The Importance of Being Kennedy (19 page)

She came knocking at the tradesman’s door.

“Hey, Nora,” she said, “how’s married life?”

She sat at the scullery table, back under a Devonshire roof, and Hope made a pot of tea.

I said, “I can’t believe you’re here. I never thought your Mammy and Daddy would let you come.”

“Well,” she said, “Mother’s kind of busy, working on Euny and Pat, seeing as how she failed to turn me into a swan, and Daddy’s easier to get around these days. He’s tired, you know? He’s really
kind of low in spirits. Joe says it’s because of the way Roosevelt’s treated him.”

I said, “And he likely has Rosie on his conscience too.”

She didn’t like that. She said, “But that wasn’t Daddy’s fault. He went into it with lots of different doctors and he got a top, top man to do the procedure. It should have turned out fine. And he did it for the best, before she got into trouble. You don’t know what she was like after she came home from England.”

I said, “What was she like?”

She colored up. “Not in front of Walter,” she whispered. So Walter remembered he had boots to polish.

“Well,” she said, “she just ran wild. She was boy crazy. The Sisters said at night they daren’t let her out of their sight. She wanted to go out dancing.”

I said, “Then why didn’t your Mammy fix her up with a dancing partner, like she did when you were here? She was all right as long as she had London Jack to give her a twirl.”

She said, “But it wasn’t just dancing she wanted. It was, you know, the other thing. I think she may have done it, Nora. The thing we mustn’t do till we’re married. She seemed to know an awful lot about it all of a sudden.”

Hope sat there, turning a sock heel and wheezing like an old geyser.

She said, “Nowt new about that. Sexual intercourse. They all do it, married or not. Specially now we might all wake up dead tomorrow.”

Kick looked at her. She said, “Kennedys don’t. We’re Sacred Heart girls.”

I said, “But why did they tamper with her brain? They must have known it could go wrong.”

“Oh no,” she said. “The man Daddy got to do it had operated on loads and loads of people. It was just bad luck, what happened
to Rosie. Really, really bad luck. But you know what? I don’t think she remembers anything about it. I don’t think she remembers anything about anything.”

And then her eyes filled up. “I really miss her,” she said. “She was such a klutz. But nice. It’s like she died. Only she didn’t.”

Oh then we had a good old weep together. Crying was something else Kennedys didn’t do, but she knew she was all right with her old Nora. It was a good job Stallybrass had left the room. He can’t be doing with waterworks and we both ended up with noses as red as her dance gown. Even Hope joined in and she never even knew Rosie.

She said, “The thing is, she might have gone with a man and gotten a baby. Then what would we have done?”

I said, “It would just have been another little Kennedy. Fidelma would have loved it.”

“Maybe so,” she said. “But Mother wouldn’t. It could have been a baby from any old unsuitable type. Rosie would have gone with anyone.”

I said, “And how did your Mammy take it, about the operation?”

“Went for lots of walks at first,” she said. “You know how she does. Went to Mass and then for long, stomping walks, on her own. But then she decided to go to California and keep Euny company in college. She reads all the books and goes to the lectures and everything. She’s quite the perfect student, except she doesn’t have to take the tests.”

I said, “And what does Euny think about that?”

“Gosh, I don’t know,” she said. “But I don’t think she’s wildly happy at Stanford anyway. She doesn’t seem to have any new friends, and she looks terrible. She just gets thinner and thinner.”

There never was an ounce of fat on that one. Euny could eat like a cart horse and the grass still wouldn’t know where she was treading.

I said, “And have you seen any of your old crowd yet?”

She said, “Well, I’m going to the Florida Club tonight with Tony Erskine, except he’s now Earl Rosslyn if you please. But if you mean have I seen Billy, no. He’s in Herefordshire at the moment. Or is it Hampshire? In camp, anyway. But I’ve seen Sissy. She’s got another tiny, tiny baby, such a sweetie, and I saw Ginny Vigo, now Lady Balderston of course. I wish I could be in the ATS. I love those furry coats they get to wear. And we’ll probably see Caro Leinster and Harry Bagnell tonight. They’re engaged, you know? Imagine! And I’m going to try and visit Debo. It must be the absolute worst thing, not knowing when she’ll see Andrew. Not even knowing where he is.”

Lady Debo was expecting again, due any day.

Kick had sailed with a big contingent of new Red Cross girls. Most of them had been sent out on the road with mobile canteens for the GIs, trucks rigged up to serve doughnuts and real American java, but not Kick. Her job was to show the officers around London and keep them entertained, fix them up with tickets for a show or find them a card school or a nice English family to have them round for tea. As war work went it was a nice little number. She was living in, at Hans Crescent, so the late nights didn’t matter. She seemed to get plenty of time off and she hadn’t been back in London a month before Billy Hartington was squiring her again and all the competition fell by the wayside.

His battalion was stationed in Hampshire, awaiting orders, and he came up to town to see Kick every minute he could. Sally Norton was history and so were all Kick’s beaux. She fell like a ton of bricks. Walter reckoned it was the captain’s pips that did it. Hope thought it was visiting Lady Debo and seeing her sweet little Devonshire baby that put ideas in her head. I don’t know. They dropped by Carlton Gardens one night, on their way to the Embassy Club, Lord Billy and Kick, Lord and Lady Balderston,
Minnie Stubbs, Cynthia Brough. They all had their war stories, but to me they were no more than infants. They looked like children who’d been playing in the dressing-up box.

Walter said, “There’ll be ructions, you know, if Their Graces find out this romance has started up again. Can you not have a word with her?”

I said, “I’ve nothing to say that she’s not heard before. And it hardly seems right, laying down the law to them when they’re both old enough to be in uniform. They’ll have to work it out for themselves.”

I did speak to her though.

I said, “There’ll be tears, young lady. Your Mammy didn’t approve of Lord Billy for one simple reason, and nothing’s changed.”

“I know,” she said, “but other things have changed. People are different since the war. Daddy is. He’s not so definite about everything. And if we can get Daddy on our side, he’ll talk Mother round.”

I said, “So you’re serious about each other.”

“Pretty much,” she said. “Billy’s going to talk to his folks. See how things could be worked out.”

I said, “You mean so you can be married?”

“I guess,” she said. “We’re both of age.”

She sat at the scullery table, chewing her nails as usual.

I said, “You may be of age, but I’ve still a mind to paint your fingertips with mustard.”

She said, “Sissy and David got married and that was dead easy. They’re raising their babies Catholic. I mean, as long as they’re something I don’t see it matters what.”

Hope said, “In our house it matters what. Devonshires are Church of England. Always were, always will be.”

Kick said, “All right. Then we’ll just have to have Church of England babies.”

I said, “And your Mammy will cut you dead if you do.”

“Well,” she said, “I figure if I just keep saying my prayers everything will turn out dandy.”

I’m sure she did too. It didn’t matter how grown up my Kennedys grew, they still got down on their knees every night and prayed their rosary.

We didn’t hear the news about Jack until weeks after it had happened. His patrol boat had been sunk with two of his crew lost and the rest had ended up stranded on a desert island. They were there for days, sitting under palm trees, watching for a passing boat and writing messages on coconut shells, just like in the comics. There was a little piece about it in the
Daily Mail
.

Lieutenant John Kennedy, it said, son of the former American Ambassador to London, has been commended for bravery following an incident in the South Pacific. Kennedy, a college swimming champion, swam through treacherous currents to rescue eleven crew members.

Swimming champion, my eye. With those spindly arms and legs! When Jack was in the water he made more splash than progress. Joe was the swimmer. But that’s newspapers for you. Kick said her Daddy had had the story written up much bigger in the
New York Times
. She was so proud of Jack, and so was I. No
one knows better than I do how he’s struggled. If there’s a sickness that boy’s not had, I can’t call it to mind.

I heard from him eventually, laid up in a hospital bed. His back had been hurt when the boat was sunk.

Darling Nora,
he wrote,

As the summer wore on Kick seemed to get more days off than she did days on, and she never worked a weekend. Come Friday afternoon she’d be off to see Sissy Ormsby-Gore and her
babies, or down to Compton Place. The
Daily Mail
newspaper had a picture of her in her Red Cross uniform, riding a bicycle along Basil Street, to show how American girls of every rank were doing their bit. Mr. K made sure it got published in America too. “Girl on a Bicycle” it was called, but I heard people call it “Girl Getting a Free Ride.”

It didn’t buy you much to be a Kennedy by 1943.

But came September we had another Kennedy in town. Joseph Patrick’s squadron was posted to England, to a base in Cornwall, and he came up to London, on a forty-eight-hour pass. Kick brought him round to Carlton Gardens, made me close my eyes.

She said, “You have to guess who it is. You can feel but no peeping.”

I knew by her giggling it was one of the boys and the smell of tobacco gave him away, but I let them string me along.

He’d brought us nylons and tinned fruit. He looked so natty in his flying jacket. He wasn’t allowed to say where he’d be flying or even exactly where he was stationed.

“We’re just here to whup the Germans,” he said.

I said, “And how about Jack? Didn’t he do well?”

“Yes,” he said, “all of a sudden the little punk’s a great big hero. Hell, if he keeps this up they’ll be naming a street for him.”

He said it so sour.

I said, “Now, Joe. He did well even to get into the forces when you think of all the sickness he’s had. Those Navy doctors must have winked at his medicals. And you were always his champion, you know. So don’t begrudge him this.”

He said, “I don’t begrudge him. Anyhow, there’s still plenty of war going on. I’ll top him yet.”

Kick said, “Jack’s gone back to finish his tour of duty, Nora. They patched him up at Guadalcanal and he’s gone back on patrol.
And Daddy wrote me that Bobby’s volunteered for the Reserve too. Just think. I’ll soon have three brothers in Navy blues.”

Joe said, “Bobby just better get a move on before Jack wins the whole damned war for us.”

He was smiling, but I knew he was rattled. When you’ve known them from a wean, you read them like a book.

Walter didn’t warm to Joe. “He’s full of himself for a youngster,” he said.

Well, not such a youngster. Joseph Patrick was twenty-eight, and full of himself is only what a Kennedy boy is raised to be.

I said, “He’s a good lad really. A rascal for the girls, but you should see him with Jean and wee Teddy, how he watches over them. He’s the grandest big brother to them. And you know he’s had his Daddy and his Grandpa Fitzgerald cooing in his ear since he was in his crib, telling him he’s going to be president of the United States, so you can’t expect him to be a shrinking violet.”

He said, “Lord Billy’s known from the cradle he’ll be the Duke of Devonshire but he don’t saunter around like he owns the place.”

Wherever Joe was flying, he headed back to London when he was on leave, always in his precious flying jacket, always puffing on one of those nasty little black cigars. Every time we saw him he had a different girl on his arm, every one a beauty, and he always brought something for us. Hand cream, fresh eggs. Onions, he brought one time, all the way from Scotland in his kit bag. And a piece of parachute silk for Hope to make us new bloomers.

There were times when you felt you couldn’t stand another day of war and there were times when life didn’t seem so bad. Perhaps you can get used to anything. Perhaps we were just getting cleverer at making do. Walter’s Pig Club made a difference, that’s for sure. There had been one started on a bomb site in St. James’s
Street and Walter had tried to join that, but they said it was for Fire Service members only.

He said, “Ruddy glamour boys, they think they’re God’s gift because they can go through red lights. Nobody appreciates the ARP. They think you’re a joke. But we should be entitled to affiliation, the kind of work we do. We get involved in fires. I’d like to see what it says in their constitution.”

I said, “Why don’t you start your own Pig Club. You’ve acres enough at Kew.”

“And every inch put to good use, Nora,” he said. “It could be tricky. Permission might take some getting. It’d have to go through channels. Ministry of Food, probably.”

I said, “That’s not the way. Get the pig, then ask permission. It’s all part of the war effort. They can’t shoot you for it.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “They can hang you for looting.”

I do believe if Adolf Hitler hadn’t invaded Poland, Walter Stallybrass would still be in Derbyshire, doffing his cap to the assistant under-gardener and scared of his own shadow.

I love a pig myself. For looks I’d have a big ginger one, but they’re slow growers. We could still have been waiting for our Christmas roast come Easter, and gingers are very prone to wandering as well. Our Margaret forgot to latch the gate on a ginger we had one year at Ballynagore, and he turned up the other side of Kilbeggan with a twinkle in his wee eye. Well, they couldn’t have any escaping pigs at Kew, not with all those top secret crops of national importance. Anyhow, the head man, not such a flutter-guts as my husband, said, “Bugger permission. People have to eat,” and they got an Old Spot, which is a nice-mannered, home-loving type of pig, and when his time was up they turned him out onto a patch of kale for his last supper and then shot him with a rifle. He’d had a good life, doing his
bit against Jerry, and we had our first taste of pork crackling since 1939.

Kick flew home for Christmas so she could go to Palm Beach and see the family. It must have been something her Daddy fixed. No one was supposed to go anywhere, wasting precious fuel, if it wasn’t for war work, but Mr. Kennedy’s dollars still opened doors and freed up seats on transports.

She said, “Say lots of prayers for me, Nora. I’m going to talk to Mother about marrying Billy.”

I said, “Then you’ll need someone who’s better at praying than I am. You know she’ll never countenance it.”

“Well,” she said, “it’d mean I’d be a Marchioness and then a Duchess eventually. I think she’d like that, don’t you? And Billy’s going to talk to his Mama and the darling Dookie. We could maybe do something like bring our boys up as Protestants and the girls as Catholics. Don’t you think?”

I said, “What I think doesn’t signify. If your Mammy is against it as well, try to change the direction the wind’s blowing.”

“The thing is,” she said, “Billy reckons the invasion’ll happen in the spring. And then, who knows? It’s not like ordinary times. We really don’t want to wait.”

I knew what she was thinking. That Herself might be softened, now she had boys of her own in uniform and it had become a regular thing to marry in the heat of the moment. But Mrs. Kennedy didn’t think that way, war or no war. She harped back to her “duties,” drummed into her at Sacred Heart, and she planned for the future, how her boys would run America and the girls would make good Catholic marriages. She didn’t have a peck of sentiment in her.

I said, “Will you visit Rosie while you’re over? Will you take her some candy from me?”

“Sure,” she said. “If I have time. If Mother thinks it’s a good idea.”