The Importance of Being Kennedy

by Laurie Graham

  When Mrs. K was at home she’d come down and take tea with any of Kick’s friends who called by in the afternoon, but in the evenings she made herself scarce. If she wasn’t going off somewhere with the Ambassador, dressed up in her jewels and spangles like a circus pony, she’d have an early dinner with the children and then go up to her rooms to read. Conserving herself, I always thought, for when she was in the public eye.

  So Mr. K was the one who did the evening socializing. He never touched liquor himself but he kept a very lavish bar and he liked to hold court. He loved showing off in front of all those pretty girls, and some of them encouraged him. Pamela Digby was the worst, cheeky little minx she was, the way she joshed him. If I’d been Kick I’d have dropped her. I wouldn’t have felt right watching my father making such a fool of himself, but Kick could never see any fault in her Daddy. He liked to hear what the young men thought about the situation in Germany, too. The newspapers were saying Hitler might invade Czechoslovakia, the same way he’d helped himself to Austria, and then we’d be obliged to go to war again.

  Mr. K didn’t think so. He said, “Nobody’s ready for another war, except Germany. Why would anyone in their right mind risk everything to save a few Czechs? And save them from what? They’d probably be better off under Germany anyway.”

  But Kick’s friends thought there would be a war, and when it came they were ready to fight. I could see Kick didn’t know what to think. Usually whatever her Daddy said was holy writ, but she was impressed with those boys, not twenty years old, some of them, and talking about fighting, willing to risk their necks.

  She said, “Gosh, Nora, they’re so gung ho. But Daddy says they only talk like that because they don’t remember how awful the Great War was.”

  Of course Mr. K didn’t exactly have personal memories of the Great War himself. And a lot of those boys were in the Reserves already.

  Mrs. K had rented a villa in the south of France for the month of August and we were all going, except for young Joe. His Daddy said it would be good for his future career to travel to places where history was being made and he sent him to see at first hand what was going on in Germany and in the war in Spain. I wasn’t sorry. Joseph Patrick had been a bit of a handful while he was in London. He’d turned out so tall and manly, a real lady-killer, but Kick had it from a couple of her friends that he was liable to forget himself, especially after a whiskey or two. NSIT was what they whispered about him. Not Safe in Taxis. Her friend Caro Leinster wouldn’t even come to tea, in case Joe was there.

  Kick brought it up with him and he turned on her, rapped her on the nose with his finger. “Keep it out, Little Sis,” he said. “Just keep it out.”

  Kick would never tell on him. They all looked up to Joe, and they were raised not to tell tales. No snitching, no whining, no moping. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t say something. And anyway, Rosie was going around shouting, “I know what you did. You did a sin with a girl and that’s how you get babies.”

  So I mentioned it to Herself. We were doing the school uniform lists for Bobby and Teddy.

  She said, “I don’t want to hear servants’ gossip. My sons behave correctly, Joe especially. He knows he has to be an example to the others.”

  I said, “He does. But there’s more than one story going round, so I thought you should be told. There’s too much smoke for there not to be a bit of a fire.”

  She said, “And we both know what kind of girls allow stories like that to be spread. Girls that don’t deserve a man’s respect.”

  I said, “Well, Caro Leinster’s highly respectable and she won’t come to the house anymore, in case she runs into him. And Minnie Stubbs seems like a very nice girl. She told Kick he tried to get into her drawers going home the other night.”

  “Nora!” she said. “I don’t believe Kick said that.”

  She hadn’t, not in so many words. Kick was a Sacred Heart girl through and through. No vulgarity.

  I said, “She didn’t need to. I’m reading between the lines. The word’s getting round that Joe takes liberties.”

  She laughed.

  She said, “Do you think so? The scamp! And of course, these girls throw themselves at him. He’s so handsome and vital. You know, he looks very much like the Ambassador when he was a young buck.”

  I said, “I love Joseph Patrick dearly, but if I had a daughter I’d be warning her off him. That’s the thing. I wouldn’t want Kick getting into the hands of a boy like that.”

  But she wasn’t listening to me. She was off down memory lane.

  She said, “It was love at first sight, you know? My father sent me away to Europe. He didn’t think a Kennedy was good enough for me, but I was determined. I knew Joe was the one for me. And he’s always treated me with respect, Nora, because I commanded respect. My husband has always been a perfect gentleman to me.”

  See, it was all forgiven and forgotten about Miss Swanson and his other lady friends. I never met anyone quite like Rose Kennedy for ignoring an ache in her heart and soldiering on.

  She said, “A man must do what men do, obviously, but he’ll only take liberties where he sees them on offer. Decent girls have nothing to fear. Certainly not from my son.”

  I said, “Well, he likes to get his own way, that I do know, and he’s a powerful strong boy. They get a glass or two of whiskey inside them and who can say what might happen. It would be a terrible thing if there should be a misunderstanding. If the Kennedy name should get dragged in. It could ruin things for everyone.”

  That made her think.

  She said, “I won’t have anything spoil Euny’s debut. I think Kick should distance herself from these girls. She has plenty of other lovely friends. And I’ll get the Ambassador to have a word with Joseph Patrick.”

  Well, there was a brilliant scheme. As well ask a fox to supervise the henhouse.

  All the time we were in Cannes there were cablegrams being delivered and sent. Danny Walsh said they were likely about the Herr Hitler situation. Neither Mr. Roosevelt nor Mr. Chamberlain wanted to get into a fight with him, but they didn’t want him thinking he could go around helping himself to countries either. Then there was Mr. K, who thought everybody should mind their own business, and Danny Walsh, who thought Mr. K should be sent to Germany to straighten things out.

  He said, “I’m telling you, leave it to old man Kennedy. There won’t be a war if he has anything to do with it.”

  Fidelma said, “And there we were thinking Danny Walsh was just Mrs. Kennedy’s pool attendant. Isn’t he the regular kingmaker!”

  Danny said, “You can laugh, but I get to hear a lot of things.”

  He did too.

  “Danny, where’s my scarf? Danny, how much are we paying for gasoline? Danny, did you see those awful Reagans? They grab the front pew and throw dollar bills on the collection plate and they’re nothing but bog Irish when you look at their faces. They have no refinement. People like that quite ruin Mass.”

  At the end of August Jack went back to Harvard to his studies and me and Fidelma and Mrs. Moore took the children back to London, ready for the new school year. Mary Moore was given the job of taking Rosie to the Belmont School, to start her teacher training. It wasn’t any old school. The children were allowed to pick and choose what they did and all in their own good time. It was called the Montessori method and it sounded right up Rosie’s alley. They said if she settled down and learned all about it she’d have a certificate at the end of it. She’d be able to go to a Montessori school anywhere in the world and teach kindergarten.

  “Teaching college,” she called it. “I’m going to get a certificate like Jack and Joe. I’m going to be a Tessymori teacher.”

  She went off in a new straw hat, all smiles. Rosie would do anything to please Mrs. Moore or Fidelma, but if her Mammy tried to get her to do something we’d hear language and all sorts, so Herself stayed on at the villa for another month, with Kick and Euny for company. They missed all the excitement of war nearly breaking out.


  While we’d been gone from Prince’s Gate there had been trenches dug in Hyde Park and gas masks issued. Mr. Stevens, the butler, said we should have a practice, in case of gas attacks. He pretended to be the siren and we all had to see how fast we could get our masks on. Teddy took his everywhere the first week, even into bed, but then he lost interest. We all did. We’d heard Herr Hitler on the wireless, railing and screeching at one of the big rallies, but he seemed a very long way off from London, SW1.

  Bobby asked Mr. K if there was going to be a war.

  He said, “If I thought that, son, you’d be on your way home to New York. All these preparations are just for appearance’s sake. They don’t want Hitler to get the impression he can help himself to any little country without anyone lifting a finger. They have to show a bit of solidarity with these Czechs. He’ll get what he wants in the end, but it’ll just look better this way.”

  Bobby said, “Does that mean he wants this country?”

  Mr. K said, “I guess he does, but there doesn’t have to be a war over it. Nobody wants a war.”

  Gertie Ambler started stockpiling canned goods though, and then sandbags appeared around the embassy doors in Grosvenor Square. Anybody could get sandbags if they were willing to fill them. We took a walk one day, across the park towards the Bayswater Road to see a great pit they’d opened. There was a long line of trucks waiting to back up and take on a load of sand, and ordinary people too, come in from miles around with trailers hooked onto their little cars. The military were in Hyde Park that day, too, practicing raising a barrage balloon and getting in a right old tangle, too many chiefs and nobody listening to orders. We had quite an entertaining afternoon out.

  Mrs. K and the girls were supposed to be going to Paris on the way home, to shop for clothes, but Mr. K sent them a wire to come back to London directly, “because of the worsening situation,” he said. He was on the telephone to the President at all hours and round to Downing Street to see the Prime Minister at least once a day. Then Mr. Chamberlain went by airplane to meet Adolf Hitler face-to-face and we all held our breath.

  Three times he went. “Like a poodle dog,” Danny Walsh said. “Adolf Hitler must be laughing up his sleeve.”

  I just felt sorry for poor Mr. Chamberlain. Travel’s a curse and he didn’t look a well man. But just when things looked so bad Herself had ordered the trunks brought down from the attics ready for packing, he came back from Munich with an agreement that saved us from war. Hitler could have the bit of Czechoslovakia he wanted, which was only the part where a lot of German people lived anyway, and in exchange he’d leave the rest in peace. We could put our gas masks away and the trunks were to be hauled back upstairs.

  Billy Hartington came round that evening, I remember, and Richard Wood and Tony Erskine, as well as Cynthia Brough and her crowd. As soon as the word was out that Kick was back in town, the boys were buzzing around. Mr. K came back from the House of Commons. The Prime Minister had just spoken about the agreement that had been reached with Germany. Mr. K said it had been a very stirring speech and when it was over everyone had stood on their seats and cheered enough to raise the roof. But it didn’t sit well with some of Kick’s young men and they told Mr. Kennedy so.

  She said, “Things got a bit sticky last night. The boys were all saying Hitler should be taught a lesson, but Daddy said Mr. Chamberlain’s done the right thing because England’s in no shape to teach anyone anything. Daddy says Germany would win a war in five minutes and he’s in a better position to know than someone like Harry Bagnell. Daddy had luncheon with Colonel Lindbergh so he knows how many bombers and things Germany has. Daddy has all the facts.”

  And whatever the facts were, they seemed to be robbing Mr. K of his sleep. He was fifty years old and London had taken the bounce out of him. Mrs. K reckoned it was all the grand dinners he had to go to affecting his ulcers, and it was true all he took at home was warm milk or a bowl of chicken soup. But it wasn’t only his health. He wasn’t really suited to his position. Stevens had been butler to Mr. Bingham before him and to Mr. Mellon and Mr. Dawes before that and he said he’d never known an ambassador like Joe Kennedy. He spoke his mind instead of telling everybody what they wanted to hear. He didn’t know how to sweeten things and he didn’t have a lick of patience. He wanted things done his way and fast. Joe Kennedy wouldn’t have gone three times in an airplane for the sake of somebody else’s country. “Leave me and mine alone,” he’d have said, “and we’ll say no more about these other little places.” And then he’d have sent Adolf Hitler a case of whiskey.

  They’d hardly finished cheering in the House of Commons when Hitler marched into Czechoslovakia anyway and the dailies that had said what a marvelous thing Mr. Chamberlain had pulled off said that was what came of trying to strike a bargain with a dictator. Kick had words with Lord Harry Bagnell. He told her if America really thought Hitler was none of its business it had a shock coming, and if it didn’t think that, then it should sack its ambassador for saying so. We didn’t see him at Prince’s Gate again after that, but Kick wasn’t grieved. Richard Wood and Billy Hartington were her favorites.

  She had two invitations for the first weekend of November, to stay at Susie Frith-Johnstone’s house in Leicestershire and go to a costume pageant at Belvoir Castle, or go to Chatsworth House for Lord Billy’s sister’s birthday tea.

  Fidelma said to her, “Go to the pageant. I would. A castle has to be better than a house. There’ll be ghosts and turrets and all sorts. Nora can run you up a costume. Stevens’ll give you a loan of his flashlight and you can go as the Statue of Liberty.”

  “No,” she said, “I’m going to Anne’s birthday. I promised her. And you know Chatsworth may not be a castle, but I don’t think it’s just any old house.”

  I should have gone with her, of course.

  Mrs. K said, “Now, Nora, I want you to make sure Kick gets to Mass on Sunday morning. The Devonshires are very highly placed people and I’m sure like to do things correctly but they’re Protestants. They may just not think of it. When the Ambassador and I spent the weekend at Windsor Castle details like that were organized to perfection. A car was sent to take us into the town. Of course that was royalty. They don’t overlook a thing.”

  But I didn’t get to Chatsworth. I missed my footing, running down the back stairs where Herself had said a twenty-five-watt bulb gave brightness enough, and turned my ankle so it blew up like a watermelon. Fidelma went in my place and I wasn’t sorry. I had two days of peace, reading Mrs. K’s magazines with my foot raised on a stool while London Jack kept Teddy and Bobby entertained, and Fidelma got to deal with the whys and wherefores of being a lady’s maid.

  I said, “Remember, they’ll call you ‘Kennedy.’”

  She said, “They can call me Tallulah. Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”

  But she came back whistling a different tune.

  “It’s bigger than Lady Astor’s place,” she said. “Bigger than Buckingham Palace, if you ask me. And you should see how many staff they have. The help have help. And land. There’s hills and woods and farms as far as the eye can see.”

  Kick said, “And we saw your favorite driver, Nora. The one with the dint in his chin.”

  I said, “He’s no favorite of mine. I hardly spoke two words to him.”

  Fidelma said, “What driver?”

  Kick said, “The one who drove us to the station. Stallybottom or something. He liked Nora. He remembered you from Compton Place, Nora.”

  Fidelma said, “His name was Stallybrass. And he has no business liking anybody. He’s got a wife. She’s the pastry cook at Chatsworth. We had steak pies, Nora, with onion gravy, and the crust was so light it nearly floated away.”

  I said, “I hardly even remember him.”

  Kick said, “Well, he remembered you. He sent you his best regards.”

  17

  Other People’s Babies

  Mr. Kennedy went back to America for Christmas. Herself said he needed to see
his ulcer doctor in New York, but they had plenty of good doctors in London and anyway, Washington was where he went first. Danny Walsh predicted he was getting the sack for speaking out of turn, but I didn’t see why the President would send for him if that’s what it was. All he had to do was pick up the telephone and we’d be on our way back to Bronxville.

  As soon as it was known Mr. K would be away from home, Mayor and Mrs. Fitzgerald announced they’d pay us a visit. Then Jack decided he wouldn’t come to London for Christmas. Jack found His Honor hard to take, especially if Joseph Patrick was around getting the My Grandson the Future President treatment. Behind his back Jack and Lem Billings called him Grampy O’Blarney.

  So Jack decided to go down to Palm Beach instead with a crowd of friends from college, and it was while they were there that something happened. It was Christmas Eve. They were trimming the tree when Eddie Moore telephoned from New York, wanting to speak to His Honor. All night the phone was going and by the time we went to Mass Mrs. K had her buttoned-up face on.

  Fidelma said, “Everything all right, Mrs. Kennedy?”

  “Perfectly,” she said.

  A sure sign there was trouble.

  Danny Walsh said that piecing things together from what he’d been able to hear, Jack had gotten into a bit of a scrape and strings were being pulled. That was where Mayor Fitzgerald came in. He knew even more useful people than Mr. K did.

  A motor accident, I thought, and so did Danny. Joseph Patrick and Jack both drove like loonies. But Fidelma reckoned there had to be a girl in the picture.

  “He’s knocked a girl up,” she kept saying. “I’ll bet you. Or he got too fresh and now she’s made a complaint.”

  Fidelma tried to get something out of Mayor Fitzgerald. She was always a trier.

  She said, “All those telephone calls, Your Honor, and at Christmas too. No rest for the wicked, eh?”

  “Oh you’re right, dearie,” he said. “But what a wonderful thing, to be able to talk to a person in Boston as if he’s in the next room.”