‘I hope you like gin,’ she said. ‘We’ve drunk everything else.’
Southampton
The Kennedys were sitting in the smoking room of the Royal Hotel in Southampton. Their mother sat very upright in an armchair, while the children – Jack and Rosemary, who were in their twenties, teenage Patricia and six-year-old Teddy – clustered around her on sofas. At that hour of the morning the smoking room was the quietest area in the hotel, away from the eyes and ears of the journalists who had been pursuing Jack for two days.
Now twenty-two, and still full of the importance of his mission, Jack had never seemed more grown-up and glamorous to Rosemary. She hung on her brother’s words breathlessly.
‘They gave me a rough ride,’ Jack said, leaning back and crossing his long legs, just the way Daddy did. The newspapers piled on the coffee table between them were full of Jack’s trip to Glasgow to speak to the American survivors of the Athenia on behalf of his father, the United States ambassador. For once it wasn’t just his luminous good looks and charm that fascinated the journalists. That eighteen Americans had gone down with the Athenia had raised speculation the atrocity would draw America into the war. ‘They’re screaming for a convoy to escort them back to the States. I tried to reassure them. They’ve had a hell of a time. Most are still in the clothes they were wearing when they were torpedoed.’
‘Did they see the submarine?’ Rosemary asked.
‘Oh yes,’ Jack said. ‘A lot of them saw the periscope and the wake of the torpedoes. And when it was dark, the sub surfaced and shelled them. That finished her off.’
‘Jeez,’ she said, wide-eyed.
‘Rosemary,’ her mother said severely, ‘I wish you would watch what comes out of your mouth. Jeez stands for our Saviour’s name. It’s blasphemy.’
‘Jack said “hell”!’
‘Don’t you answer me back.’
Rosemary huddled close against Jack. Mother was so irritable these days, and that made Rosemary more anxious than ever. She was constantly afraid of doing the wrong thing. Yet it always seemed like the wrong thing was just what she most wanted to do. Like laughing when she was supposed to be serious. And putting her mouth close to Jack’s ear and whispering, ‘Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick.’
Jack snorted. Their mother looked at them sharply, but luckily she hadn’t caught what Rosemary had whispered. Rosemary was going to be twenty-one soon. Her body had turned into something she herself almost didn’t recognise in the mirror. Men said she was gorgeous and a doll, and sometimes that was exactly what she felt like, a big doll that smiled and fluttered its eyelashes, while the real Rosemary was a scrap of something that had come loose inside it and rattled around, never knowing which way up she was.
‘There was a little girl who died,’ Jack went on. ‘They showed me her body in the mortuary.’
Rosemary shuddered. ‘Was there blood?’
‘I only saw her face. Her eyes were open. She looked like an angel.’
Mrs Kennedy crossed herself. ‘Poor child.’
Rosemary thought of that still body lying there, staring. ‘But she couldn’t see or hear anything?’
‘Of course not, Rosie. She was dead.’
Rosemary nodded. She wished she could get the picture out of her head.
‘And there was a teacher who was in the water for hours, looking after a bunch of woman students. I don’t know how she survived. Some of the students are still missing. She’s the one demanding a convoy.’
‘Was she demanding a screw?’ Rosemary whispered, her breath hot and moist in his ear. She didn’t know why her doll body said these things, while the little rattling Rosemary inside quailed. He crooked his elbow around her neck and pretended to strangle her. She pinched him so hard in the ribs that despite his superior strength, he squirmed.
‘No horseplay, please,’ Mrs Kennedy rapped out. ‘We’re in public.’
They let go of each other. ‘What am I going to do without you, Rose Marie?’ Jack asked.
‘You’ll get along just fine, John Fitzgerald.’ But the thought of parting from Jack was like a punch in the stomach. She slumped back into the sofa, her head hanging, her arms folded across her bosom. Seeing that Rosemary’s lashes were sparkling with tears, Jack’s voice softened. ‘Aw, come on,’ he said, ‘we’ll see each other in the States in a couple of months.’
‘I don’t want you to go into the Navy,’ Rosemary said. Her lower lip quivered. ‘I don’t want you to be in the war.’
‘America is not going to be in the war, Rosemary,’ Mrs Kennedy said impatiently. ‘We’ve been through all that.’
‘Rosemary’s crying,’ little Teddy said, turning his Kodak Brownie her way. He snapped the shutter. He had been given the box camera on his birthday, so that he could photograph their exciting new surroundings in London, and he was inseparable from it.
‘Get that thing away from me,’ Rosemary said in a choked voice.
Teddy clambered over the sofa to poke the camera at Rosemary. She had been hidden away in special schools for most of his life, and she was more of a curiosity to him than a sister. ‘Watch the birdie, empty-head.’ He snapped the shutter again. Rosemary hit out at him clumsily, knocking the Brownie from his hands. He squealed and grabbed a fistful of Rosemary’s hair. The siblings intervened swiftly: Pat lifting Teddy on to her lap and Jack stopping Rosemary from retaliating. Teddy was red-faced with fury. The Kodak had burst open. ‘She’s broken it,’ he yelled. ‘She’s retarded.’ He’d heard the word whispered around Rosemary and though he didn’t know what it meant, he knew it hurt her worse than pulling her hair.
Pat rescued the camera and closed it. ‘It’s not broken,’ she said.
‘Everywhere you go there’s trouble, Rosemary.’ Mrs Kennedy was tight-lipped. ‘Can you never learn to behave?’
‘I don’t want him sticking that thing in my face,’ Rosemary said, feeling her throat all swollen and hot.
‘There was no film in it,’ Pat said.
‘I don’t care.’ She was fighting down the tears. For her to be with her family – and out of school – was such a rare treat, but something always happened to spoil everything. If only Dad were here. She longed for his strong arm around her waist. ‘Why does he have to call me names?’
Pat whispered in her little brother’s ear. Teddy’s face was sullen. ‘She is retarded,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m not sorry.’
Rosemary flipped him the middle finger. Mrs Kennedy rose to her feet with an exasperated sigh. ‘Jack, I need to talk to you.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
They walked to the corner of the smoking room, where a thin glow of autumnal sunshine was filtering through the heavy drapes. Jack saw that his mother’s face was strained. The sudden escalation of European politics into world war and the prospect of another long separation from her husband were taking their toll on even her resilient nature. She put her hand on his arm. ‘I’m so proud of you, Jack. You did well in Scotland.’
‘I’ll always do my best.’
‘And you know that we have the highest hopes for you.’ Her clear, cool eyes searched his. ‘I don’t want you to be held up by anything.’
He smiled. ‘Don’t worry about me, Mother.’
‘It’s not you I worry about.’ She glanced across the room to where Pat was trying to comfort Rosemary. ‘There’s a man who’s been pestering Rosemary.’
Jack frowned. ‘Has she complained about him?’
‘No. That’s the problem. She encourages him.’
‘Who is he?’
‘He’s a loose young fellow from California. A musician.’
‘Well, that’s three strikes against him,’ Jack said.
‘It’s no laughing matter,’ his mother said, unsmiling.
Jack shrugged. ‘You’ll all be on the Manhattan in a day or two and then your worries will be over.’
‘He’s got a passage on the same boat. He’s even staying in this hotel. He’s very persistent. And Rosemary’s utterly rebelli
ous. As soon as I showed my disapproval, she was all over him. She does it deliberately to break my heart.’
‘I think she just wants to have fun.’
‘You know that Rosemary cannot have fun the way other girls have fun.’
‘Come on, Mother.’
‘Jack, you’re old enough by now to know that she’s never going to be normal.’
‘She just needs to grow up.’
‘She’s never going to grow up. It’s up to us to protect her. We can’t trust any man with her, let alone a man like that.’
‘Does this character have a name?’
‘He’s called Cubby Hubbard.’
Jack smiled. ‘“Cubby”?’
‘I’ve spoken to him. It didn’t do any good. I want you to explain things to him properly. Tell him to stay away from Rosemary. I don’t want to have to resort to the courts and the police and so forth. But I will if I have to. You understand?’
‘All right. If you really want, I’ll speak to him.’
‘He’s in the hotel now. If you ask at the desk, they’ll find him. And Jack—’
He was turning to go. ‘Yes?’
‘Don’t let him get around you.’
Jack nodded. ‘Okay.’
He walked to the white marble reception desk and asked for Mr Hubbard. The clerk called his room and then passed the telephone to Jack.
‘Hello, Mr Hubbard,’ he said. ‘My name is John Kennedy. I’m Rosemary Kennedy’s brother. I wonder if we could have a talk.’
The voice that answered him was young and cheerful. ‘Sure. Where and when?’
Jack checked his watch. ‘I have to get back to London this afternoon, so the sooner the better.’
‘No time like the present, then. I’ll meet you in the bar.’
Jack waited for Hubbard at the bar, toying with a cigar. He’d started the habit at school and by now it was ingrained. But he resisted the urge to light up. He would smoke it on the way back to London, once this conversation was over. He ran it under his nose, inhaling the rich aroma.
He was thinking of what his mother had said about Rosemary – that she would never be independent, never have a life of her own. He hadn’t heard it expressed with such finality before, but he knew it had to be faced. Rosemary was almost twenty-one. A lot of girls were married by that age, with children of their own. Rosemary was still a child herself.
She had been coaxed by nuns and coached by psychologists, but she couldn’t add up a column of figures. She understood nothing of geography or history. The simplest academic tasks were beyond her. When doctors said she was retarded, they meant it not as an insult, but as a clinical diagnosis.
All that might be passed over – after all, none of the girls were expected to be great scholars – if she were adult in other ways. But she wasn’t. There was the beauty and the warmth, to be sure, but those just made her all the more terribly vulnerable. They came with the temper tantrums and the sudden outbursts of passionate love. There was the headlong way she rushed into things, the havoc she could cause without meaning to. There was the blind way she trusted people, everybody, anybody. You could get her to do anything. Mother was right. She would need to be sheltered all her life.
‘Mr Kennedy?’
Jack looked up. The arrival was a young fellow in a checked jacket, open-necked shirt and brown Bostonians, his hair slicked back in a fashionable quiff. He was stocky – Jack was six foot and lean with it – with a pleasant face. He appeared to be a little older than Jack. Not much was remarkable about him except his eyes, which were dark brown and very direct in their gaze. Jack got off his stool to shake hands. ‘Mind if I ask how you came by the name Cubby?’
‘My mom,’ Hubbard replied. ‘It stuck.’
Jack smiled. ‘Figured something like that. It’s noon. Have a beer?’
‘Sure.’
The barman drew them each a pint of the dull, flat English beer which Jack had never come to like. Jack raised his mug. ‘Mud in your eye.’
‘Cheers.’
They drank, eyeing each other. ‘How do you know my sister?’ Jack asked.
‘We met at a party in the summer.’
‘So you’ve known Rosemary for no more than a few months.’
‘I’ve known her long enough to be crazy about her,’ Hubbard replied.
‘How old are you?’
‘I’m twenty-four.’
‘What are you doing in Europe?’
‘I saved up to go to Paris. Always wanted to hear Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli.’
‘I have no idea who they are.’
‘It doesn’t matter. The war came along anyway and – well – Rosemary’s on the Manhattan and where she goes, I go.’
They drank. Jack put his mug down. ‘Look, I’ll come to the point. We’d prefer it if you would stay away from Rosemary.’
Hubbard did not look surprised. It was almost as though he’d been expecting something like this. He replied calmly. ‘If Rosemary asks me to stay away from her, of course I will.’
Jack frowned. ‘Rosemary can’t judge what’s good for her.’
‘Rosemary is the best judge of what’s good for her.’
‘If she was normal, that would be true.’
‘She is normal.’
Jack decided to apply his charm. He gave the other man his boyish smile, leaning forward. ‘You see Rosemary from the outside, as a pretty girl, and you can be forgiven for that. But we see her as she really is. She has the mental age of a six-year-old.’
Hubbard did not respond to Jack’s smile. ‘You ought to be ashamed to talk about your own sister that way.’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘I plan to marry her.’
This was a lot more serious than Jack had anticipated. He tried to imagine what his father would say right now. ‘What do you do for a living, Cubby?’
‘I’m a bandleader.’
‘What’s your band called?’
‘“Cubby Hubbard and The Stompers”. I play guitar.’
‘A big band?’
‘There are seven of us.’
‘Jazz?’
‘Boogie-woogie.’
‘You mean that Negro stuff?’
‘It’s getting awfully popular. We’ve been playing to packed houses at the Moonlight Lounge in Pasadena. We plan to have a recording contract by the end of the year. Decca are already interested. They say our stuff’s perfect for the jukeboxes.’
‘It sounds kind of a rackety life.’
‘It’s a good living. And it’s what I love.’
‘Would you feel safe leaving Rosemary alone with a baby while you were stomping at the Moonlight Lounge?’
‘My mom and my sisters will be there for her. They can’t wait to meet her. Rosemary is a wonderful girl, and with them around her, she’ll do just fine.’
‘Have you seen how crazy she can get?’
‘Rosemary’s spent her life under the skirts of a gang of old nuns. That’s why she gets mad. She’s frustrated. Here she is, nearly twenty-one and still at school. What kind of life is that?’
‘She’s still at school because she can hardly read or write.’
‘I have a bunch of letters from her. Not exactly Shakespeare, but she gets her point across. She’s the sweetest girl in the world.’
‘Rosemary isn’t always sweet. She’s as strong as a lioness and she behaves like one sometimes.’
‘If she doesn’t marry me, what are you going to do with her? Keep her locked up the rest of her life?’
The question was a shrewd one. Jack hesitated. ‘She needs more time.’
‘They say you’ll be president one day. On your way to the White House, Jack, wouldn’t you prefer to know that your sister is happily settled with a guy who loves her and looks after her – not climbing out of the window at night?’
Jack blinked. ‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘It means that you and your family won’t have to worry about her. She’ll be in Pas
adena with me and you’ll be in Washington, running for president. We won’t bother you none.’
‘My mother wants me to tell you that she’ll go to the police if she has to.’
Hubbard raised his eyebrows. ‘The police?’
‘You could be charged with criminal seduction.’
‘You’re kidding me. I’ve heard the stories about you, Jack, tomcatting around London. You’re a fine one to talk about seduction.’
Jack grinned and finished his beer. ‘Like I said, we’ll do what we have to.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I hope you’ll think about this carefully. And I hope you’ll consider my sister’s happiness.’
‘It’s the most important thing in the world to me,’ Hubbard replied as they shook hands. ‘And I’m not going anywhere.’
‘The strange thing,’ he said to his mother, ‘is that I ended up quite liking the guy.’
‘Oh, Jack. I warned you he was plausible.’
‘He’s certainly crazy about Rosemary. But he’s blind to all her problems.’
‘That one has his eyes wide open, believe me.’
Jack glanced at her set face. ‘According to him, he and Rosemary have known each other for months. He says she writes to him. What puzzles me is how she could have kept something like that secret. She’s not capable of hiding anything.’
‘Oh, you’re wrong there,’ Mrs Kennedy said with a bitter smile. ‘She’s not the innocent girl she was before we came to this country. She knows how to hide things now, all right.’
‘What do you mean?’
A flush suffused his mother’s lean cheeks. She was clearly struggling with what she was about to say next. ‘She’s been getting out of her room at night.’
‘At the convent?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The nuns told me.’
‘Why don’t they stop her?’
‘They can’t. They can do nothing with her.’
‘Where does she go?’
‘She goes out into the street.’ His mother compressed her lips tightly for a moment. ‘She goes to bars and meets men.’
The Ocean Liner Page 2