The Importance of Being Kennedy

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Still, he was so tied up there he didn't even come back for the burying of his own father. I'd have thought they could have kept the old feller on ice until Mr K had time to attend, but Mrs K said it wasn't necessary. She said it was time Joseph Patrick learned to represent his daddy on certain occasions and his grandfather's funeral was a very good place to begin. He was bought a new black suit from Alexander's. Only fourteen but he was already a head taller than his mammy, quite the young man when he offered her his arm and walked her to the car. I told Mr K when I saw him.

I said, ‘Young Joe did you proud. And my sister wrote me from Boston. She said there was a very big turnout for the funeral.’

‘So I heard,’ he said. ‘And I wish I could have been there, but I couldn't leave town. It's dog eat dog in the movie business. If you turn your back for five minutes those Jewboys rob you blind.’

Herself went off to Paris, for culture and shopping she said, and she was hardly out the door before Miss Swanson came visiting. I thought it was highly irregular, and Jack didn't like it either. He stayed out in the bay in his sailboat after everybody else had come in, and he had a monkey face on him when it was time to go in to dinner.

I said, ‘What's eating you?’

He said, ‘How come Mother has to go to France just when Dad's come home and we can all be together for a change? What kind of a family is this, anyhow?’

Miss Swanson was very nice. She remembered all the children's names, and she went along to the movie-star club Kick and Rosie and little Nancy Tenney had got up to swap photographs and act out scenes from the movies they'd seen. She climbed the ladder up into the attic over Mr Tenney's garage to say hello to Nancy and sign her autograph book, like a regular aunt might have done. But it still wasn't right that she was in the house when Mrs Kennedy wasn't.

Mr K took her for a ride through town in his Rolls-Royce but according to Gabe Nolan nobody paid them any attention. If people in Hyannis had money, they never flashed it, and most of them wouldn't have walked to the foot of the stairs to see even Tom Mix. Kick was film-star crazy though. That's where all her pocket money went. Rosie used to save hers to send to the missionary nuns and Euny just counted hers and then put it back in her piggy-bank, but Kick's went on movie magazines the minute the money was in her hand, and then she cut them up for photos of Douglas Fairbanks or Miss Greta Garbo to thumbtack to the wall.

Young Joe and Rosie both went away to school that autumn. It had been decided that Rosie would never catch up at the day school so she had to be boarded, at a special place for slow learners. I knew that wouldn't last five minutes. It was out beyond Philadelphia, and it could have been the far side of the moon for all that meant to Rosie. She sat with the map Mrs K had showed her, with her finger on the place, looking and looking at me, to see if I could save her from having to go.

Euny kept saying, ‘You're lucky. I wish I could go away to school.’

But all Rosie wanted was to stay home and help me look after baby Jean.

‘I'll try more hard,’ she said. Well, she managed one term at the school but she came home for Christmas such a wreck even Mrs K hadn't the heart to send her back. She said there were other places that might be more suitable and God knows we worked our way through a long, long list of them before we were done. I could never see why it was such a crime for Rosie to be slow. Apart from Euny they were none of them great scholars and Mr Congressman Jack still can't spell for taffy.

Joseph Patrick went off to Choate School in Connecticut that October. He was raring to get there, although Herself would have liked to see him go to a good Catholic school. She was worried he wouldn't be allowed to go to Mass.

Mr K said, ‘Of course he'll be allowed. I'll make sure of it. The main thing is I want my boy in a school where there's no funny business. You can spend a pile of money and end up with a sissy, but they guarantee there's none of that at Choate.’

It was a top school. The kind top families had sent their boys to for generations. I wondered if they wouldn't look down their noses at a Kennedy, especially if Mr K started throwing his money around and turning up in his gold limousine, but the thing about young Joe was, he was one of those people who expected everybody to like him, and if they didn't he just chose not to notice. And he went right along with whatever his daddy said he must do. Like the first term when he wanted to take horse-riding lessons but it would have meant he couldn't go out for the football team and Mr Kennedy put it to him, the football was more important.

He said, ‘Think of it this way. You can make useful friends playing in a team, and be good enough to win your football letter when you get to Harvard. Horse-riding you can do any old time.’

And when it was explained to him that way he didn't argue. He knew everything he did was part of a plan. First Catholic President of the United States. He'd been hearing it since the day he was born.

Mr K had come home from California in time to drive Joseph Patrick to his new school, and he wasn't going back.

Gabe Nolan said, ‘He's had enough of the Jewboys. He's branching out again. And do you know who his new best pal is? The Governor's boy. Jimmy Roosevelt. They've got a few little deals on the go.’

Mr Franklin Roosevelt was the new Governor of New York.

So we went from never seeing Mr K to having him home every night, and the children loved it. Herself was hardly there because if she wasn't in Paris buying gowns she was sightseeing in New Mexico or off to Maine to take the waters, and I can't say she was greatly missed. She was away the week the markets crashed, visiting with the Fitzgeralds in Boston.

I was bringing the children home from school, pushing Jean in her bassinet. Kick and Euny and wee Pat who'd just started in the first grade. Fidelma was at home with Bobby because he had the croup and I remember telling her I'd seen three limousines turn up driveways, bringing their gentlemen home in the middle of the working day. Very unusual. Then Mr K came in and went directly to his study. He didn't come up to the nursery and he didn't eat dinner that night. All he had was a glass of warm milk. I could hear his great booming voice on the telephone until very late.

It was in all the dailies the next morning, of course, how stocks had fallen and people had been ruined. I didn't understand it then and I still don't. If you've money in the bank, how can it turn worthless overnight? But Danny Walsh took it upon himself to explain it to us. According to him it wasn't actual dollar bills that had gone west, it was other pieces of paper, promises to pay, and notes about who owned what, complicated arrangements that were how men like Joe Kennedy made their fortunes. And lost them.

Danny said, ‘We'll all be let go. Your Man'll be shining shoes by Christmas.’

But as was often the case, Danny Walsh was wrong. There were a lot of ruined men in the neighbourhood but Mr Kennedy wasn't one of them. He'd gotten out of whatever it was had dragged them all under and put his money in safer places.

Fidelma asked him straight. She said, ‘Are we all right, Mr K? Only if you'll be cutting back I'd like to know sooner than later.’

He laughed. He said, ‘Do you think we can't afford you? No, you're still in a job. Stick with Joe Kennedy, see? A blind man could have seen this crash coming. The only ones who lost are the fools who held out for the top dollar.’

But they weren't the only ones who lost. Everybody who depended on them was hurt too. Businesses closed, people were laid off. A lot of the houses in Bronxville and Riverdale were put up for sale, and when they didn't sell they were just closed and shuttered and left empty. You didn't see so many limousines any more. Children were taken out of school, just disappeared without any goodbyes. Sometimes it felt as if we were the only survivors. And Danny Walsh changed his tune.

‘Mr Kennedy's nobody's fool,’ he kept saying. ‘I knew we'd be all right. He'd have sold his own mother if the market was right. Provided we keep on the right side of Herself we've all got jobs for life here.’

A driver, maybe, but nurserymaids lose their usefulness after a few years. I didn't think I'd be with them for much longer. Sometimes, on the way from school, Kick would say, ‘I wonder if there'll be a new baby in the nursery when we get home today?’ Even when she knew her mammy was away to Virginia for a little holiday she'd still say it.

But there wasn't. Not that year, nor the next.

Fidelma said, ‘No, but I reckon we're still pretty safe, Brennan. Now that Herself is gallivanting all the time she needs us more than ever. We've a good few years till Jean's all growed up and there could be a new bunch of them on the way by then. The next generation. They'll keep us in the attic till we're needed for the grandbabies, like they used to do at the big houses back home, remember?’

It was a happy thought. All my Kennedys coming of age, getting married and having ten babies apiece.

I said, ‘Well, bags I get Kick's babies, or Rosie's, if she's allowed any. I'll leave the boys to you.’

I could imagine how it'd be with the boys. They'd all get their wives chosen for them. Little replicas of Herself.

I said, ‘Eight of them. Just think of it. Even if they only have two or three apiece, that's still an awful lot of Kennedys. They'll be everywhere, like a rash.’

Fidelma laughed. ‘Kennedytown,’ she said. ‘The old man'll buy a whole street of houses and even the dogs'll have ginger fur and big white teeth. See if I'm not right.’

THE SACRED DUTIES OF A WIFE (#ulink_e73ab931-b8af-5274-8a81-bfb564e35d23)

They say there were terrible sights to be seen in the city after the stock market tumbled. Businesses boarded up, men in good suits hanging their heads and waiting in line for a bowl of soup. Ursie said it was the same in Boston. Middleton's closed down for one thing, because nobody could settle their accounts, which put Margaret out of work with two young mouths to fill and Frankie Mulcahy's chest not all it should have been.

I send her what I can spare, Ursie wrote, and I hope you'll do the same. Thank goodness you and I had the sense to tie our fortunes to men like Mr Jauncey and Mr Kennedy. Mr Jauncey is as busy as ever with so many liquidations, and we seem to read more and more about your Mr Kennedy. These are the people who will ensure America survives and comes back stronger than ever.

It was true it would have to be some kind of calamity for lawyers not to do well out of it, so Ursie had no worries. But it tickled me to think of Joe Kennedy as a lifeguard, helping to keep America afloat and pull her safe to shore. He watched out for his own, plain and simple, and if your name wasn't Kennedy, he'd have the lifebelt off you before you knew it and sell it to the highest bidder.

We were spared seeing the worst of it out in Bronxville, tucked away in our nice leafy garden. There was nobody panhandling on our street, no breadlines. Mrs K's packages still arrived from Paris, with gowns she didn't have any opportunity to wear, and Gabe Nolan still drove Mr K around in the Rolls-Royce. He'd prospered. He didn't have factories or warehouses full of stock. He just moved around quietly, picking up all those worthless bits of paper. Then he waited for their value to climb back and while he was waiting he took up with Mr Roosevelt, the State Governor. When we went up to Hyannis that summer you'd never have known there was anything wrong in the world. The sun seemed to shine every day and even Herself was in a good humour. There were no more visits from Miss Swanson and Constance Bennett's photo went back up on Kick's bedroom wall. Jimmy Roosevelt and his wife came to stay, and a wonderful singer, Mr Morton Downey, moved into a house just around the corner, so some evenings, instead of the cowboy picture shows, they'd have a little musical soirée. The help all sat with the kitchen door open so we could hear him singing in the parlour.

’Tis the last rose of summer Left blooming alone. All her lovely companions Are faded and gone.

Every day at Hyannis was filled. They all had a tennis lesson in the morning and sailing practice in the afternoon, with special instructors brought in, if there wasn't a regatta for them to race in. There was one called Mitch who came two summers running, big strong shoulders and skin tanned like glove leather. He was pretty sweet on me. He took me out in a sailboat one time and I thought I'd surely die, so after that we just used to go to the dunes after dark. I wonder whatever became of Mitch.

Mr K organised swimming contests for the children too, and running races and games of football, but Mrs K had no part of any of that. She liked to swim, but just gentle paddling about, with Danny Walsh to accompany her. They were a sight to see, walking down to the water's edge together, Herself in a big rubber helmet to save her hair from the salt, and Danny in a woollen swimming costume, legs on him like a grey heron. His job was to bob around close by, in case a big wave swept her off her feet.

Fidelma said, ‘When you answered that advertisement, Danny, I'll bet you never thought the job would mean taking your trousers off.’

He said, ‘Flexibility, Fidelma Clery, that's the answer to survival today. You can't just be a driver. Nor a nurserymaid, so you can wipe that silly smile off your face, Nora Brennan. Think how much more I'm worth to the Kennedys than you are. Driver, swimming companion, projectionist, handyman.’

I didn't care. I still wasn't going into that ocean.

There were all the outdoors activities, but that wasn't all. The older ones were expected to prepare for mealtimes too. Mrs K had a noticeboard nailed up for pieces she clipped out of the newspapers, conversational topics she thought they should know about, so they'd have something to say at the dinner table. It was for the benefit of Joe and Jack mainly, so they could decide what they thought about things and then listen to what their daddy had to say, but Kick and Euny were allowed to join in as well. Not Rosie though. She was excused from conversationalising, and from the sailing lessons.

Mrs K had her up to her room every morning for two hours instead, to try and bring her along with her reading and writing. It was no vacation for Rosie. She'd have liked to sit in the dunes and play with her dollies, I know, but Mrs Kennedy said she'd never improve if she didn't push herself. And when her lessons were over she still didn't get any peace. The others would drag her off to play French cricket and yell at her when she dropped the ball. Eunice was the only one had any patience with her. She'd take her out in her dinghy once in a while and show her how to tack and trim the sails and Rosie would come back with a smile that'd light up a Christmas tree.

‘I've been crewing for Euny,’ she'd say, pleased as punch. ‘She said I did pretty good.’

She was a help with the little ones too. She'd feed Jean for me and push Bobby on the swing. Sometimes he'd get mixed up and call her ‘Mother’. He was a quiet one, Bobby. Always studying the floor, but then he'd up and do something to surprise you. I was sitting on the lawns one time with wee Jean on my lap when he came running up from the strand. He pushed a seashell into my hand, said ‘Love you’ and ran off again, come over all shy. A Scotch bonnet shell. I have it still. And that was the summer he punched Joseph Patrick. Young Joe had taken the book Jack was reading and wouldn't give it back, taunting him with it, so Bobby landed him one with his little fist, and when Joe laughed at him he burst into tears and went and hid.

But he could be a grouch too. Fidelma took to him more than I did. She says he's still the most prayerful of the lot of them, and he did used to screw his eyes up tight when he was saying his rosary at bedtime. You'd have thought that would have endeared him to Herself, being the big churchgoer, but she was starting to feel her wings by the time Bobby came along. And none of them ever got paid the attention Joseph Patrick did.

Things were so sweet between Mr and Mrs K that summer she even had her way over Jack's next school. He'd been intended for Choate, following in young Joe's footsteps, but he was sent to Canterbury instead, a proper Catholic school, right up by Candlewood Lake. He was in and out of the school infirmary all that first term, what with the batterings he took on the football field and his sore throats and stomach aches, so Mr K said we'd all better go to Florida for the Christmas holidays, so Jack could get his strength up. Blue skies and palm trees on Christmas Day. Fidelma swore she'd died and gone to heaven. Ursie reckons Deirdre gets weather like that all the time in Africa.

But Florida didn't do Jack a lot of good. He'd only been back at Canterbury five minutes when he was rushed to the hospital with his appendix, and after his recuperation he never went back. Mr K said he was to have private tutoring at home to make up what he'd missed and then go to Choate in September. He said Mrs K could choose whatever schools she liked for the girls but from now on his boys were going where he decided, to mix with the crème de la crème. That was how Lem Billings ended up part of the family.