The Importance of Being Kennedy

by Laurie Graham

  He said, “And that’s you, is it? Every time she has to go over there, you’ll be expected to tag along? Because she’s frit of her mother? And all because she married Lord Billy, as laid down his life for King and country. What’s wrong with the old battleax anyhow? Why can’t she let it lie? You don’t see Her Grace walking around with a prune face, and if anybody had cause to complain about that marriage, it were her. A fine old family like the Devonshires getting mixed up with a cowboy like Kennedy. But they took Lady Kick in and they treated her like one of their own.”

  I said, “We can’t all be as perfect as your sainted Devonshires.”

  “Well, that’s one thing you’ve got right,” he said. “That’s the trouble when people have got money and no breeding. No breeding, no consideration. And I’ll tell you the next thing as’ll be on the cards. Her Ladyship’ll take up with one of her old admirers and we’ll be out of a job. We could have had one of the Pilsley cottages, Nora, if I hadn’t give way to you.”

  I said, “You didn’t give way to me. You did it because Her Grace asked you.”

  He said, “We could have had our own bit of kitchen garden. Maybe gone in for a pig. We could have had security.”

  I said, “Nobody has security anymore, Walter. Not even poor Mr. Churchill.”

  He said, “I’ll bet Tommy Marstin’s been given the place that should rightly have been ours. He’s not half the gardener I am. And he can’t drive.”

  I said, “Then why don’t you go up there and get your blasted cottage. If His Grace is all you’ve cracked him up to be, he’ll find you something, and keep you in your dotage.”

  He said, “Hope said it’d never work out. I should have listened to her.”

  He put his cap on.

  I said, “Where are you going?”

  “To the Labor Exchange,” he said. “See if they’ve got anything for a retired poodle.”

  He slammed the door so hard on his way out the barometer slipped sideways off its nail.

  Delia Olvanie said, “I wouldn’t mind going to America. If it’d be any help.”

  But it wasn’t. Kick wanted her old Nora and nobody else would do.

  “Uh-oh,” she kept saying, when she got back from her shopping. It was her latest little catchphrase. “Uh-oh, what are we going to do about Walter?”

  You could have billeted the Household Cavalry between us that night, the way we both slept clinging to the edge of the mattress, and when I woke up he was packing his valise.

  I said, “Where are you going?”

  “What’s it to you?” he said.

  I told him I didn’t want him to go.

  He said, “That’s something, I suppose.”

  He was very calm.

  He said, “Are you still set on this American jaunt?”

  I said, “It’s not a jaunt.”

  “Is it not?” he said. “Well, there we are then. They say English and Americans don’t speak the same language. Over here, when a person goes off thousands of miles when there’s no necessity, we call it a jaunt. I’m afraid I blame the war for this. Before the war the husband were head of the house and the wife went wherever he decided. Now everybody pleases theirselves. Well, I hope you won’t regret it, Nora. I hope your Kennedys do the right thing by you.”

  He slipped away quietly before Kick was awake, but she soon knew about it when Delia Olvanie went in with her breakfast tray, shedding her crocodile tears over Walter, angling to go to America in my place so me and Walter could be reconciled.

  She sent for me.

  She said, “Has he really gone?”

  I wasn’t sure. He’d taken a bag. He hadn’t kissed me on the back of my neck like he usually did to say “Good morning.”

  I said, “I don’t think marriage is what he expected.”

  “Gosh,” she said. “But isn’t this a bit radical? We’re only going on a little trip. Husbands and wives didn’t see each other for years during the war.”

  I said, “Wartime was different. And Walter’s old-fashioned. He thinks drivers should drive and housekeepers should housekeep, and wives should be at home when the hubby comes in at night.”

  She said, “I see. So should I take Delia instead? It wouldn’t be the same, but I guess I could.”

  I had the choice. I stood there in that messy bedroom and it was left to me whether I ran after Stallybrass or did what I really wanted to do.

  I said, “No. I’m going to come with you for Joe’s dedication.”

  Well, then I was her Darling Nora, of course.

  She said, “But what can we do about Walter?”

  I said, “Nothing. He’s in a monkey mood. But we do have to get a few things straight, sweetheart. I have to know where I stand. What if you decide to stay on in America? You know your Daddy’ll start persuading you the minute you set foot. What if he makes you give up Smith Square? He won’t pay for me to come back without you. He already thinks I owe him for staying behind when war broke out, and your Daddy never forgets a debt.”

  She said, “He won’t persuade me, he won’t. I’ll definitely come back here and we’ll make Walter come home and everything’ll be fine. I’m going to telephone Dookie. I’ll tell him what’s happened and I’ll ask him to absolutely not let Walter back on the estate.”

  I said, “Don’t do that. He loves that place. Just leave him be. He’ll go and stay with Hope and he’ll simmer down eventually. This is likely what happens when old-timers get wed. It’s like putting on a new pair of shoes when you’ve been shuffling around in the same comfy old barges for years. They’re sure to pinch.”

  She said, “I didn’t mean to upset him. Do I really not pay you much?”

  I said, “No, not very much. We live in, of course. We don’t have to find rent. But he worries about the future, you see. After fifty you have to think about these things, particularly when you’ve never had a place of your own.”

  “Do you?” she said. “I’m not much good about money. I don’t really know how much I’ve got.”

  They were all like that. They could have whatever they wanted and Mr. Kennedy’s office paid their bills, so they never kept track. And they’d money of their own too. I remembered Mr. K explaining it to me when they were still tiny tots. He said he was putting money in trust for them, so it’d be safe from spendthrift ways any of them might slide into and they’d always have enough to be able to do more important things in life than scrabble for a living. But none of them ever seemed to know what they were worth, or how much ordinary folk had to live on. Jack had touched me for ten shillings when he was over that summer, to save him rushing to the bank before it closed, and I knew I’d never see that again. It was forgotten the minute it was in his pocket.

  She said, “Oh you mustn’t worry about when you’re old. I’ll always look after you, Nora. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  30

  Perpetual Light

  We stayed in New York, at the Biltmore, and a car was sent to bring us up to St. Francis Xavier for Joe’s memorial. There was standing room only in the church. Half of Hyannis had turned out, not out of any great love for the Kennedys but I suppose they wanted to take a look at Congressman Jack, see if it was really the same hooligan that used to thieve gum from Scussett’s store. All the children were there, except Rosie, and she was the one I’d have liked to see more than anyone else. It had been seven years since I’d seen the younger ones and I’d hardly have recognized Bobby or Jean or Teddy. The three Gargan cousins too, and Lem Billings, Mr. and Mrs. Moore, of course, and Danny Walsh, that I’d never have known either, he’d run so to fat. I sat with Gertie, and we had a lovely cry when they sang the Lux aeterna.

  There was tea and sandwiches served at the house afterwards and Kick said I was to mingle with everybody else in the parlor, like a regular guest, but I could never have done that. I stayed in the kitchen with Gertie Ambler, and in the end I saw everybody I wanted to see. Lem was the first to come looking for me.

  “Nurse Strict!�
�� he said. “I’ll bet you don’t remember me.”

  I said, “I never forget anyone who’s kept me awake at night with their giggling.”

  “Ah yes,” he said. “The rap of Nurse Strict’s shoe on the ceiling.”

  He was living in New York, writing advertisements for a living. He had a bit of shrapnel in his leg, but he said it only pained him if it got below freezing. No sweetheart, as yet. Too busy, he said.

  Teddy appeared, looking for more sandwiches, and then Pattie. Teddy was only fifteen, but he’d already grown taller than Bobby and he’d bigger bosoms on him than Euny. If he’d been a girl Herself would have had him on one of her regimes, I’m sure, but she could never see any fault in her boys.

  He said, “Why are you here? Do you still work for us?”

  Pat said, “Why, Ted? Does your diaper need changing?”

  Gertie said, “Is it cake you’re looking for, Pat?”

  “No,” she said, “I’m looking for a drink. Do you have any rye down here?”

  Teddy said, “Daddy says you shouldn’t drink. I’m gonna tell.”

  “Go ahead and tell, Fat Boy,” she said. “I really don’t give a damn.”

  Pattie had grown into quite a beauty. Hard though. She’d no time for her old Nora. She was too busy searching for liquor.

  Don’t they say you should never go back?

  Gertie said, “The best thing for Pattie would be if this was made a dry house.”

  I said, “I suppose it’s the upset of the memorial service.”

  “Not really,” she said. “Pat likes her rye whatever the occasion.”

  Mr. K didn’t speak to me that day.

  I’d heard him outside the church, talking up a storm about Jack’s prospects and about Bobby going to Law School, but the sparkle was gone out of his eyes, and when Mrs. Moore told me exactly what had happened to Joseph Patrick I understood why.

  She said, “You know he volunteered to fly one of those Liberators. They were packed with explosives and that first month they lost nearly every one they sent up. There was a problem with the electrics for one thing, but Joe insisted on flying his mission. Somebody should just have grounded him, but he’d already had two stand-downs because of bad weather, so they let him go up. You know what he was like. He was worried the war would be over before he did something to top Jack’s little adventure. Such a stupid waste.”

  So it wasn’t only the loss of his boy that was weighing on Mr. K. In his heart of hearts he knew he was the one at the root of it.

  “I don’t want to hear from runners-up,” he always used to say. “If somebody beats you, go right back out and practice till you’re good enough to beat him. And I don’t want to hear any of that applesauce about it’s trying that matters. That’s bull. Winning is what matters.”

  He’d made them vie with each other as well as the rest of the world and that was why young Joe was dead. Danny Walsh said, “What I hear, you’ve done all right for yourself, Brennan, riding on Her Ladyship’s coattails.”

  I said, “I don’t ride on anybody’s coattails. I’ve spent six years doing war work, and my husband likewise. How about you?”

  “Too old for the forces,” he said. “I’d have volunteered for the Coast Guard but Your Man kept me on. Driving, security, that kind of thing. When you’re well known like they are, you need staff you can trust. And now with Jack going into public life. See, it’s not just the driving. You have to know how to handle yourself.”

  Danny always was a big bag of hot air.

  I said, “It’s Jack I can’t get over. I never thought he’d get elected.”

  He came over all confidential.

  He said, “I’ll tell you something, between you and me. The amount old man Kennedy’s spent, he could have got a chimpanzee elected.”

  Gertie Ambler said, “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s his to spend, and there’s never been an election fought in Boston where money didn’t change hands. And it’s helped Mr. K get over his loss, keeping busy with the campaign.”

  She told me how the news had come about Joseph Patrick. How Mr. K had gone up for his nap after lunch and Mrs. K was on the porch reading the Sundays when two Navy chaplains came to the door. The children were meant to be racing in a regatta out of Osterville and Mr. K wouldn’t allow them to cancel.

  “Kennedys carry on,” he’d said. “It’s what Joe would have done and you must do the same.” Then he’d gone to his quarters and Mrs. K had gone to hers.

  Gertie said, “She must have wept. What mother wouldn’t? But I never saw her, not that day nor since. I heard the Ambassador though. He made those children take their boats out onto the Sound as if nothing had happened, but he shut himself up in his room and there wasn’t a corner of the house where you couldn’t hear his sobbing.”

  I knew Mrs. K had noticed me at the church but she didn’t speak to me till people were leaving.

  “Nora, dear heart,” she said, “wasn’t it a wonderful memorial service? Everyone came.”

  I said, “I’m so sorry for your loss. He was a fine boy. One of the best.”

  “The very best,” she said, “but life goes on. Jack will take over now. He’ll do very well. You must see a great many changes here.”

  I didn’t. It was eight years since I’d set foot at Hyannis but it felt like only yesterday. There wasn’t a stick of furniture that had changed and there was a pair of rotten old sneakers slung behind the kitchen door I’d swear had been there since 1938. The whole place could have used a coat of paint and some new drapes.

  And the children had just grown into the people they’d always been going to be. Euny doing everything at a sprint, Bobby wanting to be taken seriously, Jean trying to make elbow room for herself in the family picture.

  First thing Jean said to me was “Nora, who do I look like? Not Bobby. Don’t dare tell me I look like Bobby.”

  I said, “Darling girl, you look like Jean Ann Kennedy and there’s only one of you in the world.”

  “Yes,” she said. “But I look quite like Joe, don’t you think? And by the way, I have the nicest legs of all the girls in my class.” Sorry little mite.

  I got the “dear heart” treatment from Mrs. K for five minutes. That tight little smile. Those hard, shiny eyes.

  She said, “You did leave us in a fix, Nora. I could still be rather cross with you. When Mary Moore told me what you’d done I couldn’t believe it. You were always so steady. I absolutely trusted you, you know? How could you run off like that?”

  I said, “I didn’t exactly run off, Mrs. Kennedy. I gave the Ambassador notice. And I went to Rosie’s graduation. I went with Mrs. Moore, you know.”

  She started fiddling with her watchband when I said Rosie’s name.

  She said, “People do such silly things when war breaks out.”

  I said, “You still had Fidelma. I knew you’d be able to manage with her.”

  “Fidelma!” she said. “There’s another one who abandoned her post. Well, I hope you married a good Catholic at least.”

  I said, “No, Walter’s an Undecided. He doesn’t really hold with the Church. But he’s a good man.”

  “Oh,” she said, “I don’t see how that can be.”

  But if you ask me, Mr. K himself wasn’t the kind of Catholic she made him out to be. He’d go to Mass but only because it was the done thing. He liked to be seen in the front pew, and it was an easy way of keeping Mrs. K sweet, but I reckon he just thought of Our Blessed Lady as someone worth having on his team, like Jimmy Roosevelt.

  She said, “Of course we don’t keep the staff we used to. Jean’s boarding at Noroton and Teddy’s going to Milton. The Ambassador and I have hotel suites now. It’s so much more convenient. And are you back in the States to stay?”

  I said, “No. I came with Kick, for the dedication.”

  She said, “How extravagant. Did Kathleen pay for you to come?”

  I said, “I wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t. I do work for her, you know? I kee
p house for her at Smith Square.”

  “Oh yes,” she said, “Smith Square. The Devonshires put her up to that, I’m sure. Another extravagance. Well, the sooner she gets London and that whole episode out of her system the better. She should come home and make herself useful. Euny and Pat have been the backbone of Jack’s campaign, and this is only the start.”

  I said, “How’s Rosie going on, Mrs. Kennedy? I’m hoping to visit with her while I’m here.”

  And her face snapped shut like the cover on a pocket watch. She said, “There’s very little point. She won’t know you.”

  I said, “Is there nothing can be done? If an operation caused it, can’t another operation put it right?”

  “No,” she said. “Anyway it wasn’t necessarily caused by the operation. Rosie became a very difficult girl after she came home from London. You weren’t here. You don’t know. We did everything we could for the best. She’s very comfortable at Craig House and you know one very good thing that’s come out of all this is Euny and Pat’s interest in mental handicap. They’re starting up some very worthwhile projects.

  “It’s something Kathleen should think of doing too. I must talk to her about it. It would do her far more good than languishing in London spending money on houses. It’s a terribly good cause, and of course if the Kennedys become known for such things it can only help Jack.”

  There were still a few guests lingering in the house, but as far as she was concerned, the party was over. She went off down to the strand, to her cabin. She must have been glad of that hidey-hole. To look at her at the dedication you’d never have taken her for a woman who’d lost two beautiful children, she looked so bright and polished. The only way she managed it, I’m sure, was to save her heartache for when she was alone in her little white hut.

  Me and Kick went our separate ways after Hyannis. She’d promised to visit Nancy Tenney, to see her baby girl, and then go down to Washington to catch up with her old crowd. I went to Boston, to see if my nephew had really turned out as peculiar as his brother said he had.