The Importance of Being Kennedy (14 page)

He was moaning and groaning, swore he wouldn’t be well enough for school because he’d a stomach ache and a sore throat and his legs felt wobbly. The banana sandwiches revived him though, and the chocolate milk. We listened to
The Laughing Policeman
three times on Kick’s phonograph and then he went to bed like a lamb.

They’d had photos taken to commemorate the occasion and Herself was thrilled with them. She had nothing but nice things to say about Her Majesty, but I know Rose Kennedy. The reason she gazed and gazed on those pictures and had copies made and sent to every mortal soul she’d ever met in her life was that they made her look younger than the Queen. Younger and slimmer and more vivacious.

“Ten years older,” she kept saying. “And I’ve borne seven children more than Her Majesty. But we can’t all be blessed with a brisk metabolism.”

Jack came home for the summer vacation and Mrs. K went off to Washington, to make sure everything was in place for Their Majesties’ visit. We loved it when she was gone. It was like ripping off your corsets.

Me and Fidelma would take turns walking Bobby and Teddy to Sloane Street. Teddy was always dreaming up ways to cut school. Monday mornings he’d be hobbling about with a bone in his leg or croaking with a pretend sore throat. One of his new pals at Mr. Gibbs’s had had his tonsils out and Teddy thought living on nothing but ice cream for a week sounded just the thing. Bobby was different. He went off to school without any trouble. It was just the cricket he hated.

“The rules are stupid,” he’d say. “And the ball’s too hard. It can really hurt.”

Our other job while Mrs. K was in America was to keep things on track for Eunice’s debut. She had tea parties to attend and fittings to go to for her gowns. Peach tulle for her own party
and ivory for her Presentation at the Palace, and she wanted everything to be perfect. As a rule she went around looking like Raggedy Ann. She’d as soon have had a tennis party, with everybody wearing canvas pumps, but being presented was something else. There were rules about everything. How long your veil had to be, how many feathers in your hair, the color of your gloves. It was the kind of thing that worried Euny until she was sure she’d gotten it right.

The balls had started already. Langrish House, Brayfield Court, Queen’s Deerhurst. The newspapers said there had never been such a Season. The boys were the handsomest bunch ever, the girls the loveliest, the parties the most lavish, and the ball that topped them all was the Spencer-Churchill girl’s at Blenheim Palace. Jack went with Euny. Danny Walsh drove them and Fidelma went as lady’s maid.

She said, “You never saw anything like it, Nora. They must have had six hundred there, could have been more, pouring drink down their throats and eating like there was no tomorrow. And then there was all the help, and the bands, and special dance floors that had been put down. What they must have spent. It’s a wonder this country’s not had a revolution.”

Danny said, “They did. Only it went off at half cock. Typical.”

We saw a lot more of Billy Hartington while Mrs. K was in America, but he always dropped by with a crowd of friends. Then Kick was invited to another house party at Compton Place and the question was, who would go with her? Kick wanted me. But I’d promised to visit with Rosie that weekend. She was going to show me the classrooms at Belmont and then we were going to go into Watford to get tea and buns and see Irene Dunne in
Love Affair
.

Kick said, “Oh please. Rosie’ll understand. You know why I want you to come. It’s not for me. It’s for you. You know why.”

I said, “I do not know why. And I can’t break a promise to Rosie.”

She said, “What if I tell you a certain driver is keen to see you?”

I said, “I don’t know anything about any drivers.”

“Oh Nora,” she said. “What a whopper. What about camellias and love letters on night tables?”

It must have come from the Blundell girl’s maid.

Fidelma said, “You should see your face, Brennan. You’re the color of pickled beets.”

Kick said, “I just don’t know how I’ll face Mr. Stallybottom if I have to step down off that train without you.”

I said, “Stallybrass. And I’m too old for such silliness.”

Fidelma said, “God in heaven, go, why don’t you. He might be your last chance of a man without a white stick. I’ll go to Belmont. It’s all the same to me and Rosie won’t mind.”

Everybody always said “Rosie won’t mind,” but they didn’t see how she looked forward to her little treats. They were all taking off, traveling and making new friends. Pat would be the next one. And Rosie was left behind. She wanted to go out dancing with London Jack and get married and have babies, but all she was safe for was playing pickup sticks with Teddy. And she did mind.

So even though I did go to Compton Place, I felt ashamed of myself every inch of the way, for letting Rosie down on account of a silly man. And then he wasn’t even there to meet us from the train. Lord Billy collected Kick and Sissy Lloyd-Thomas and Ginny Vigo, but the maids all had to wait, sun blazing down and not a spot of shade, till a station wagon could be spared and when it came it didn’t have Walter Stallybrass at the wheel. I was crushed in the back with the bags, nobody speaking to me, and by the time we got to the house Kick had already disappeared, gone
out for a bicycle ride in her traveling suit and left a tap running in the bathroom and towels on the floor.

I’d just got back from laying out her dinner gown when he came tap-tapping at my door. Five strawberries on a saucer.

I said, “I’m in a bad mood.”

He said, “Me too. They fetched me down here to be an extra driver and they’ve had me hanging curtains all afternoon. How have you been?”

I said, “I’m grand as long as I’m not running around being a lady’s maid. It’s not what I’m used to. I like my charges young enough that I know where they are and what they’re up to. And I don’t like sleeping in strange beds.”

He said, “I hoped it’d be you they sent this time. I thought to bring you a camellia. I had a dark red double ready for cutting, but it wouldn’t have lasted the journey so I picked you the strawberries instead.”

They were still warm from the sun.

He said, “Well then.”

I said, “How’s your sister?”

“Champion,” he said. “She’s champion. I shouldn’t really be up here. Maids’ quarters. I’ll get shot.”

I said, “You’d better be off then.”

“Aye,” he said. “I’ll see you at dinner, though?”

I said, “I don’t want any talk.”

He said, “There’s always talk, Nora, in a big house. Tonight they’ll be talking about Lady Vigo’s brother getting sacked from Oxford University. And why Lord Bagnell’s selling off his grouse moors. They won’t be talking about you and me.”

I said, “There isn’t any you and me.”

He said, “But there could be. You’re a very handsome woman, Nora Brennan.”

And then he ran off down the back stairs.

There must have been something in the sea air that weekend. Things had changed between Kick and Billy too. I could tell it when I was doing her hair before dinner on the Saturday night. I was chattering on to her about Euny’s debut and she wasn’t listening to a word I said.

I said, “What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing,” she said. “What exactly is the difference between our church and the one the Devonshires go to?”

I wasn’t the one to ask. I knew they didn’t pray the rosary and they didn’t think anything at all of the Holy Father, but there had to be more to it than that.

I said, “All I can tell you is you shouldn’t be thinking about it. There are plenty of boys who’d make you a suitable sweetheart, but Lord Billy isn’t one of them.”

“Sure,” she said. “I was just wondering.”

I said, “Well, don’t wonder anymore. Your Mammy would have a fit.”

“I know,” she said. “Unless Billy converted, of course. Then she wouldn’t mind.”

I said, “Yours wouldn’t but his would. Now stop this, before you get your heart broken.”

She said, “Don’t worry. It was just a crazy idea. Anyway, a Marquess’s wife is called a Martian or something and who’d want to be one of those.”

Perhaps if Jack had been there, or young Joe. Perhaps if I’d been sharper with her. But I had a few things of my own to wonder about. Every chance Walter Stallybrass got he wanted to walk me round the kitchen gardens.

I said, “What am I doing down here, if people ask?”

He said, “I’m showing you the black fly on the broad beans. Would you ever think of getting wed? If we did, there could be a position for you at Chatsworth.”

I said, “What position? They’ve no babies.”

He said, “No, but they will have. Any road, there’s other work. Laundry. Kitchen work.”

I said, “What, work under your sister?”

He said, “All right then, not kitchen work. But sewing. There’s always plenty of work for sewing women. And we could get a cottage.”

I did quite like him. It was nice having a man tuck your hair behind your ear. But I had my Kennedys to think of. When you’re in service it’s not just a job, it’s your home too, and your family, if you’ve had charge of the children.

He was forty-nine and never been married. He said, “I did have a sweetheart. I was walking out with Mary Fantom before the war, but she didn’t wait for me. She went off to Sheffield to do war work. Ended up marrying some old pawnbroker. Well, I were in no state when I come home. I had mustard gas on my chest. And now I look back, I don’t know as me and Mary were that well-suited anyhow. I reckon she were too interested in brass. She wouldn’t have been contented on what I make.”

I said, “What makes you think I would?”

He said, “Well, if you’d wanted to be Mrs. Vanderbilt you wouldn’t have stayed a nursery maid all those years. Anyhow, if you turn out to be a scold I can still enjoy looking at you. Your chin’s a bit lopsided, did you know? And you wouldn’t be half as bonny if it were perfectly straight.”

I said, “I’ve been twenty-two years with the Kennedys.”

He said, “I know. You keep saying. But will you think about it? Getting wed, I mean. Then when you come north for His Lordship’s birthday party, you can give me your answer.”

I said, “As far as I know we’re not coming north.”

“Oh you’re bound to be,” he said. “In August, for Lord Billy’s twenty-first, belated. They didn’t do anything for him at the time
because the old Duke had just died. But now the mourning’s finished they’re having a circus and a ball and all sorts. You’re sure to be coming. If you ask me, your Miss is Number One with Lord Billy.”

Well, I knew we had a villa to go to in France, same as the previous summer, and I doubted Herself would allow Kick to travel all the way back to Chatsworth to be Lord Billy Hartington’s Number One. But I didn’t tell him that. I didn’t have the heart. His face was so bright, as if I’d already said yes.

I said, “I’ll think about it.”

“Do, Nora,” he said. “I’m in earnest, you know? I wouldn’t have spoke up if I weren’t.”

I didn’t know what to think. Surprises always make me feel giddy. Specially the touch of a man.

I said, “You’ll find me a slow thinker.”

“Oh aye,” he said. “Well, you’ll find me a patient waiter.”

And that was how we left it.

It seemed like everyone was summering in Cannes. The Duchess of Alba, Miss Marlene Dietrich, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Mr. and Mrs. K were out to dinners and parties every night, and so were the youngsters. Jack was supposed to be working but I didn’t see much sign of activity. He had to write a paper, a kind of composition, to finish his studies, and Mr. K had said if he made a good enough job of it he’d have it turned into a book.

He said, “Dad says a published book is a great thing to have if you’re going into politics.”

Kick said, “What a draggy old way to spend a summer. How come Joe hasn’t had to write one?”

He said, “Well, I guess Dad thinks Joe can get by on charm and good looks. I’m going to need a few bonus features. Like Jack Kennedy, the intellectual.”

I said, “Like Jack Kennedy who wears odd socks. Jack Kennedy who can’t spell for taffy. How can you write a whole book?”

He said, “It’s a lot easier than you’d think. I had to write this
paper anyway and Dad’s got people who can pad it out a bit, tidy it up, check the facts, correct the spelling. It’s a great idea. When it’s published I’ll give you a signed copy.”

Teddy wanted to know would he get money for it.

Jack said, “I guess not. It won’t be that kind of book. We’ll just send copies out to useful people.”

Kick said, “All those words. How can you think of what to say?”

I said, “I could think of plenty to say. I reckon I should write a book. Jack Kennedy as I knew him. My life with the Kennedys, before a one of them learned to close a door or slide a drawer shut.”

Bobby said he thought I bettern’t. He said, “Mother would never allow you to do that.”

Kick was invited to Lord Billy’s birthday as Walter had predicted, but she didn’t argue when her Mammy said it was out of the question for her to attend. We were in the South of France and that was where we were to remain.

Mrs. K said, “There’ll be plenty more parties in the fall.”

But she was mistaken, of course. Adolf Hitler put paid to that.

Kick settled down though, and she seemed happy enough to swim and play tennis and go shopping with Pat and Rosie.

She said, “August was a crazy time to have a party. I’m going to send Billy a wire and tell him so. And I’ll bet it rains. Any messages for Walter Stallybottom?”

I said, “It’s Mr. Stallybrass, and don’t make fun of your elders.”

After Neville Chamberlain went to Munich we’d stopped talking about whether there’d be another war. Just before we’d left for Cannes we’d had pamphlets delivered, reminding us about gas masks and blackout precautions and the difference between the
Take Cover siren and the All Clear, but they’d all been pushed into a drawer. And Mr. K had come with us to France. If he’d thought war was in the offing he’d have stayed at his desk, I’m sure.

But then the calls started. Two or three a day at first, and cablegrams arriving, too, and then round about the third week in August there was a day when he hardly left his rooms. He was talking on the telephone to the President. It was Jack who told us what had happened. The Russians had come to an agreement with Germany and left everyone else out in the cold.

He said, “Dad says it looks like war. He’s flying back to London first thing and I’m going with him.”

Mr. K came up to say good night to Teddy and Jean.

He said, “You’ll have to close up the villa and follow me to London. Ted, you and Bobby are going to be the men of the house. No idling. I want my team on its toes and ready for action.”

Teddy wanted to know if he could have one last swim before we packed and would he have to carry a gun.

Mr. K said, “No, no gun. We’re not at war yet. Just be a good boy and do everything you can to help Mother.”

Fidelma caught him on his way downstairs. She said, “Is it very bad, sir?”

“Bad enough,” he said. “If it’s war and America goes in, I have two boys old enough for the draft.”

Mrs. K was worried about shortages, so she stopped off in Paris for a day’s shopping and then flew to Croydon. The rest of us caught a boat train, lucky to get places. Everybody was cutting short their vacation because the latest was that the German army was on the move, lining up along the frontier of Poland.

Kick was very subdued.

She said, “When the boys talked about volunteering and going to fight and everything, I didn’t think it’d really happen.”

I felt the same. I’d thought as long as all those clever people in government kept talking and sending messages and flying to meetings we’d be all right. But all of a sudden it seemed Adolf Hitler was determined to have a war. Danny Walsh said it was just another flap.

He said, “Remember last summer, how they were digging trenches in the park? It all blew over and it’ll be the same this time. Poland’s nothing to do with us.”

Fidelma said, “Where is it exactly?”

“Near Switzerland,” Danny said.

But Euny said it was between Germany and Russia, and when it came to facts learned out of a book you’d trust Euny over Danny Walsh anytime. She’d been given the brains intended for all nine of the Kennedys.

And Danny was wrong on another count. It wasn’t just a flap. The minute we stepped off the train in London you could tell it was something serious.

Everybody was carrying gas masks. There were sandbags along the front of Prince’s Gate, and queues at Bourne and Hollingsworth to buy blackout material. Even Teddy could feel the difference, spinning out his questions when it was bedtime.

“What did Germans look like?” he wanted to know. “Would there still be school if a war started? Could a bomb knock down a whole house?”

Mr. K drove to the aerodrome to collect Mrs. K, and when they got to Prince’s Gate she came straight upstairs to see me and Fidelma.

She said, “The Ambassador has taken a house in the country while this grave situation continues. We’ll begin the move in the morning.”

Fidelma said, “What about their schools?”

“We’ll see how things develop,” she said. “Rosie will go back to
Belmont as planned. I see no sense in disturbing her routine. But the most important thing now is to get the rest of the family out of London. I don’t want them alarmed, though. There’s to be no talk of gas attacks or air raids, especially in front of Teddy.”

The house was out in Radlett, not far from Rosie’s school. Wall Hall. It belonged to a friend of Mr. K’s, Mr. J. P. Morgan Junior, but he hardly ever used it. It was perfect for us. Big grounds, so you didn’t feel cooped up, and yet handy for London. Beautiful yellow stone, with little turrets and mullioned windows. I don’t know why we hadn’t stayed there all along. It was a great deal nicer than Prince’s Gate. Mrs. K could have had a grand old time there playing Queen of the Castle if the circumstances had been better. As it was, we had one golden week. September 3, everything changed.

It was a Sunday. We were all going into town for ten o’clock Mass, but just as we were leaving, Mr. K was called to the telephone. Lord Halifax wanted to speak to him. We sat with the engine ticking over until Mrs. K told Danny he was wasting juice. Then we sat in silence. I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t have the word “war” in it.

Mr. K came loping out eventually.

He said, “Rosa, go to Prince’s Gate directly after church. And tell the Father to hurry things along. The Prime Minister’s broadcasting to the nation at eleven fifteen. People are going to want to get home in time to hear him.”

She said, “Perhaps we shouldn’t go to Mass?”

“No,” he said, “take the children. It’s important. Just don’t stay for the Dismissal. Jack, when you get out of church come straight round to Chancery. Joe’s going to ride with me now. Danny, when you’ve dropped them off, go to Prince’s Gate and make sure the wireless receiver’s working.”

It was such a grand morning. It seemed too fresh and sunny
for anything bad to happen. There was hardly anyone at the Oratory and Father Minns served Mass faster than anything I ever saw in Ballynagore. With Father Hughes you could be in and out in twenty-five minutes, before he got his bad hip, but Father Minns beat that the morning war broke out.

We could hear the bells ringing down at St. Mary Abbot’s when we got to the house. Everybody hurried up to Mrs. Kennedy’s sitting room and the staff came in, Danny Walsh hovering there beside Herself, in case the wireless signal went wonky and an expert was required.

Mr. Chamberlain said he’d warned Germany they had till eleven o’clock that morning to stop threatening Poland, and if they didn’t promise to pull back their troops, we’d be at war.

He said, “I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.”

He sounded like a tired old man. He said we’d be fighting against evil things but right would prevail. “God bless you all,” he said, and Fidelma Clery wasn’t the only one who had to wipe away a tear.

Kick said, “What happens next?” and the very next minute the air-raid sirens started.

Mrs. K made us all put on our gas masks and sit on the floor, away from the windows. London Jack and the pantry boy went up to the roof to watch for bombers. They said the barrage balloons had gone up over Westminster and St. James’s, but there was no sign of any planes. A false alarm. It was a shock though. Even Teddy wasn’t doing his usual larking about. He stuck close to Mother until she got a call from Mr. K. He was taking Joe and Jack to Parliament to hear the Prime Minister speak and he wanted her along too.

“Cook, dear,” she said. “Make a little lunch for the children.
Nora, I expect we’ll drive straight back to Radlett this afternoon. There’ll be arrangements to be made.”

Kick shot me a look. She’d never said anything about wanting to stay on, if it came to a war, but her face said it all. I went down to the kitchens to help Gertie Ambler and she followed me.

She said, “We’re all going to get sent home, aren’t we?”

I said, “Of course you are. To be kept safe from German bombs.”

She said, “Maybe Daddy’ll let me stay if I say I want to do war work.”

I said, “You’re dreaming. You can do war work in New York, isn’t that what he’ll say? Fund-raising. Red Cross parcels.”

She said, “All my friends are here.”

I said, “Eighteen months ago you didn’t know a soul here. Is it Billy you’re thinking of?”

“Not only Billy,” she said. She was picking at the crust on the bread.

“Well, actually,” she said, “we are kind of engaged.”

And the first terrible thought that came into my mind was that Adolf Hitler and his war might just have spared us a big drama.

She said, “I know, I know, don’t look at me like that.”

I said, “You may think you’re ‘kind of ’ engaged, but your Mammy and Daddy’ll have none of it and neither will Their Graces, so if you’ve an ounce of sense you won’t even bring it up.”

She said, “I know Mother’ll fuss, but she just needs to get used to the idea. She really likes the Devonshires. It’s just the church thing, that’s all. And Daddy’ll understand. He’ll be able to get me a position somewhere. You know, typing at Army Headquarters or something. Take a top-secret letter, Miss Kennedy!”

I said, “You can’t type.”

She said, “You’re splitting hairs. Okay. I can make tea.”

She couldn’t, of course.

They came back from hearing Mr. Chamberlain’s speech and Mr. K looked like a specter. As the butler took his coat he said, “It’s the end of the world, Stevens. It’s the end of our world.”

Then he had the whole family assembled to hear what had to be done.

He said, “You’ll go back to the States, but tickets are hard to get because everybody else has the same idea, so you may have to travel in twos and threes.”

We all knew the real reason though, after the Germans torpedoed the
Athenia
, with women and children aboard, American citizens who weren’t even in the war. He was afraid if we all sailed together we might all go to the bottom of the ocean and that’d be the end of the Kennedys.

Minnie Stubbs dropped by, and Susie Frith-Johnstone, both abubble about volunteering. I thought Kick might say something about her own crackpot scheme, but she didn’t. Only that war sounded like it might be fun.

Good girl, I thought. Keep your head screwed on.

Our whereabouts at Wall Hall was meant to be a secret. An important ambassador can’t live out in the sticks where any madman can walk up to his front door. But Billy Hartington knew where to find us. We were just back from Prince’s Gate when he came looking for Kick. The Guards’ Reserves were being called up, so he’d come to say good-bye.

Then Danny Walsh came into the scullery. He said, “Nora Brennan, you’re wanted. At the tradesman’s door.”

Fidelma and Gertie Ambler were all ears.

Walter Stallybrass was out on the doorstep, mangling his driver’s cap like it was an old cleaning rag.

He said, “War’s broke out.”

I said, “I’ll bet I knew before you did. How did you know we were here?”

“Lord Billy made inquiries,” he said. “Are they leaving, your Kennedys?”

I told him what had been decided.

He said, “Don’t go, Nora. Stay here. Did you think about what I said? We can get wed.”

I said, “I can’t. How can I? I’ve got obligations.”

“Nay,” he said. “You’re not obliged. How old are those kiddies?”

Teddy was eight, Jean was eleven.

He said, “They can’t expect to keep everybody on. There’s a war on now. Everyone that can be spared’ll have to do war work, till we’ve beat them Germans.”

I said, “We’re Americans. America’s not at war.”

“Oh,” he said, and he took a step back. “Is that how you see things?”

It wasn’t, not really. I felt sorry for England. It wasn’t as if they’d started it. But I didn’t want to be bothered with another war. I’d been supposed to marry Jimmy Swords and it was the war that scuppered that. I wanted everything to stay as it was.

I said, “My head’s spinning, Walter. I got up this morning, put my best hat on and went to church, and now all of a sudden the Germans are coming and you’re talking about getting married.”

He said, “It’s not all of a sudden. I asked you when you were down at Compton Place and you didn’t turn me down. You said you’d think about it. Well, thinking time’s up. Why not grab a bit of happiness? There’s hard times ahead, Nora, and I reckon we could be a bit of comfort for one another. Stay here. We can volunteer together.”