36
The View from Stalin’s Sty
I take camellias for her, when they’re in flower, and Their Graces used to lay a holly garland at Christmas, but I don’t know if that’ll be kept up now we’ve a new Duke and Duchess. So many changes they never expected to see at Chatsworth. First Lord Billy mowed down in his prime, and then last year his father. He was out sawing firewood down at Compton Place and dropped like a stone, only fifty-five. So now Lord Andrew and Lady Debo have had to step up to the plate and Kick has a new neighbor in Edinsor graveyard. I hope His Grace doesn’t find her too noisy. The day she married Lord Billy I remember the old Duchess saying, “Cavendishes rarely speak and Kennedys apparently never stop. I wonder what their children will be like.”
It’s been three years since Kick died and Herself still hasn’t visited. Mr. K hasn’t been back either. So far Jack’s the only one who’s paid his respects. When it came time for the headstone to be raised Her Grace wrote and asked them what inscription they’d like, but they say she never got a reply. Perhaps it was too much for them to bear. Hard enough to bury one child, let alone three.
Kick’s the only one laid under the earth, of course. Joseph Patrick went out like a shooting star. He’s everywhere and nowhere, you might say. But Rosie’s as good as buried. They’ve moved her from Craig House to St. Coletta’s in Jefferson, Wisconsin. She has her own chalet bungalow, with a Sister to watch over her and one of those television machines for company, but it’s a long, long way from the family. It’s too far for Fidelma to ride up on an afternoon and bring her a magazine and a box of candy. If Kick and Lord Billy had only lived, she could have come here. She could have helped with the babies and gone for nice walks around the estate. She’d have been as right as ninepence.
Mrs. K appears to be thriving though. Lady Debo clipped me a photograph from a magazine when Bobby married the Skakel girl. It looked like a big fancy affair, and Herself was in a hat the size of a cartwheel, all eyes and teeth for the cameras.
Well, she never was one to sit around and mope. “Pray for the dead, work for the living” is her motto, and she’ll never have an idle moment, the way they have Bobby and Teddy lined up for high office behind Jack. Out on the stump she’ll be, shaking hands and banging the drum for her boys. That’s more up her alley than visiting graves. Anyway, I’m here to do that.
Hope still grumbles.
“That’s the Cavendish section,” she says. “They had no business putting an outsider in there. No offense, but they should have put her up the other end or took her home.”
Walter says, “Nay, Hope. She is home. Her people live in hotel rooms. Nora’ll tell you. And she’s only in the spot Lord Billy should have had so she’s not putting anybody out.”
When you have charge of a nursery you grow eyes in the back of your head and ears that can hear a bat squeak. You know where they all are and what mischief they’re up to before they’ve hardly thought of it themselves. That’s why I like the Easter Morn blooms best, or the Ave Marias. They’re pale, like coconut ice, easy to pick out from a distance. So even from here I can see where she lies. Every time I take the pig bucket down for Stalin, I say to her, “I see you, Kick Kennedy. Your old Nora’s got her eye on you.”
Author’s Note
This is a work of fiction. While many of the characters in this novel are historical figures, many others, including the nanny, Nora, are fictional. The incidents and dialogues portrayed are also products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real, even though they are based broadly upon historical events.
About the Author
LAURIE GRAHAM is the author of nine novels, including The Future Homemakers of America and Gone with the Windsors. She lives in Venice, Italy.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
ALSO BY LAURIE GRAHAM
FICTION
The Ten O’Clock Horses
Perfect Meringues
The Dress Circle
Dog Days, Glenn Miller Nights
The Future Homemakers of America
The Great Husband Hunt
Mr. Starlight
Gone with the Windsors
NONFICTION
A Parents’ Survival Guide
A Marriage Survival Guide
Teenagers: A Family Survival Guide
Copyright
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING KENNEDY. Copyright © 2008 by Laurie Graham. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition JANUARY 2008 ISBN: 9780061970030
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com
The Importance of Being Kennedy Page 32