The Importance of Being Kennedy (27 page)

Wherever Tobacco Road is it obviously isn’t a good enough address for an Honorable Mrs.

Kick was fuming when we got back.

She said, “You’re late, Jack. People are having drinks, dinner’s ready and you don’t even have time to change.”

He said, “I had a great day though. Found our folks. Got pictures and everything. Wait till you see.”

She said, “Well, Pamela didn’t have a great day. She says it’s been boring and beastly. Why couldn’t you be nice to her? And you smell of dogs or something. Tomorrow I want you to be especially nice to her. Play golf with her. She’s so sweet.”

“Sorry, Sis,” he said, “no can do. Tomorrow we’re going to look for Nora’s roots.”

We left at seven, with soda bread and thermos flasks of tea, and went up through Kilkenny and Port Laoise. Jack was in the mood to love every beck and horse and cart he saw and even Walter allowed that the hills were nearly as bonny as Derbyshire, but I couldn’t look at any scenery. I was too worried about what we were going to find. Just before we got into Tullamore I smelled that hot, biscuity smell of the distillery and I knew I was nearly home.

We were past the cottage before I realized. Things are always smaller than you remember and it seemed set lower from the road. Walter had to back up. And we were no sooner out of the car than there was a face at Donnellys’ window across the way. A woman came out.

She said, “You’ll find nobody there. It was Mrs. Clavin’s house but she left.”

I said, “It was Mr. Brennan’s house. Did he die?”

“Don’t know,” she said. “I’m from Mullingar. Was he an old man?”

Hardly. In his sixties, but younger than Ursie.

I said, “Are you one of the Donnellys?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m married to Sylvester.”

I said, “And who’s Sylvester?”

He was Martin Donnelly’s boy.

I said, “Martin had two sisters went to America, Bridget and Marimichael. Marimichael was my friend. We sailed the same time.”

“Oh yes?” she said.

I said, “Marimichael’s been dead years, of course. Did you ever hear speak of her?”

“Don’t think so,” she said. “There’s an awful lot of the Donnellys dead. It’s hard to keep track. You don’t sound American.”

She’d followed us down the path.

I said, “Mr. Brennan was my brother. He was married to Mrs. Clavin.”

Jack said, “Any idea where we’d find her?”

“Tullamore,” she said. “She went to a row house in Tullamore. You sound American, so. Are you a film star?”

“No,” he said, “I’m a congressman. I’m Jack Kennedy.”

She said, “You look like a film star. What do you want with Mrs. Clavin? Has she come into money?”

The door was hanging off its hinges. We could walk right in. There was nothing much left inside except Mammy’s picture of the Sermon on the Mount and some old shelf paper Ursie put up with thumbtacks.

I said, “You know what, Edmond must have passed away and that Clavin woman never thought to let Ursie know. All that driving for nothing. Well, now you’ve seen it. Now you know why we all left.”

Jack said, “But it’s cute. I’m glad we came. Let’s go back to Tullamore, try some of that whiskey. What do you reckon, Walter?”

Walter said, “I never touch the stuff, sir. But I’d be happy to keep you company with a pint.”

The Donnelly woman said there were row houses next to Daly’s malt barn.

She said, “What did your man say his name is?”

I said, “He’s Jack Kennedy. He’s a very important young man. You listen out for that name in years to come.”

“I will,” she said. “I’ve a friend in Mullingar gets
Silver Screen
magazine sent her. I’ll look out for him.”

We walked along to the graveyard and I picked dog roses. There was a blackbird singing on Nellie’s headstone. It was the only time the sun broke through all that day.
Helen Mary Brennan 1898–1902.
She’d have been nearly fifty if she’d lived. We split up when we got back to Tullamore. Jack and Walter went to the pub while I knocked on doors in Daly Street. One woman said she knew everybody and there were no Clavins or Brennans.

Another woman said, “There is an Edmond. An old feller. I don’t know his other name. He’ll be drinking in Larrissey’s this time of day. Will I send my boy to fetch him out for you?”

But Jack and Walter had already found him. There were the three of them walking up the middle of the street like Larry, Moe, and Curly.

Edmond said, “Is it you, Deirdre? Have you come home?”

He had all his hair still, but not a tooth in his head. He showed us his dentures when we went in for a brew of tea, still in their box, because they’d pained him so much he couldn’t wear them. He said he kept meaning to put an advertisement in Magennis’s window, to see if he couldn’t sell them. The Clavin woman was gone. She’d died of bad headaches and was buried at Ardnorcher, and Edmond was left on his own in a fine little house with an inside toilet and electric light.

He kept saying, “Where are you staying, Deirdre? You can stay here.”

And I kept saying, “It’s not Deirdre, it’s Nora. Do you not remember? I went to America.”

He’d seem to catch on for a minute. He said, “I do remember. And you sent Mammy a handbag. We’ve got it still.”

He went off and found it, that beautiful leather bag Ursie sent to Mammy, must have been 1910, never been used. I’d have had it from him, only it was so old-fashioned-looking.

I said, “It was Ursie sent this bag. Remember Ursie? She’s the one always writes to you. She went first, to Boston, and then Margaret and then me. I’m Nora.”

“That’s right,” he said. “I remember now. It’d be worth something, that bag. I could sell it.”

I said, “Are you hurting for money?”

“No, no,” he said. “Annie Clavin left me all right. I can have anything I want. And we’ve the two rooms. You could stay here. We’d be company for each other.”

I said, “I can’t stay with you, Edmond. This here is my husband. We’ve a home in England. I just came by to see how you’re doing. Take a look at the old place.”

He said, “I’m doing just grand. England, so? You’re not with the Sisters anymore then?”

I said, “It’s Deirdre who’s with the Sisters. And Ursie was saying, about the old house. That Deirdre might be glad of it if she ever comes home from Africa.”

“Oh,” he said, “you wouldn’t want to live there. It’s terrible damp. Tell Ursie she can stop with me. Tell her I’ve got a wireless set. I’ll bet she doesn’t have one of them in Africa.”

Poor Edmond. The few wits he ever had were gone. I felt terrible walking away from him. He shouldn’t have been living there like that, all alone.

I said to Walter, “It’s true what they say about ignorance being bliss. Now I’ll be worrying about him. He needs looking after.”

“Nay, Nora,” he said. “He’s all right. They seem very fond of him in that pub. They give him his dinner every day.”

Well, I still felt bad. Typical of that Clavin woman, to have had her pleasure and then upped and died.

Directly the holiday at Lismore was over, Mrs. Kennedy and Pat and Jean went home. There was a new Navy destroyer ready for launching. It was to be called the
Joseph P. Kennedy
and Jean had been chosen to name it. But Jack traveled back with us to London and the minute she had him to herself Kick spilled the beans about her new sweetheart. She thought that because Joe had sided with her when she wanted to marry Lord Billy, Jack would do the same, that he’d step up to the mark now she needed a friend again. I wasn’t so sure. There was a very big difference between Billy Hartington and Blood Fitzwilliam, and anyhow, Jack refused even to meet him. Her face fell.

He said, “I’ll do just one thing for you, Kick. I won’t call Dad and warn him what’s going on, like I should do. But you have to wake up and face facts. I’m trusting you to do the right thing before Mother hears about it.”

She said, “Go ahead and call Daddy. I don’t care. You don’t even know Blood, so why are you so down on him? You’d like him if you met him. He’s got war stories and stuff. He plays golf.”

Jack said, “Listen, a guy might be okay for a round of golf, but that doesn’t mean I’d want him marrying my sister. A married man? You’re dreaming if you think this’ll ever work out, so don’t even bring it up at home. You’ll break Dad’s heart for one thing, and Mother’ll run off to the nursing home again, which’ll rebound on Teddy and Jean. It’s just not fair. I’m going to give you time to come to your senses, so don’t go firing off any dumb letters. Hell, Kick, what is it with you? You meet plenty of nice
guys. Why can’t you fall in love with somebody who fits the bill?”

She said, “Well, that’s pretty rich considering the mess Daddy had to get you out of down in Florida, Mr. Whiter-Than-Snow Congressman.”

His face turned to thunder.

He said, “Don’t you ever speak of that. You hear me? You don’t have any goddamned business knowing about it. Who told you about that anyhow?”

“Joe did,” she shouted. “He told me everything. And he wouldn’t be such a hypocrite if he was here. And don’t use bad words in front of Nora.”

But he’d already slammed out. It was a rare thing for those two to quarrel.

She sat biting her nails to the quick.

I said, “Do I have to bring out the mustard again?”

“I miss Joe,” she said. “He’d have known what to do.”

I said, “And how do you think he’d have advised you?”

“Don’t know,” she said. “But he couldn’t have said much, could he? That girl he was seeing was married.”

I said, “That was wartime. A lot of things went on then. But you know fine your Mammy and Daddy would never have given him their blessing, and he wouldn’t have expected it. And it’s not only that His Lordship has a wife and a child. He’s in the wrong church, he’s too old for you, and if you ask me, it’s your money he’s after.”

“That’s not true,” she said. “Blood’s got money of his own.”

His wife’s money, according to Lady Ginny. And he ran through it like a hot knife through butter, paying for his cars and his racehorses.

I said, “I don’t like to see you fighting with Jack. You see little enough of each other.”

“Well,” she said. “Isn’t he the sanctimonious one all of a sudden. He must be pretty cocksure that embarrassing little secret of his is buried where no one can find it.”

I said, “And what is the secret? Did he get a girl in trouble?”

“A girl!” she said. “Hardly a girl! Picked-over goods, I’d say. Oh Nora, you remember! When we were living at Prince’s Gate and Jack didn’t come over for Christmas? And Daddy went home too because he had to see his stomach doctor, so Grandpa and Grandma Fitzgerald came to stay. You remember how Grandpa Fitz had to keep going to the telephone.”

I said, “I remember all the telephoning. I thought Jack had had a mishap in his motor.”

“Ha!” she said. “Mishap in a city hall, more like. He went to New Jersey and married this really gruesome woman, divorced twice at least and much older than him. She was obviously a gold-digger. Daddy was furious. It wasn’t easy to fix something like that I don’t imagine.”

I said, “Jack wasn’t married. I don’t believe that.”

“Yes he was,” she said. “Wild, isn’t it? What a fool. I guess he did it for a dare.”

I said, “Well, then he had to get divorced. How did he manage that?”

“Well,” she said, “not divorced exactly. They were only married for about five minutes, so I guess it was a kind of annulment. Anyway, Grandpa made some calls and Mr. Timilty went down there and took care of everything.”

I said, “And did your Mammy know about it?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I mean we just absolutely never talk about it. But I don’t see why I should have Jack lecturing me about Blood, considering his history. Gee, he’s getting as pi as little St. Bobby.”

I didn’t know what to make of it. If it was right, what she
said, it could only have happened in drink, like boys sometimes get a tattoo or go to a whorehouse. Kick and Jack patched things up before he flew home, but only because he had to be rushed to the hospital, which gave us all a fright. He collapsed with terrible pains in his belly, and when they got him to the clinic they said he was jaundiced, so it was very likely the malaria had come back. Then Herself started bombarding the doctors with letters, explaining how he’d had a very hectic year and all he needed was rest. But it was plain to see, looking at the snapshots he’d had taken in Ireland, how the weight had dropped off him. He stayed cheerful though.

“Tell you what, Nora,” he said. “I reckon this jaundice suits me. It gives me a kind of tanned, movie-star look. I should have signed my autograph for that girl in Ballynagore.”

He didn’t look like any movie star to me. He looked like a scarecrow with an orange face. And then we got the verdict from the doctors. It wasn’t malaria at all but a disease of the glands and very serious indeed. But they had a brand-new medicine for it, injections that had only just been invented. They said he was practically the first person they’d be trying it out on and it might mean the difference between life and death. I think Our Lady must have been watching over him. And over those inventors.

So they started him on the injections and the pains calmed down and he didn’t feel so weak. The only drawback was his face ballooned out. People started saying how well he looked, but he’s been a bag of bones all the years I’ve known him. I couldn’t get used to him looking like the Man in the Moon.

They taught him how to give himself the injections before he sailed home. Walter nearly fainted when he saw him jab that needle in.

“Nay, sir,” he said, “can’t they give you a pill?”

“Not yet,” he said. “They will, in time. Candy-coated and
everything. But they’ll be for whiners. Kennedys take their shots like men.”

He’d been a very sick lad, that I do know, but Herself declined to believe it was anything that a plain diet and a dose of Poland Spring water wouldn’t cure. She’s a card, that one. Shut herself away in a clinic when Kick married Lord Billy, and yet I’ve seen her soldier on with sprains and cuts and women’s pains and all sorts. Keeping the Kennedy bandwagon rolling, that’s always her first idea.

As soon as Jack arrived home she had him whisked up to Boston to see a top gland doctor, and she had a shock. The Boston doctor agreed with what the London doctors had said. He’d to continue with the injections, and get his blood tested regular.

Kick heard from him.

Personally I think you should come home,
he wrote.

She said, “I had a nightmare, Nora. I think we were at Hyannis. It was a house by the ocean, and we were all dressed up in sailor suits, lined up in a row to have our photo taken, but every time the photographer was ready somebody was missing. Jack was gone, then Pat, then Rosie and Jean. The funny thing was though, Joe was still there. I saw him clear as anything.”