The Importance of Being Kennedy

by Laurie Graham

  It was to be a long, long time before I got to the bottom of what all that had been about. The phone calls stopped, Jack was apparently out of the doghouse, and then Mrs. K got a cablegram to tell her that Associated Press had voted her Outstanding Woman of the Year 1938. All her troubles were forgotten then. She was so happy she dusted off the pianoforte and played so that Mayor Fitzgerald could sing.

  Sweet Adeline, my Adeline,

  All night, dear heart, for you I pine.

  In all my dreams, your fair face beams.

  You’re the flower of my heart, Sweet Adeline.

  It seemed to be the only song he knew, so he sang it over and over and he was no Morton Downey. That’s more than twelve years ago and I’m not ready yet to hear it again.

  Right after the New Year we were going to St. Moritz so the children could ski. I went in to see Herself about the packing and there she sat with a pile of 1938 calendars she’d bought in Woolworth. They sold them off for practically nothing at the end of the year. She was scribbling out the days of the week and writing in the changes.

  I said, “That’s a fearsome job. Is it worth the bother?”

  “Yes,” she said, “it is. Take care of the cents and the dollars will take care of themselves. Now, dear heart, I’m just wondering whether we’ll need both you and Fidelma in Switzerland. I’m wondering if one of you might not stay in London and do something with Rosie. It’s such a waste of money to take her skiing.”

  She often went into one of her economy drives at the start of a new year.

  I said, “Well, you know I don’t mind. Skiing’s just wet clothes and frozen feet to me.”

  She said, “Being Ambassador has been a terrible drain on us, you know? People think everything is provided but that’s not the case at all. We’ve been put to enormous expense.”

  I said, “Were you thinking of letting me go?”

  “No,” she said, “I wasn’t thinking that at all. I depend upon you greatly, Nora, but we do have to reduce our expenditure. Shoe repairs, for instance. I believe you’ll find the charges are much lower outside of Kensington.”

  That was her mentality. She’d have you wear out your shoe leather walking to save sixpence.

  She said, “Last year was a particular burden, of course, bringing out two girls. I think we won’t give a ball for Eunice this year. A small dinner will be quite enough. Euny isn’t a ball kind of girl.”

  I said, “So will I stay behind while you’re skiing?”

  “Yes, dear,” she said. “Do something nice with Rosie. Take her to the Wax Works or the Zoological Gardens. She’s trying so very hard at Belmont, I’d like to encourage her with some little treats. Let her choose for herself. Within reason.”

  I knew what Rosie would want if she had her druthers. A kiss and a cuddle from London Jack.

  I was half out the door. She said, “Nora dear, please don’t worry we’ll be letting you go. This is going to be a busier year than ever and I shall absolutely depend upon you. I think we can anticipate a Royal visit to Prince’s Gate this year. Their Majesties are going to America, you know? And it’ll be for us to give them a great send-off. They’ll come to dinner. That’s something you won’t have seen in your future when you came to us at Beals Street.”

  I said, “We’ll be staying on then?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Why?”

  I said, “The Ambassador never seems to stay anywhere long. You know, always on the go.”

  She laughed. “Well, dear,” she said, “we’re certainly here for the foreseeable future. But who can say what exciting things next year might bring.”

  The White House, Danny Walsh reckoned.

  He said, “Your Man’s going to run, it’s as clear as day. And that costs a small fortune. That’s why she’s tightening her belt.”

  Fidelma said, “That’s it, Brennan. She wants the shoes heeled in Notting Hill from now on so there’ll be more money to put in the First Lady Gown Fund.”

  Me and Rosie had a fine time while they were all gone skiing. I fetched her into town on a bus and the underground train, and we both had our hair done and tea in Marshall & Snelgrove and tried on a load of hats we had no intention of buying. She told me all about this Montessori teaching.

  “There’s no shouting,” she said. “I like it. You can do painting or clay or weighing and measuring. All kinds of things. It doesn’t matter if you’re slow.”

  She’d filled out again, a guaranteed sign she was happy, and her Mammy was hundreds of miles away so I wasn’t going to put her on any silly regime. Me and Gertie Ambler took her to Drury Lane to see Dick Whittington and we had wine gums and choc ices and joined in with all the singing and booing and hissing. We were going along just dandy till the interval. She needed the powder room and I trusted her to go on her own. The bell was ringing for the second half and she hadn’t come back. Gertie went searching in one direction, I went the other. I found her in the Stalls Bar, the only one left in there, smoking a cigarette and talking to the man who was putting up new bottles.

  I said, “Did you serve her drink?”

  “Bar’s closed,” he said.

  She had a pack of Park Drive, nearly full, but there wasn’t a cigarette left whole by the time I’d finished with it.

  I said, “What has your Daddy always told you about smoking? Hasn’t he told every one of you he’ll give you extra money if you don’t start with cigarettes? Nearly twenty-one and you start a daft habit like that.”

  “Joe smokes,” she said.

  I said, “Then Joe’s a fool. Is that what you’re doing now? Copying fools? Why are you doing it?”

  She said, “It looks nice.”

  I said, “Well, it doesn’t smell nice. How can you teach nice little children smelling like an ash can? And boys won’t want to dance with you.”

  “I’ve got gum,” she said. I could tell she was going to go straight back out and buy more smokes.

  The curtain had gone up. We had to push along the row to get to our seats, treading on everybody’s toes. Dame Trot was singing.

  Other people’s babies, that’s my life.

  Mother to dozens, but nobody’s wife.

  Gertie whispered, “That’s your song, Nora.”

  Mother to dozens was about right. I suppose I’d taken it for granted I’d have weans of my own someday, and when you’re young, the ticking of the clock doesn’t bother you. Later on, it was one of those things, if I stopped to dwell on it I’d get a funny old ache in my insides. “A touch of the what-ifs,” I always called it. But life rolled along and there’s nothing like keeping busy to get rid of the what-ifs. All those fine places I visited with my Kennedys. I’d never have seen the half of them if I’d married Jimmy Swords. I’d have sat at home darning socks while he was in the pub planning a revolution.

  Fidelma and Mrs. Moore brought the children back from Switzerland while Herself continued her vacation. “Traveling throughout the Mediterranean,” according to Mrs. Moore.

  She was in Greece when the Holy Father passed away and she went directly to Rome, so she’d be there when the new Pope was named.

  This is an opportunity to be part of history, she wrote to Bobby. Be sure to keep all my letters. They will be a precious memento of this important time in our lives.

  It meant she missed Teddy’s birthday and Kick’s and Jean’s and not for the first time. We made them a little tea party though, and Mr. K arrived just in time for it, and Jack with him. He was looking better. He was through the spots and pimples, finally, and carrying himself like quite the smart young buck.

  I said, “And what was all that commotion about over Christmas?”

  “Don’t know what you mean,” he said. “What commotion?”

  Kick said, “Oh come on, Jack. Even Grandpa looked pretty mad about it. Did you rear-end somebody’s car?”

  “No,” he said. “Oh, yeah. It was nothing. Busted taillight.”

  She said, “Well, was it, like, the Governor’s car or someth
ing? It didn’t seem like nothing. The phone calls must have cost more than the damage.”

  He said, “You know what, Kick? You need an interest in life. You get way too excited about every little thing goes on in mine.”

  Teddy said, “Was Daddy mad? Why didn’t you make Lem say he did it?”

  Bobby clipped his ear. He said, “Because that’s not what you do, Ted. Thou shalt not bear false witness.”

  Teddy said, “But he could of. And then made an act of contrition.”

  18

  Our Pope

  When the new Pope was elected I thought Mr. K would turn a cartwheel. It was Cardinal Pacelli, who’d been to tea at Bronxville and allowed young Teddy to sit on his knee.

  “Our Pope,” Mr. Kennedy called him. “Now we have ourselves our own Pope.”

  He said all the children were to go with him to the coronation. Only Joseph Patrick was traveling and couldn’t be contacted. Mr. Moore said there might be a problem, because seats were hard to come by and the invitation was really only for Mr. and Mrs. K, so they could represent the President.

  Mr. K said, “Eddie, you know that’s not the way I operate. If you want something, the thing to do is just step forward and stake your claim. There’ll always be people ready to tell you why you can’t have what you want, but once you’ve grabbed it they’ll think twice about taking it from you.”

  Danny Walsh went to Belmont to bring Rosie home and Mrs. K sent me my orders. The girls were all to have new wool coats and lace mantillas, white for Jean and black for the others. Mr. Moore took care of the boys, black single-breasted for Bobby and a dark blue knicker suit for Teddy.

  Fidelma said, “That chair the Cardinal sat in when he came to the house, it’ll be under a glass dome the next time we see it. There’ll be nobody allowed to breathe on it, never mind rest their behind.”

  We caught the Golden Arrow boat train to Paris and then the Rome Express, and I didn’t get a wink of sleep what with the rattling and the swaying and men coming aboard to check your papers and Jean and Teddy in and out of their beds all night long, fiddling with every little gadget. I was afraid they’d open a door and go tumbling out, or pull the cord that stops the train. The conductor said there wasn’t a hotel room to be had in Rome, but we were fixed up. Mrs. K had got us four suites at the Excelsior and limousines to meet us at the train station.

  She hadn’t seen the children in six weeks but she started straight in. Bobby needed a haircut, Rosie was carrying too much weight, Kick’s nails were chewed to the quick. Where had I bought the girls’ stockings? How much had we paid for Teddy’s suit?

  Poor Eddie Moore was sweating over the seating arrangements for the coronation. He kept saying, “They’ll never get in. It’s two tickets per country.” But they did get in. The cars came for them early and they got front-row seats. There were eight dignitaries bounced from their seats so the young Kennedys could have a grandstand view. And some black looks, too, according to Kick.

  She said, “I’d sooner have stood and so would Euny and Pat. And Teddy could have sat on Daddy’s lap. But Mother said we were entitled. It was kind of embarrassing.”

  Mrs. K was certainly full of herself. She’d come a long way from that retiring little body in Beals Street.

  She said, “It was the most beautiful occasion I ever saw, Nora, and particularly wonderful for us because His Holiness is a personal friend. But it isn’t over yet. On Wednesday Teddy will receive his first Communion, and tomorrow we’re all going to visit with the Holy Father, for a private audience. And that includes you and Fidelma. I’ll lend you each a piece of lace for your head, but you must promise to be very careful with them. They’re handmade Venetian.”

  “Now, Brennan,” Fidelma kept saying, “pass me that old rag would you while I shine my shoes.”

  I said, “My guts are churning already. What are we supposed to do when we get in there? Do we have to say anything?”

  She said, “Of course we don’t. Won’t it all be in Latin? Just don’t look at me else I’ll burst out laughing.”

  But we didn’t feel like laughing when it came to it. We walked miles down corridors to get to the room, and there were guards posted all the way. Nobody said a word. All you could hear was Teddy’s new shoes squeaking and Herself tap-tapping along in her high heels. Mr. K went in first and after five minutes the doors opened to let the rest of us inside.

  I’d expected the Holy Father to be on a throne, with his vestments on, but he was sitting in an ordinary chair in just his house cassock and his little white cap. He’d looked more impressive the day he came to Bronxville. He remembered Teddy, of course, and he allowed him to take a picture with his Kodak camera, and then he gave us all rosaries. He was dishing them out from a big box on his table. The children went up first and then me and Fidelma. I wish now I’d dared take a close look at him but my heart was in my mouth. Christ’s Vicar on Earth giving me a rosary. Everyone who went up, he said something. Fidelma said it sounded like “Pay for three.”

  I said, “I think it was ‘Pray for me.’”

  “That’d be it,” she said. “Because he only gave me the one rosary, and I’d no money on me anyway. God, Nora, I was all atremble. I couldn’t think straight.”

  Me neither. I wished I could have it all over again, so I could pay proper attention.

  When the audience was over we were taken to the Sistine Chapel, to see where the cardinals sit while they’re deciding on a new Pope; then Mr. and Mrs. K went off to a reception and to a dinner at the American Embassy, which left us in peace. Mr. and Mrs. Moore took the children for a spaghetti supper, “bisgetti,” Rosie called it, and me and Fidelma tried our luck with the old parley italiany. Sure they’re a friendly, helpful people, the Italians, and saucy too. I reckon we could both have gotten ourselves husbands if we’d put our minds to it and told Mrs. K where to stick her Venetian lace.

  We did a bit of pointing and playacting till they brought us a dinner and I don’t know what half of it was, but we’d a lovely drink called Chianti wine that went straight to Fidelma Clery’s head, and ice cream to finish, though it was bitter cold outside.

  We had to have the children dressed and ready to go by seven for Teddy’s first Communion, which was no easy thing, because Rosie kept disappearing, hoping to see a bellhop who’d caught her eye, and Teddy was lolloping around, complaining his collar was too stiff and his pants were itchety.

  Jack said, “Ted, you’re a pain. If I were Nora I’d put you in a hair shirt.”

  “Nora has to be nice to me,” he said. “Or I’ll tell Mother and then she’ll be let go.”

  Jack said, “You’re the one should be let go. I reckon the Moores should adopt you, Teddy Baby. I’m not sure we want such a whining little brat for a Kennedy.”

  The Mass was held in the Holy Father’s own chapel, just a plain little place, although Our Lady did have the electric light in her crown, which Fidelma thought was a very miracle. And when it was all over Teddy tried to give me his candle, sidling up to me, calling me Darling Nora, trying to make amends for his cheek.

  Herself said, “Oh no, Teddy. You must keep the candle. It’s a souvenir of a very special day.”

  “Sorry,” he whispered to me. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

  Mrs. K traveled back with us as far as Paris and there we left her, with more shopping to be done. She was going to America to help with the King and Queen’s visit and she wanted to be sure of turning heads with her gowns.

  Mr. K said, “Spend as much as you like, Rosa. I want you to show those snoots back home the Kennedys know how to do things. And if you run across that bitch from Baltimore, don’t curtsey to her.”

  She’d been invited to dinner at the American Embassy in Paris and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were going to be there.

  She said, “Now, Joe dearest, I’m not going to create a scene. The Windsors are just a pair of has-beens, and if a little curtsey makes them happy I’m not going to ruin their evening. I’ll just bob a l
ittle bob.”

  He said, “Well, I’d be happier if you didn’t. I begrudge them even a nod of the head. We have our friendship with Their Majesties to think of. And I’d never have taken this damned job if I’d thought it would oblige you to curtsey to a tart.”

  Jack said, “So now it’s ‘this damned job’? Not all it’s cracked up to be, eh, Excellency? Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s not so great, hunh?”

  Mr. K said, “I tell you, it’s a thankless posting. You end up out of pocket and the papers are always hoping you’ll goof, that you’ll speak out of turn or do something you shouldn’t have, good news being no news. I’ll finish my time here, but frankly I can’t wait to go home.”

  Jack said, “But you’re definitely not going to run next year?”

  “No,” he said, “I’m not. Your mother would like it, I know, but I’ve worked out a little agreement with FDR. If he runs for another term, I’ll back him. Then he’ll back Joe for governor of Massachusetts in ’42.”

  Jack whistled. He said, “Does Joe know?”

  Mr. K said, “He knows I’m working on his future.”

  We were no sooner back from the boat train than Billy Hartington was on the doorstep looking for Kick. There was a cocktail party at Ginny Vigo’s that evening and then everyone was going on to the Café de Paris for dancing.

  Kick said, “I don’t know. We’ve been traveling all day. My hair’s a real mess.”

  “Is it?” he said. “I think it looks rather wonderful.”

  Rosie said, “I’ll come. I haven’t been dancing for ages.”

  But Kick wasn’t having that. “No, Rosie,” she said. “You’re not invited this time. I can’t drag you everywhere with me.”

  Rosie’s eyes filled up.

  Billy said, “Oh but it’d be fine, Kick. Why not? Ginny absolutely wouldn’t mind.”

  “No,” she said, “she’ll make a pest of herself wanting partners. You don’t know what she’s like. She won’t sit out a single dance. And anyway she has to go back to Belmont. Go get your things ready, Rosie. Danny’s taking you first thing. And if Mother were here she’d agree with me.”