The Importance of Being Kennedy. Laurie Graham

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СКАЧАТЬ because there ain't any such thing.’

      But Eddie Moore was on the payroll, and Mrs Moore was expected to be on call too, in case Herself got the urge to go down to Sulphur Springs for the waters and we had any catastrophes in the nursery. It was through Mrs Moore we first got wind of the move.

      She said, ‘How will you feel about leaving Boston, Nora? You'll miss your sisters, I'm sure.’

      Fidelma said, ‘Is it Hollywood we're going to? Are we going next door to any fillum stars?’

      She said, ‘No, no, not Hollywood. That's not a fit place to raise children. You're going to New York. My husband's down there right now looking for a suitable property.’

      Fidelma had been to New York. She'd travelled there with the first family she worked for.

      She said, ‘You'll love it, Nora. There's railways rumbling in the sky and railways rattling under your feet and eateries that stay open all night and shows with tunes you can sing. Not like this dead-alive hole. Still, I wish we could have gone to Hollywood. I might have got myself discovered.’

      Mrs Moore was right, up to a point. There was one sister I was sorry to leave.

      Margaret was expecting again. I'd have liked to be around to give her a hand, and there was little Val too. I loved to go and see him on my day off. Three's a grand age. Old enough to walk and not break your arms any more, and too young to break your heart.

      Me and Margaret were always good pals. Edmond hung around with the Donnelly boys, used to go fishing with them and rabbiting. Ursie preferred her own company, and Deirdre was away with the fairies. The wind would whine in the chimney and she'd say, ‘Do you hear the angels singing?’ And if you got out the checkerboard to give her a game she'd say, ‘Budge over, Nora. Saint Bridget wants to sit there.’

      They say she's happy in Africa, love her. Maybe they all hear angel voices over there.

      Ursie said, ‘New York is a wonderful opportunity for you. I'll give you a list of museums you must go to. You see, you're drawing the dividend of loyalty. Your Kennedys can't manage without you. Just like me and Mr Jauncey.’

      Ursie and her Mr Jauncey. He was all she ever talked about. How she kept his appointment book and remembered every little thing for him, even his wife's birthday. How he was the most respected lawyer in Boston and trusted her to see all his papers.

      ‘I'm privy to all kinds of delicate things,’ she used to say, ‘but of course I'd never speak of them.’

      Margaret'd say, ‘Oh go on, Ursie, it won't go no further than these four walls. Tell us about one of his murders.’

      ‘Mr Jauncey,’ she'd say, ‘is not that kind of lawyer. Mr Jauncey is corporate.’

      She was first at her desk every morning and the last to leave at night. She said he called her his ‘office treasure’.

      Margaret said, ‘Has he ever asked you to be any other kind of treasure?’

      ‘Don't be coarse, Margaret,’ she said. ‘Mr Jauncey is a member of the Harvard Club.’

      She coloured up though, so I reckon Margaret had touched a nerve.

      I said, ‘No, but you must like him. What if Mrs Jauncey was to pass away? What if he made you an offer? You know all his little ways. How many sugars he takes. Or do you like being an old maid?’

      She said, ‘Mr Jauncey doesn't take sugar. And I'm certainly not an old maid. I'm a personal and private secretary, I'm a member of the altar guild, and I get a very generous bonus at Christmas.’

      Well, but what does a Christmas bonus buy you when you've to go home to a boiled-egg dinner for one?

      Margaret said, ‘You're a fine one to talk about old maids, Nora Brennan. Thirty-four and you spend your nights off playing Wincey Spider with my Val. You ought to be over Jimmy Swords by now.’

      I was over Jimmy Swords the minute I saw how hard his eyes had turned.

      I said, ‘I get offers.’

      I did too. There was the Dawsons' driver, in Naples Road. There was Mitch, who taught the boys sailing up at Hyannis. I had my moments. But I had my seven Kennedys to consider too. I wasn't going to get silly in the head over some man and throw all that away.

       ANOTHER LITTLE BLESSING

      Mr Kennedy said, ‘I've had it with Boston, Nora. A man can't do business in this town. Folks here have money but all they do is take it out of the safe-box once a year, count it and then put it back. Well, the hell with it. It's time for a change.’

      We moved to New York in the summer of 1927 but there weren't any railways rattling under our feet or theatre lights like Fidelma Clery had said there'd be. We were out in the country, in a big rented house in Riverdale. If you stood on a chair at my bedroom window you could see over the treetops to the Hudson River. We had lawns and flower beds and neighbours you never saw because they went everywhere by motor car. I don't believe anyone in Riverdale ever snubbed us. New York folk were too busy to care what line of business Mr Kennedy was in or where we went to Mass. But Mr K always seemed to think people were looking down on him. He always had to make the point.

      ‘I wasn't one of those trust-fund milksops,’ he'd say to Joseph Patrick and young Jack. ‘Everything I've achieved, I've done by my own brains and sweat. I started off a poor barkeep's son.’

      ‘The bollix he did,’ Danny Walsh used to say. ‘His old man had a motor car when most of the Irish didn't have shoes.’

      For once Danny Walsh had it about right. Old Mr Kennedy did have a nice house in Winthrop and a respectable reputation. Mayor Fitzgerald might have been the one mentioned in the dailies all the time, but it wasn't always the kind of mention decent people would be proud of. I never heard any gossip about old Mr K.

      We moved in August but it was October before I even saw the city. When you had a night off you couldn't walk out the door and jump aboard a tram like you could in Brookline. I could have been back in Ballynagore for all the entertainment there was in Riverdale. The only thing to do was cadge a ride into Yonkers with Danny Walsh and go to a soda fountain but the trouble with Danny was he was liable to make himself cosy at the Piper's Kilt saloon and forget to bring you home.

      They were busy days anyway, and I liked that. We had a thousand things to do, getting the children settled and ready for their new schools. And we had Bobby to contend with, the most bad-tempered baby I ever knew. He was born looking peeved and he didn't improve, scowling out from his stroller with that cross freckled little face. I've never worked out what rubbed him up the wrong way so early in life.

      Herself wasn't much better either. She was expecting number eight so the heat was getting her down and she missed the little bit of company she'd had in Boston. Father Creagh coming to tea. Seeing His Honour every week and hearing all the goings-on among the pols. She kept ringing for me to go to her room and there she'd be on the daybed making more lists. Get books on the history of New York suitable for an eleven-year-old. Try Band-Aids on Kick's fingernails to stop her nibbling. Ask druggist if Euny is old enough to take Pepto-Bismol. She wasn't even interested in her fashion magazines, she was feeling so swollen and dowdy. СКАЧАТЬ