Page 58 of An Invitation to the Kennedys
By every comparison she had learned she was not ‘first rate’.And so she decided she wouldn’t bother so much with the way she looked.Instead, she had decided, aged maybe thirteen, she would try to have fun, as she phrased it to herself.By that, she meant she would play tennis and not worry about how much she perspired.She would swim and boat and not think of what the wind and salt did to her hair.She would never be too tired to dance, too sophisticated to sit out a game of catch.Whatever fun was going, she would grab it.
Because after all, she thought – for all her imperfections, people liked her.Men liked her.Rosemary, who was far more the ideal of beauty, did not have what she had.Other girls, prettier than Kick, didn’t have it either.
And yet these men – her men – were her measure, whether she approved of their ways or not.They were ‘Man’, by whom all other men were instinctively judged, and usually found wanting.Until now.Until Billy.It was their voices, their standards, that made her so uncertain of Billy’s regard for her.As though she heard one of them, Joe perhaps, with a snigger, ‘Now that she’s so keen there’s nothing for it but to turn and run a mile,’ followed by the laughter of Jack and her father, all three united in despising any girl who made the mistake of beingkeen.Had she, she wondered?She knew she had.She also knew that it wasn’t in her to behave any other way.She knew there were games around this stuff, she’d heard the men in her family often enough to know – well – what the rules were.But she couldn’t, she told herself.She wouldn’t.And until yesterday, with Billy, she had never felt that she should.He had seemed keen too, and not bothering to hide it.And then that terrible film.How strange, she thought, if he was indeed driven away, it wasn’t her keenness – unforgivable to Kennedy men – but rather her father’s politics and way of pushing that had done it.
‘You must be tired, Kathleen,’ Fritzi said, coming over to her then.
‘Not a bit,’ she said.‘I’m only wondering how quickly the tournament will begin, and if there is time for a quick swim beforehand.’
‘How energetic you are,’ he said.
She couldn’t tell if he were impressed or disapproving.His face was schooled to give very little away.His lapse yesterday by the pool, when he had shut his eyes and looked suddenly tired and defenceless, was uncharacteristic.
‘My daughter is never tired,’ Rose said fondly.Kick tried to take her mother’s arm, but Rose stiffened instantly.‘Let me get you a hair grip,’ she said, stepping away and reaching into her bag.‘Your fringe is quite untidy.’
Chapter Thirty-One
Maureen
Maureen knew Honor wouldn’t tell Duff to come up to her, but she also knew that he would arrive of his own accord.She had been asleep by the time he came up the night before – had known she would be, seeing the rate at which he was drinking – and still asleep by the time he got up that morning.But she was ready when she heard his tap on the door.
The house had quietened a little by then.Breakfast must be over, and the servants had moved on to the next phase of their days.
She was ready for him.She had bathed, brushed her hair and let it loose around her face.She had half-closed the curtains again, wondering with a laugh if Honor would notice and what she would think, and was sitting up in bed when she heard his knock.
‘I’ve brought you the newspaper.And a cup of tea.’
‘You are kind.Come and sit with me?’She patted the side of the bed closest to her.
He came and sat, the bed shifting under his weight.‘Breakfast was a bit like boarding school,’ he said, putting a cigarette to his lips.His hand shook slightly and his eyes were rimmed with red.She stretched out a hand and took the cigarette from him before he could light it and dropped it onto the floor.Then, kneeling up in bed, she leaned forward to kiss him.After a moment, he leaned back, pulled away, then reached out and patted her face with his hand.
‘I’d better get on,’ he said.‘I must go and change.The tennis.’
‘Never mind the tennis.’
‘Oh, but they do mind.Brigid has done a plan.It wouldn’t be fair.’
How often had she done it herself, Maureen thought when he was gone.Pretended something wouldn’t be fair – to the servants, the children, even her dogs – in order to get out of what she didn’t want to do without direct confrontation.Why did they all pretend so hard?
With Duff gone, she lay back down in the bed, hating the faint damp that had already gathered under the feather bolster, anticipation of the day’s heat.She knew she should get up, dress, turn back the bed, but Duff’s departure had left her without the energy.
She knew he loved her.Knew he desired her.She could see it in the way he looked at her.It was in his voice, the touch of his hand.Had even been in the rage she could drive him to in those terrible fights of theirs, that were so often followed by love-making almost as intense and violent as the fighting.Was that what was missing?she wondered now.Was it that the rows had been necessary?A prelude?Surely not.Except that when she thought of it, the two things had dwindled at the same time.Her resolution not to allow the furious arguments, not since she had discovered she was pregnant with Sheridan, had held good.There had been no more of those violent exchanges between them, no broken glass, no objects thrown.
But since then, it seemed that he avoided her, so subtly that it was only now she looked for it that she saw a pattern.In public he was courteous, attentive, if anything more so than before.But in private, when it was just the two of them, he sat always at a slight distance, and shifted out of her way if she came too close to him.Almost, she thought, as though something about her smelled bad.
What was she now to him?A companion and hostess?Someone to further his political career and bait traps for men he wished to entice?She would not be those things, she thought furiously.She would not.Better to be the person who drove him to white-hot rage, than one who brought about only a dull shrug.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Honor
Even the light was hot, Honor thought.Yellowy, almost tobacco-coloured, it made the day seem older than it was.She crossed the garden, passing banks of summer flowers in a strict colour code of blue and white, blue and white, alternating like the stripes on a sailor’s top.Nowhere did she see the riot of pinks, yellows, oranges that characterised the gardens at Elveden so that there, in high summer, it was as though a series of small fires had broken out and blazed cheerfully in borders and flower beds.Chips thought the profusion inelegant, but Honor missed the pretty chaos of colours.
She was late, the others already gathered at the court, and she hurried the last bit, heels sinking into the tufty grass.The court had been freshly marked and the white lines that ran up and across it were crisp as the tennis dresses Brigid and Kick wore.Elizabeth had on a pair of shorts that were too big for her; Honor’s, presumably, although she didn’t recognise them.
Fritzi’s fellow, Albert, had been drafted as umpire and someone had dragged a high-backed rattan chair out from the house for him to sit in.There at the centre of the court, he looked, Honor thought, not nearly as embarrassed as he should.
Lawn chairs had been arranged in a row, backs to the house, facing the players.The farthest two were occupied already – the ambassador and Mrs Kennedy sat in the only bit of proper shade, afforded by a chestnut tree whose large, wide-spread leaves cast a kindly protection from the hot sun.The remaining chairs were shaded by parasols, but inadequately.Honor sat down beside Maureen, disliking the long drop into the low-slung chair, already wondering how she would get out of it without having to heave herself about awkwardly.She tugged at the parasol to try and shield her face from the heavy sunlight.On the other side of her, Fritzi – impeccable in white flannels – and Elizabeth, who already had a glass of something on the go.
