The Importance of Being Kennedy. Laurie Graham

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      There she lay, waiting for me, in those old pink napping pyjamas 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 love-struck. 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 catechise 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 baptised, 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 baptising 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 head 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.

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