of my hair she found on the pillow. She said it reminded her of someone. That’s not normal, is it? Crying? I mean, I’m not even really blonde.’

So that’s it. Old wounds, reopened with a dagger. Ten years, at least, since that business at Avignon. Too long to bear a scar so bloody, so ragged. All this time. She had no idea.

The Comtesse blinks back sudden tears. She looks, for the first time, into Fanchon Moreau’s eyes. ‘I understand.’

The Comtesse calls for her footmen, her steward, her coach. She will find Julie, probably in some dimly lit, musty hiding-hole, and this time she will force the life back into her no matter what it takes.

By the next afternoon, the pale, bandaged wretch has been lifted from a filthy straw pallet in a tavern off rue Saint-Denis, carried across the city in a sedan chair, washed and fed and shouted at, and inserted between clean linen in a room where the only sound is the slight tinkling of finely cut chandelier glass.

As she falls back into a pitiful sleep the name she whispers is not Moreau’s. Not du Bouillon’s. Not even d’Albert’s.

‘Clara.’

T
HAT’S HOW MEMORY WORKS
. It’s a jumble, a jungle, of sunless paths and sudden clearings, of circles and dead ends and random shafts of light.

This is no history book. It is not a libretto. Things happen, then they don’t. I remember—or not. I’ll tell you some stories—others are best left untold.

Perhaps you’ve heard this story already. The Opéra tried to hush it up, but there was no chance of that. One of its stars is enamoured of another—a contralto falls for a soprano; how perfect a script! Her passion is rejected; she slits her own flawless wrists and yet fails—dismally—to die.

Even the simple achievement of death was beyond me, although it appears to be within my reach now.

I’m not sure which humiliation was worse—that of living in spite of my best efforts, or people imagining I would try to take my own life over a trifling infatuation. There are much better reasons to kill yourself.

Fanchon, at least, knew full well that my suicide—or lack of it—had nothing to do with her. Well, it did, perhaps a little. But not in the way people imagined. Certainly, we had flirted with one another many times, slept together on occasion, but nothing more. The gossips said we’d fallen out over a man—Frédéric du Bouillon, of all people. Someone even wrote a play about it.

People can say what they like. They imagine themselves in our slippers and dream of how it might be—him finding us in bed together, or me finding her in bed with him. Whichever story suits their tastes, their own desires. They don’t even realise they do it.

But I understand. It’s the same impulse that makes d’Albert act like a hero in battle, or sends foolish ladies into a swoon at the Opéra. They imagine themselves as actors in a drama of their own making—tragedy or comedy. They imagine that everyone else’s desires are the same as their own.

But I’m not like everyone else. I don’t fit into their stories, their corseted romances, no matter how tightly they try to squeeze me.

I was lonely, it’s true. I even chased down my so-called husband and tried to make him love me for a month or so, but it was pointless. We are strangers. Always have been. Nothing in common but a vow we both made and broke in haste many years ago.

It was worse than pointless. After a few weeks, I hated him, when before I had barely ever thought of him at all. He made more money out of me—out of d’Armagnac—than I ever did, and he’s such a lousy swine he kept most of it, too.

So now he’s living like a burgher in town, with servants and his own chaise, and I’m—as you see. I have nothing. Am nothing. I have given everything to the Abbess—all that was left.

Wait a moment. Wait. I need to catch my breath. My thread. My—

Ah. Yes. So I was bereft. Aimless. I thought I was terribly old, but now I see I was still very young and possibly silly.

But Fanchon—ah! She was a swan—a nightingale—both. I don’t suppose you get to the Opéra often. How I wish you could see her. It isn’t so much her voice, which is of course very fine—better than mine, many say, and I don’t mind agreeing; I was always quite clear-eyed about my own shortcomings—but her presence. Crowds melt like raspberry ice before her gaze. Men’s hearts falter. So did mine. I confess it. It was difficult enough for me to breathe in her presence, let alone sing.

She must have thought me pitiful. I was. I can see that now.

Of course I was besotted with her—half of Paris was, and the other half was besotted with me. But it wasn’t that. A little besotting never hurt anyone. I’d loved Fanchon as a friend for many years. Maybe more than a friend, but only a little. Not like … not like others. It wasn’t desire so much as despair. She told me to stop moping about staring at her, and who could blame her for that?

I thought I had reached the limit of my life. It’s as simple as that. I believed, as I do again now, that love—real love—was beyond me. All those years I had dreamed of finding Clara, of rescuing her again. But then—it came on gradually—I at last understood that she was lost to me, and in losing her I somehow lost myself.

Does that make sense? I don’t know. I was nearly thirty years old and I thought my time was over. I was only out by a few years, it would seem. Although in one way my old life did end then.

I was a star.

I was ruined.

Or perhaps I was simply worn out.

Then I met my match.

Her husband was an old friend of d’Albert’s. The younger brother of d’Uzès. Those nobles, they all know one another, they all fuck one another or each other’s wives. Mothers. Who knows? Thank God d’Albert had never had his way with her—that would have been too awkward. That’s why they have so many names, I expect. To cover any possible paternity. Hers was Marie-Thérèse-Louise de Seneterre de Lestrange. I called her Thérèse. Everyone else called her Madame de Marquise de Florensac. Anyway, I’d known of her for years, admired her from afar—and not so far on one occasion. Yes, Father, it was she over whom I had fought three duels at once, she over whom I had risked my neck and wrung my hands, years before, when she was a newlywed and I was a newly lit star. She was then—and always—the most beautiful woman in France.

We had only ever spoken that once, kissed that once. I’d never seen her since.

Now I’ve lost my way in this story—I’m lost. Dear God. Have mercy. I am not ready to reach the end. Hear that quiver in my voice? Pathetic. I had hoped, perhaps—but it doesn’t matter now. None of it.

Where was I?

Who?

Thérèse.

Yes.

She was the reason I’d fled Paris, all those years before, for whose sake I spent years on the road, working for that monster Marino, singing for my supper in Brussels, fucking for my supper whenever I had to. Oh, it happens, more than you’d think.

She knew how that felt. Thérèse. Never had to sing or fuck or ask for anything, of course. Fabulous wealth protects you from such indignities. But she’d spent years in Brussels herself, in exile—had fled the court to get away from the Dauphin and his clammy hands. More to the point, she had to get out of the reach of his wife, who was murderous.

So we had kissed once. An infamous kiss. A kiss that lingered on my mouth all those years of my exile and then hers. You have to admit, it’s not the kind of thing easily forgotten.

We met again. I remember every second of it. A salon. A blue room. Duck-egg blue. Yellow curtains. Early evening. I wore a deep purple silk. I wished I hadn’t. It looked wrong against the furniture.

I felt her there when I walked into the room. Just like that. Had no idea she was coming—that she had returned to Paris. But I felt it, deep in my soul. A movement. Her presence. Love. I didn’t know why—or who. I turned around and there she was.