The Importance of Being Kennedy
Read The Importance of Being Kennedy Online
Authors: Laurie Graham
A Novel
To Jeremy Magorian,
Venice’s very own Mrs. Thrale
I happened to be in London in January 1970, when I got a call from my New York office to say my aunt Nora had died. We were just finishing up the photo shoot for a big piece on platform shoes for
Sassy!
magazine, so I was able to get away to Derbyshire in time for her funeral. Darling Aunt Nora, who started life three to a bed in Ballynagore, had a duke and a duchess at her Requiem Mass. If Aunt Ursie had lived to hear that, she’d have popped her corset bones.
I didn’t really get to know Aunt Nora till she ferreted me out in Saks Formal Wear in 1947 and stood me lunch. She had a nifty figure and beautiful skin for a woman in her fifties. She was wearing an old-fashioned tweed suit, I remember, petrol-blue, fully lined, with a great corded buttonhole detail. Very classy.
“It’s one of the perks of working for a lady who keeps up with trends,” she said. “When the rest of the world won’t be seen dead in a garment, it can always be passed along to the help.”
We hit it off right away. She’d been a distant figure when I was a kid. “Your aunt Nora’s with the Kennedys,” Mom used to say, and as we had another aunt, who was a nun in Africa, I pictured Aunt Nora in a grass skirt and the Kennedys as some kind of tribe. In a sense, I suppose I was on the right track.
Aunt Nora was a blast. I relished the letter that came every year with her Christmas card, her annual report on life as a gardener’s wife on the great Chatsworth estate of the Duke of Devonshire. “Another twelve months of ’tater peelings,” as she described it. She outlived four of the nine Kennedy babies she’d raised. When Jack was killed in 1963, she wrote me that she hadn’t watched the funeral. She said, “Stallybrass was glued to the telly all afternoon but I walked to Hassop and prayed the rosary till it was over. I don’t care for the telly myself. They tell you the same thing over and over. I don’t mind Walter watching it and I’ll sit with him for company, but I turn my chair the other way and get on with my knitting. Anyway, I kept the death watch over Jack Kennedy more times than the sands are numbered and I could have swung for him once or twice too, little devil that he was. It’s Mrs. Kennedy my heart goes out to now. This is surely too much even for that tough little nut to endure.”
Bobby Kennedy’s death, and old Joe Kennedy’s, she hardly mentioned. Her own health was failing by then, though I didn’t realize it. As her beloved Walter put it, “Nora were never one to skryke about her aches and pains.”
I asked him if she’d believed there was a gypsy curse on the Kennedys. There were a lot of stories about that, after Jack and Bobby.
“Nay, lad,” he said. “In fact it got on her pippin when folk brought it up. Nora always reckoned old man Kennedy didn’t need any gypsy curse to bring him calamities. He brought them
on himself, the way he thought he could buy the world, the way he pushed them lads into the spotlight.”
When I mentioned to Walter how I wished Aunt Nora had written about her Kennedy years, he shocked me with his reply.
He said, “But she did write about them. That first cottage we had at Edinsor, she sat at the kitchen table and wrote it all down in exercise books. She called it her ‘memoirs,’ said she were only doing it to stop herself going round the bend with nothing to look at, only sheep and trees. She liked the city best, you know, Nora. She only endured all this beautiful countryside for me, God bless her. Should you like to see her writings some time? They’re in the back of her tallboy.”
So Aunt Nora’s notebooks, with multiplication tables printed on the back cover and that old-lady smell of mothballs and dried lavender, came into my possession, and with them the story of how the Kennedy dynasty was planned and its legend created, step by careful step. Of how my aunt’s loyalty to the family extended even to assuming the Kennedy name when English country house customs required it. The story of the altogether very great importance of being Kennedy.
RAMON N. MULCAHY,
NEW YORK
1972
Herself came to the house at Smith Square. It was April 1948. She was meant to be going directly to Paris for gown fittings but then she announced she was coming to London first, to visit with Kick. Landed on us with all her bags and baggage as if it was the Ritz we were running. Now, I’ve seen Mrs. Kennedy walk away when her own child lay sick in bed, turn her back on him sooner than delay a shopping trip, so we knew she wasn’t coming for the pleasure of it. There was trouble on the agenda.
Walter had to have the car at the aerodrome by eight in the morning. Too early for Kick to get herself out of bed and go with him.
I said, “I’d have thought you’d make the effort. Go and meet her, get off on the right foot.”
“No fear,” she said. “Talk about being trapped in a confined space. It could feel like a very long drive.”
I was worried Mrs. K would start quizzing Walter about what had been going on, if she had him to herself. I said, “Just act dumb.”
“Nay, Nora,” he said. “I don’t need to act. When you’ve been driving gentry for thirty-five years dumb comes natural.”
It was about eleven when they arrived. Mrs. K looked as smart as a brass button, as usual. You’d never have guessed she’d been on an airplane all night. She walked right past me in the hallway, unsnapped the fox head on her stole, handed it to Delia and made straight for the drawing room, still wearing her little hat, one of those round wee chocolate box affairs with a bit of net veiling that came down over her brow.
“Kaaaaathleeen,” she started. “We are going to have a very serious talk.”
I don’t care how many elocution lessons she’s taken, she still has a voice on her that would clip a thorn bush. And it was something to see how that girl crumbled the minute she saw her Mammy. She was like a naughty child who knew she’d be getting the strap. It was all about her carrying on with Blood Fitzwilliam. It had finally dawned on Mrs. K that Kick wasn’t as worried as she might have been about her money being cut off if she didn’t stop seeing him, so she’d come in person to threaten her with the everlasting fires of hell. The lovebirds were in the country when the cablegram came, seeing his horses put through their paces on Newmarket Heath, but Kick came hurrying back to town as soon as she heard her Mammy was coming. She knew she was in hot water.
She said, “Mother can have my room. The guest room’s too small for her. Give my room an extra spit and polish. I want everything to be perfect.”
I said, “Then you’d better get yourself round to Farm Street and see Father D’Arcy, because the first thing she’ll want to know is, have you been to confession? What bedroom we put her in will be the least of it.”
She gave me one of her monkey faces. And that room of hers needed more than spit and polish. I’ve done my best with those children over the years but there’s not a one of them ever learned to hang up a jacket.
I said, “What will we do about dinners? Will you have company in while she’s here?”
She said, “If you mean Blood, no. He’s going to make himself scarce. Maybe I’ll invite Sissy though. Mother thinks Sissy sets the perfect example. Or maybe we should have tray suppers and I’ll read aloud from
Lives of the Saints
. I just want to stop her ranting till Daddy’s met Blood. He’ll talk her round. I think Blood and Daddy’ll really get on.”
I didn’t. No more than a pair of turkey cocks could be left in the same pen. Mr. K liked people he could order around and so did Lord Fitzwilliam. And as for anybody talking Herself round, the very idea was nonsense. There was only ever going to be one thing that would satisfy her, and that was for Kick to go home and marry a nice Catholic boy, if one could be found who’d overlook her history. I knew Kick would put up a fight but I was sure her Mammy would win the day and that’d be the end of that. Blood Fitzwilliam would be given his marching orders, Smith Square would be let go and so would we.
Well, then it started. All you could hear was Mrs. K’s voice.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Kathleen.”
“Perfect purity and self-control, that’s what you were taught at Sacred Heart.”
“After everything that’s been done for you, Kathleen Kennedy. Every advantage in life you’ve been given.”
The few bits I didn’t manage to hear accidentally through the keyhole I could guess. Promises of hellfire and damnation. The threat of being cut off, not just from her Daddy’s deep pockets. From the holy sacraments as well. As long as her Mammy was
calling her “Kathleen” I knew she was holding out. They’d had no lunch, not even a glass of soda taken in, and it got well past the time when Mrs. K usually takes her afternoon rest. Then things fell quiet. Herself came out from the drawing room and told Delia she was going upstairs to nap and wasn’t to be disturbed till five o’clock. Kick was asleep in an armchair when I went in, curled up in her stocking feet with a little sodden hanky balled up on her lap. Round one had gone to Mother.
Then it was my turn.
Delia said, “She’s rung for a glass of milk, Nora, to be taken up by you, most particular. Thank God. She frightens the bejaysus out of me.”
There she lay, waiting for me, in those old pink napping pajamas she’s had for a hundred years and frownies stuck all over her forehead, to smooth out any lines the morning’s shenanigans had brought on. She was a sight. You wouldn’t have known her for that bandbox little body that had walked in from the limousine.
“Nora, dear heart,” she said. Patted the bed for me to sit down like we were old pals. “What a to-do. Now, I need you to help me.”
So it was “Nora, dear heart” for the time being. But I’ve been long enough around Mrs. K to know you can be a “dear heart” one minute and on the bus with your valise and no references the next.
She said, “This is a very grave situation. Kathleen still talks of marrying this person. Did you know? Has she talked to you about her plans?”
I said, “As far as I know Lord Fitzwilliam didn’t get his divorce yet.”
“Well,” she said, “that’s something. I wonder how it’s being arranged. I wonder whether the wife could be persuaded to keep him. What do we know about her? Would she be interested in money?”
I said, “I believe she has money.”
She said, “I’m sure she could use more. It isn’t just the marriage, though that must be prevented at all costs. But talk can be very damaging too. I’m normally very attentive to these things, but I’m so far away, and then I was busy with Jack’s campaign. It’s difficult to manage these things from the other side of the world. You might have said something, Nora. You might have dropped me a little note. You’ve been treated very generously over the years. Allowed back on the payroll after an act of great disloyalty. I’d have thought at the very least you’d have had Kathleen’s well-being at heart.”
I said, “I thought Jack would have told you. He heard all about it when he was here last summer. I don’t see how it was my place.”
“Jack’s in office now,” she said. “He’s far too busy, though I’m sure he would have mentioned it if his health had been better. He came back from London with a tired liver. I had to find him a doctor and then get him back on his feet. It’s all been such a worry. And now this. If I’d known when she arrived at Palm Beach what she’d come to tell us, I’d have had Archie Spellman down to speak with her immediately. She wouldn’t have dared defy a Cardinal.”
There was a lot I could have said. I didn’t like Lord Fitzwilliam, “Blood” as his pals called him, and I was certain Kick could have done better for herself, but I know there’s no reasoning with the lovestruck. It was my opinion that if we left well alone it might not come to a marrying. For one thing he didn’t seem in any great hurry to get his divorce. In fact there were quite a number of people who said he wasn’t serious about getting one. Why would he go to the expense of lawyers when his wife didn’t seem to care who he saw or what he did? And they’d houses enough never to have to see one another. Obby Fitzwilliam was known to be a very devil for the drink but she had money, and a drunken
old bird in the hand might be worth a lot more to him than a Kennedy cut off without a cent. I thought if he dragged his heels Kick might tire of waiting for him, or that someone else would come along and catch her eye. Sure, half of London was in love with her. But I didn’t tell Herself any of that. I didn’t approve of what Kick was doing but that didn’t mean I had to do Mrs. K’s dirty work for her.
I said, “I’d just like to see her happy. She’s had enough sadness for such a youngster.”
Mrs. K said, “We’ve all had sadness. And if it’s happiness she wants she won’t find it by breaking every rule she was raised by. Associating with a married man. That’s not a path to happiness. And he’s a Protestant. A married Protestant! I can hardly think of anything worse. It’s her duty to set a good example, Nora, particularly now Jack’s in Congress. We’re all in the public eye, just as we were when we were Ambassador. What if Catholic girls start saying, ‘Look at Kathleen Kennedy. She does as she pleases, so we’ll do the same.’”
I said, “If she’s here in London I don’t see how girls in America will even know what she’s doing. If they’re interested in anybody it’ll surely be Euny and Pat and Jean. And I don’t see how it affects Jack. A congressman isn’t like a monsignor, and just as well. Jack’s no saint himself.”
“Jack doesn’t need to be a saint,” she said. “Boys are different. They have to be men of the world to get ahead. But women set the moral tone.”
I said, “Well, Kick’s twenty-eight years old and a widow and a Ladyship, so I can hardly presume to catechize her now.”
“Of course you can,” she said. “That’s precisely what you can do. It’s never too late. You disappoint me greatly, Nora.”
Then she closed her eyes, which is always her way of saying the conversation is over. That neat little foldaway face.
Four days we had of it. Threats and lectures and tears, and all the time I knew Kick was clinging to one silly thing her Daddy had said on the telephone. That if it could be shown Blood Fitzwilliam had never been baptized, then his marriage to Lady Obby wouldn’t count and he’d be free to take instruction and marry Kick in a proper Catholic church. It was all moonshine, of course. The Fitzwilliams weren’t the kind of family that would have overlooked baptizing their son and heir, but it was typical of Mr. Kennedy to dream up something like that, ducking and diving under the regulations until he found a wee hole to slip through.
I’ll say this for him though. He just wanted his girl to be happy. He knew nothing she did was likely to harm Jack’s prospects, nor Bobby’s, nor Teddy’s. He’d see to that. The boys were his affair and whatever happened, whatever trouble they got into or talk there might be about the family, he’d keep things on track for them.
Kick cried and begged but when it really came down to it she didn’t care what her Mammy did. She absolutely would not promise to give up Fitzwilliam. So Mrs. Kennedy had Delia pack her bags for the onward journey to Paris and the car was ordered to take her to the aerodrome. It was an ugly leave-taking.
She said, “I won’t stay another night in this house. You’ve fallen into bad company, Kathleen, and I rue the day we ever brought you to England. The Mothers at Sacred Heart laid out your path but you’ve deviated from it, and so deliberately, too. No one can ever excuse you; no one can say you weren’t taught right from wrong. Well, if you really refuse to acknowledge your errors I shall see to it you at least don’t ruin your sisters with your carrying-on. They’ll have nothing more to do with you. Don’t telephone, because they won’t accept your calls, and don’t send letters, because I shall have them burned. There’s nothing more to be said until you’re ready to repent.”
I was just standing there like an article of furniture, holding that horrible wrap with the fox heads dangling over my arm. It seemed to me I didn’t have a lot left to lose.
I said, “I never heard such a cruel thing. A girl needs her family, and the bigger the muddle she’s in, the more she needs them, and sure weren’t you the one always taught them to put family before everything else?”
“Nora Brennan,” she said. “You should have been let go years ago. I wouldn’t have kept you on, married in a town hall. Well, now we see what an influence you’ve been. Now we see it clear. I’ll pray for your soul, Kathleen. I can’t do more. Until you mend your ways I will not see you. You’ll be dead to me.”
She said it flat, with that darling girl standing right there. How does it sit with her now, I wonder, seeing the way things turned out. How many times has she wished she could take back those terrible words. Anyone might say a thing in anger, then wish it unsaid, but Rose Kennedy isn’t anyone. I’ve been around her long enough to know. For a woman who’s a Gold Star mother, she has a heart as hard as the hob of hell.