The Importance of Being Kennedy (9 page)

President Roosevelt did give Mr. K a job in the end.

The way it happened was, they finally got the invitation to the White House she’d been angling for, but it came out of the blue, with only a day’s notice.

I said, “What if you’d been away traveling? I thought these affairs were planned weeks ahead?”

“Some of them are, Nora,” she said, “but this is a mark of our closeness to the President. It’s an invitation between friends.”

Still, she had us in an almighty flap while she decided what outfits had to be packed. She wanted to be sure of out-swanking Mrs. Roosevelt, which can’t have been any great achievement. Best clothes, for being seen in public, were the one thing Mrs. K wasn’t cheap about. Her Paris gowns were stored in special tissue paper and cedar boxes to keep everything perfect, shoes on trees, lingerie in muslin bags.

It was a different story when she was at home with nobody but the help and the children likely to see her. Then she went
around dressed in any old thing, the old pajamas she kept for afternoon naps, or a chain-store day dress, with memos pinned all over it, things she’d jotted down on the back of old envelopes.
Jack, Vitamin C. Lightbulb too bright, rear stair hall. Maupassant for Kick. Chicken cutlet missing from fridge.

It was Gabe Nolan who’d taken that piece of chicken. Gertie Ambler warned him it’d be missed. Herself has no interest in food at all, but she counts every item in and every item out and if there’s a spoonful of peas left at dinner she expects to see it used the next day. So when a whole cutlet disappeared that time at Hyannis, we all got the third degree. You’d have thought it was a diamond clip that was missing. If Rose Kennedy’s the marker of what it is to have money, I hope to stay poor. We were always taught, better an open hand than a tight fist. Mammy used to say, “When your hand is open you can give and you can receive.”

Mammy would have given you the coat off her back, and had more joy of it than Mrs. K with all her chicken cutlets accounted for.

Anyway, Saturday morning off she went down to Washington to join Mr. K and the Roosevelts at the trotting races. She’d three Paris dinner gowns in the trunk but they never saw the light of day. The President had to go to a special dinner that night, at the Gridiron Club, and he took Mr. Kennedy with him, which left Herself to have dinner with Mrs. Roosevelt and a few other wives. According to Danny Walsh, it was practically a tray supper and they were told not to dress. Mrs. R wore a tweed skirt and a cardigan set. He said all he heard on the way back to New York was how different things would be if ever she were mistress of the White House.

Fidelma said, “Let’s guess. It’ll be diamond tiaras every night, but Gertie Ambler’ll still have to count out the peas.”

The men had been out till very late at the dinner, but the President sent for Mr. K early Sunday morning, which was when
he gave him the job. It was something to do with the stock market and, according to Gabe Nolan, not at all what he’d hoped for, but he took it anyway. And Herself was soon talking it up.

“It’s a very prudent appointment,” she said. “Of course, we should really have gotten the Treasury, but there are jealous people who have the President’s ear. Never mind. It’s a great honor. And this is just the start.”

Not for her it wasn’t. All it meant was more time on her own-some. Mr. K didn’t appear to want her in Washington. He said it was no place for a family, a rented house without any cozy touches. The telephone ringing at all hours and men sitting around, stinking the place out with cigars. Her place was with the children, he said, providing them with a regular home life. But Gabe Nolan reckoned it wasn’t so much the late-night smokers that wouldn’t suit Herself, it was the pretty girls Mr. K had in, to help him relax. And as for giving the children regularity, that was what me and Fidelma were paid to do. There were times I’m sure Jean and Teddy thought I was their mammy, or Rosie, when she was let home from Sacred Heart.

The Sisters gave her a very fine report for her first term, A for effort, but they said she seemed in low spirits. They said she appeared to think she’d been sent to school as a punishment, and it was a shock to see her when she came for midterm break. She’d piled on the pounds, buying cake with her allowance and eating it in secret. Mrs. K flipped her lid when she saw her.

She said, “I’m putting you on a regime, Rose Marie. No bread, no potatoes, and no cookies and no cake. It’s for your own good. When I get back I’ll expect you to have lost five pounds at the very least.”

She was just on her way out the door to Paris. It was a wedding anniversary trip, to celebrate twenty years of marriage, but she was going alone. Mr. K was busy with business.

I said, “Couldn’t you go some other time? Isn’t it a pity Mr. Kennedy can’t get away?”

“No,” she said, “it couldn’t matter less. I’ll be busy shopping and he’d be bored. He doesn’t like Paris so very much and I’m not a sentimental person, you know? That’s my secret for a happy marriage. I don’t get upset about sentimental things.”

So she went off on her anniversary trip for one and we could please ourselves for a few weeks. I even took Rosie up to Boston one Sunday to visit with my sister Margaret and see her boys. Ursie came over too, brought a great big box of blueberry muffins.

“Now, Ray,” she said, “show Aunt Nora how you have your multiplication tables by heart.”

He did too. He had them right up to twelve times twelve. I was worried for Rosie, that he’d ask her how far she could multiply, but then I realized: To him she was a grown-up. Margaret couldn’t take her eyes off her.

“Not quite the ticket is she?” she said. “She’s a beautiful-looking girl, and nice with it. There’s no side to her. But she’s not quite all there.”

I said, “She’s all right. She’s as ‘all there’ as our Deirdre and look how well she’s done. Got her own school and everything.”

Ursie said, “Yes, but Nora, that’s Africa. They’re glad of what they can get there. It must be different for a Kennedy girl. They’ll have hoped for her to marry well. I wonder what they’ll do with her?”

I could see her out in the yard playing quoits with Val and Ray.

I said, “She will marry well. Her Mammy’ll see to that.”

We had a grand day. All the way home she kept saying, “I liked those boys. They didn’t play rough. I liked those muffins.

Are they fantening, Nora? I wish we could get those sometime, if they’re not fantening.”

God knows we did everything we could to get her weight down before Herself saw her again. We had her pushing Teddy in his little pedal car, which was enough to crease anybody. Kick gave up cake, to keep her company. And when Euny and Pat played tennis they had her for a ball-girl, running up and down like a dog after a stick. We could all notice the difference in her, but when Mrs. K came home she wasn’t satisfied.

She said, “Mary Moore gave me an article about glands. I wonder if Rosie might benefit from some pills to pep up her system.”

So she was taken to see a gland doctor, but he couldn’t find anything wrong with her that pills would fix. Rosie was just Rosie. Mrs. K said she was very disappointed that the Sisters at Sacred Heart hadn’t regulated her diet more closely and it was decided to try the private tutoring again, but not at home. Mrs. Moore recommended a nice family back in Brookline, where she could have her own room and have her lessons from one of the grown-up daughters. It would be a sort of ready-made friend for her, as well as a teacher. She was to go the same weekend Kick and Euny went back to Noroton, and Mr. K drove up from Washington to see her off.

She said, “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m sorry I ate too much cake.”

“Now, Rosie,” he said, “you know you’re aces with me. You try your best. That’s all that counts.”

He held her in his arms and she was only half a head shorter than him.

He said, “What did I just tell you? What are you with me?”

“Aces,” she said.

“That’s right,” he said. “And what’s your name?”

“Rose Marie Kennedy.”

“And if your name’s Kennedy what are you?”

“I know what it is,” she said, “but I forgot it.”

He said, “You’re a winner, that’s what. Kennedys are winners! So you go do your very best with Miss O’Keefe. Rise early, huh? Say your prayers, study hard as you know how, take regular exercise. I’m going to have a set of Indian clubs sent up there for you. Best exercise a person can take. You do your damndest at all those things and you’ll get no criticism from me. You got that, Rosie? You’re one of Joe Kennedy’s winners.”

“Yes,” she said, “I got that.”

“I’m getting my own set of clubs, Nora,” she said. “And I’m not going to dipsapoint Daddy. I’m one of Joe Kennedy’s winners.”

When Joseph Patrick went off to college, Jack was out from under his shadow at last, but it didn’t improve him. He acted sillier than ever, neglecting his studies and getting into scrapes with Lem Billings. The pair of them nearly got sacked and Kick made matters worse, sending Jack a cablegram congratulating him on livening things up at Choate. Mr. K had to go up to the school and smooth things over. Herself laid all the blame on Lem, so he didn’t get his usual invitation for the Easter vacation. Jack was sent on a retreat instead, him and Kick to Our Lady of Deliverance for all of Holy Week, and then he was made to do extra Latin, to catch up where he’d fallen behind.

From time to time Mrs. K hinted that the President had some higher position in mind for Mr. Kennedy and that the call might come at any time to up sticks and follow him. Gabe Nolan said it would likely be to Germany. He reckoned if anybody could get on the right side of Adolf Hitler and keep us out of another war it was Joe Kennedy. I prayed that wouldn’t happen. I didn’t
fancy having to shop for socks and Gregory powders in a foreign tongue. Then we heard a rumor that he was going to be offered ambassador to Ireland. Fidelma was over the moon. She had her Daddy still living, and a thousand cousins, in Tralee, so she thought it’d be a chance to visit with them at Mr. Roosevelt’s expense. She practically had her bag packed. But the weeks went by and we heard nothing.

She kept saying, “You ask. I’m always the one who asks. Ask Mrs. Moore.”

But it wasn’t me that was eager to get back to the old country. Fidelma had this notion about visiting graves and taking chrysanthemums in case your loved ones were feeling neglected, but in those days I wasn’t one for graveyards. The day we buried my sister Nellie, it was blowing heavens hard. All I could think was how cold and lonely she was going to be. I decided there and then I’d just carry her memory back home in my heart, and that’s how I’ve tried to think of the dead ever since. I did get back to Ballynagore eventually, to take a last look round, but that was nothing to do with Mr. Roosevelt.

Anyway, when Mrs. K got back from her travels Fidelma asked her right out if it was true we were going to Ireland.

“No,” she said, “we are not.” And her face snapped shut.

But Fidelma Clery had the pluck of the foolish, so she didn’t let it rest. She brought it up with Mr. K as well, the next time we saw him.

She said, “We heard a whisper you might be asked to go to Ireland, sir.”

“Indeed I was asked,” he said, “but I turned it down. My people left Ireland to make a better life for themselves, so why would I take my children back there now?”

“Well,” she said, “so they’d know where they came from?”

“Load of applesauce,” he said. “My boys know their history,
and they know it’s not where they come from that matters, it’s where they’re going.”

As soon as he said that I knew why Herself was so upset.

He’d had the chance to be an ambassador and he’d turned it down because he didn’t think Ireland was good enough for him, and Mrs. K was madder than a hornet in a jam jar.

Fidelma was disappointed too. She’d been buying bits and pieces to take for her folks, convinced that’s where we’d be going. It was no loss to me though. The only kin I had left in Ballynagore was Edmond, and I hardly ever thought of him. Being the only boy, he’d always been given the top of the milk. It was always Edmond got the buttered heel of a fresh-baked loaf, but it didn’t appear to have put much spine in him. It must have been the Clavin woman who proposed marriage, because he’d never have thought of it for himself. If it wasn’t for Ursie, I wouldn’t know if he was dead or alive.

Ursie’s the great correspondent in the family, tapping bits of news out on her typewriter and sending me the snippets of the news she got back.

“Deirdre’s mission had a lovely visit from a Vatican monsignor,” she’d tell me. “But monkeys had got in and ruined a pile of missals and her bunions were bad.”

Or Edmond had been to Tullamore for dentures, cost a fortune but he couldn’t get along with them so they sat on the mantel shelf reproaching him. Two boys drowned in Lough Ennell. The Clavin widow wanted to move back to Horseleap.

That got Ursie all steamed up.

She said, “He can’t just go off.”

I said, “Of course he can. They could put all their stuff on a handcart and be there in two hours.”

“But what about our house?” she wanted to know. “What if he leaves it to rot? That’s our inheritance too. We’re entitled to a say.”

That’s what comes of working around lawyers. As far as I was concerned they could dynamite the place. Tiny windows and low ceilings, and that everlasting damp striking up through the floor. If Edmond was threatening to shift to somewhere more comfortable, all I could say was “about time too.”

But as I recalled, there was an ocean of difference between what Edmond talked of doing and what he actually did. Anyway, we weren’t going to Ireland and that was that.

Joseph Patrick was in London, taking a year away from his classes at Harvard College. Mr. K had sent him there to study under a famous professor, and when school was out he and Jack sailed for England, to meet up with young Joe and go traveling, Germany, France, Russia, father and sons together. Which left us in peace at Hyannis, because Herself was gone too, touring in Switzerland and then taking Kick to her new school, near Paris. She wanted Kick to have the same education she’d had, guided by the Sacred Heart Sisters but made to speak foreign languages too and mix with girls from good families. Kick wasn’t keen. She had her friends at Noroton, and France was too far away for her to come home for vacations.

Mrs. K said it wasn’t called “vacation” in France. It was called “congé.” And she said it didn’t matter that Kick couldn’t come home, because she’d go to her and take her on trips, to stay in fancy hotels and visit all the famous churches and ruins. She was trying to turn her into a refined young lady, but that would have been a lifetime’s work. Kick never had the naturalness trained out of her, I’m glad to say. She’d say the first thing that came into her head. She’d kick off her shoes and sit on the floor sooner than a chair, anytime. So for all Mrs. Kennedy’s efforts I couldn’t see anything different about her when she came back from France, except that she’d had a permanent wave.

“Had my culture shot, Nora,” she said. “Now it’s Euny’s turn. I’m just going to sit on the swing seat and read
Moviegoer
.”

Jack was meant to be following Joseph Patrick to Harvard but Lem Billings was down for Princeton and Jack didn’t want to be parted from him. Mr. K agreed to his going to Princeton too, but he warned him, if he wasted his time he’d be out of there quick sticks. And when it came to it, he’d no sooner arrived but he fell sick again. Mr. and Mrs. K were both traveling, so Eddie Moore went with him to the Brigham hospital in Boston. They said there was something wrong with his blood and the situation gave cause for concern, so Mrs. Moore expected Herself to sail home immediately. But Mrs. K never appeared. She cabled to say she’d only just arrived in Vienna and she was sure Jack would be over the worst by the time she could get back.

I don’t believe it bothered Jack. They were all accustomed to her absences. But the doctors had him in isolation, so he missed having visitors.
Some kind of Darling Nora you are,
he wrote.

He was suffering from something called neutropenia. They said it had more than likely been brought on by the medicine he’d taken for his stomach aches. He was in the hospital for weeks but
he climbed back, bit by bit, and then he was home, sunning himself on the porch and eating ice cream by the gallon when Mrs. K finally showed her face.

“Just as I thought,” she said. “He’s better already. I expect he’d been eating too much rich food. Or it could have been bad water. I’d have cut short Vienna and come hurrying back for nothing.”

I said, “It didn’t seem like nothing. The first two weeks we thought we might lose him.”

“What nonsense,” she said. “Jack’s suffered from these little setbacks all his life but he always overcomes them. You of all people should know that.”

Well, so I did, but even though his blood got back to normal he was still full of aches and pains. His back hurt, his knees hurt, and he stayed thin as a lath no matter how much ice cream he ate.

I said, “If you were mine I’d send you to the knackers.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I reckon they just better shoot me.”

Euny was no great specimen either, though she at least didn’t have the knee trouble. If she couldn’t have played tennis she’d have made life miserable for all of us. With her it was stomach trouble and nerves. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t sit still, couldn’t put on any flesh. Mrs. K thought she had the makings of a perfect figure, but we called her “the greyhound.” She was a fast study though. She did so well in school Mr. K said it was a pity she was a girl because she looked like she’d make a smarter president than Jack or Bobby.

Euny couldn’t compete with Joseph Patrick though. He was still the star attraction, back from London, looking so debonair in a drape-cut suit and his tie in a Windsor knot. Mr. K treated him man-to-man from then on. He even put up with his smoking, though he’d implored all the children not to take up such a silly, wasteful habit. And for his part Joe put up with his Daddy
slavering over the girls he brought home. There was a beautiful redhead, all legs. Danny Walsh nearly broke a blood vessel watching her climb on a bicycle. Then there was a blonde called Mitzi, when the redhead fell out of favor. Herself said Mitzi wasn’t a proper name. As a matter of fact, she found something wrong with every last one of them. If she has her way, those boys will all stay bachelors.

When Mrs. K was a girl and she’d had her year overseas at the Sacred Heart, she’d come home a gold medal Child of Mary, but none of that had rubbed off on Kick. All we heard from her when she came back was a list of the beaux she’d met, brothers of her new friends mainly, all very proper, but still, she was boy-crazy. And Rosie was just as bad. That was the first summer we had any trouble with her and it was all because Joe and Jack both brought girls home and Kick was getting letters every day, but Rosie didn’t have a beau.

She’d been getting along just dandy living with the O’Keefes. She’d joined the Girl Scouts and learned how to pitch a tent and fry sausages over a campfire. And she concentrated better, so if you sent her to fetch something she didn’t always forget what she’d gone for. But she was betwixt and between. Not a child anymore but not really a woman either. She loved to watch the Laugh-O-Grams with Teddy and play dollies’ tea parties with Jean, but she was eighteen years old and when there was a dance on in Osterville she expected to be treated like a grown-up.

Joe and Jack and Lem Billings were under instructions to dance with her and keep an eye on her at all times, but of course she didn’t want to be supervised. She wanted to dance with any boy who asked her and go outside for a soda if she was invited. We had a scene or two over that.

She’d say, “I want to dance with real boys. Why can’t I? Kick does.”

And Lem used to say, “Real boys? Gee Rosie, thanks for the compliment.”

Sometimes she’d laugh and tell him his feet were too big. Sometimes she’d boil over. She’d start screaming and stamping, and when that happened Fidelma was the only one who could do anything with her. Mrs. K would just turn on her heel and go for a walk along the strand, and Fidelma would take Rosie to her bedroom and stay with her, sing to her, till she calmed down and fell asleep. And when she woke up the storm would have passed. She’d be her usual smiling self, as if nothing had happened, and Mrs. K would never mention it.

In the summer of 1936 we suddenly had three extra heads to count. Mrs. Kennedy’s sister Agnes had a seizure of the brain and died, so her children were brought to Hyannis, three young Gargan cousins, with their world turned upside down.

Mrs. K said, “Fit them in where you think best, Nora dear. And we’ll look through the boxes in the attic. There may be some of Jean’s old things that would do for the girls.”

“Extra work for no more money,” Fidelma said, but we hardly noticed we had them. When you’ve had nine, what are three more? And they were lambs compared to the shenanigans the Kennedys got up to, climbing out onto the rooftops, purloining things from the candy store, chasing across neighbors’ gardens like a bunch of hoydens. Joey Gargan was barely two years older than Teddy, so they paired off and Teddy padded around behind him like a day-old chick.

“What shall we do next, Joey?” he’d say. And whatever Joey suggested, he went along with. To watch them you’d never have thought Joey was the orphan.

The two wee girls didn’t settle so easily though. They wandered around trying to fathom out where they were and why. They knew Mrs. K was their aunt Rose, but of course she didn’t
look like a child’s idea of an aunt. She had no lap to sit on, for one thing. Still, she gave all our children a lecture about treating the Gargan cousins nicely and remembering their recent misfortune. But one morning I heard Jean say, “I’ll play with you, Anne, but only for a little while. I can’t be friends with just anyone, you know. I’m a Kennedy.”

When Mr. Roosevelt ran for another term we wondered whether Mr. K would be so generous again with his time and money. He didn’t seem any nearer to getting offered a plum job, and, according to Eddie Moore, the President didn’t particularly like Mr. K any more than Mr. K liked the President. But they found each other useful. Like when the Holy Father sent Cardinal Pacelli on a visit to America. The President had him up to Hyde Park, but Mrs. Roosevelt was out of town and nobody could think what to do with him after the luncheon. Mrs. K was roped in, which thrilled her to bits. She said, “Why, he’ll come to Crownlands for tea, of course.”