Page 41 of An Invitation to the Kennedys
‘Oh, but I was, I assure you!’Brigid thought how she, in Kick’s place, would never have admitted such a thing.And how disarming it was that this the girl ’fessed up so cheerfully.‘Then I asked myself, what’s the very worst that could happen?Maybe I use the wrong knife, or turn up in the wrong gown, or say the wrong thing in that game you English play, where questions like “How do you do?”aren’t supposed to get an answer.’She burst out laughing.‘And I decided, I can live with those things.’
‘I can’t believe you care about any of that.’
‘Well, I guess you’re right.I don’t really.My mother, though – she does.Ever since they went to stay at Windsor Castle with the king and queen, which by the way, don’t you know, she describes as “the fifth best weekend of her life” – well, she cares a very great deal that I shouldn’t disgrace myself, or the family.’
‘Only fifth best?’Brigid couldn’t bring herself to sayweekend.‘What were the others?’
‘I don’t exactly know, but certainly a visit to the Vatican and an audience with His Holiness must come first.’Kick spoke so unselfconsciously that it took Brigid a moment to realise she wasn’t joking.Imagine mentioning something so mortifying as your religion – especially if you were Roman Catholic – so casually like that!
‘Here we are,’ she said, knocking politely on the door of the Yellow Room.
No answer.
‘You need to knock louder than that,’ Kick said.She hammered briskly on the door with her knuckles.‘Who is this Elizabeth, anyway?’
‘Oh, you’ll see,’ Brigid said on a gurgle of laughter.
Chapter Twenty-One
Maureen
‘Mrs Kennedy – Maureen, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava.’Chips, as she knew he would, lingered on her title, playing it out to its full length.How Maureen disliked those hosts who mumbled it, running out of steam somewhere around the end of ‘Dufferin’, leaving ‘Ava’ to fend for itself.She held out a hand graciously.
The ambassadress took it politely.‘Please, call me Rose.’She wasn’t at all what Maureen had expected – or hoped for.Where was the blousy, red-cheeked woman, the worn-out mother of nine?This woman was cool and chic, tiny in her buttery yellow silk, with an elegantly brittle jawline that spoke of ruthlessness and self-control.
‘Nine children,’ Maureen found herself saying, and not at all in the way she had meant to say it, with a laugh, as though it were something too absurd to be credible – almost, she thought crossly, she had sounded admiring.‘How do you manage?’
And Rose, instead of throwing off the question as Maureen would have, answered seriously.‘Like every mother, you want them to be morally, mentally and physically as perfect as possible.’
Maureen thought about her own ambitions for her children – that they would survive childhood.That the girls would be pretty.That Sheridan would be good at games.‘Of course,’ she said.
‘I always thought,’ Rose continued, ‘that if you bring the oldest one up right, the rest will watch and copy.My son Joe Junior has a great sense of responsibility and a great sense of the family.’She talked about the duty towards their young minds, the importance of early discipline, never being late – ‘in our house, anyone who is late for meals goes without’ – but then, too, the need for freedom, ‘and plenty of fresh air and sports,’ she finished.‘All my children play football, and tennis, they swim and dive and sail.You cannot have a healthy mind without a healthy body.’
Maureen made a face.Behind Rose, Honor raised a sympathetic eyebrow at the crassness.Bodies, really; must she?
But Duff, who had been almost silent so far, looked up in interest.‘Tell me more,’ he said.‘Do even the girls play football?’
‘They do.And each has their own sailboat.’
‘How do you keep them from competing with each other?’Duff asked.
‘But I don’t.That’s the point.They are always in competition with each other.’
‘Girls and boys?’Duff sounded sceptical.
‘Yes indeed.Kathleen’ – she said it with a long aaa sound,Kaaathleen– ‘can hold her own with any of her brothers.Indeed, Young Joe and Jack and are quite in awe of her.’
‘There are no differences between my sons and daughters,’ the ambassador said complacently.‘They are all Kennedys.’
‘You have an elder daughter, do you not, Mrs Ambassador?’Maureen asked.
‘Rosemary,’ she agreed.
‘Are her brothers not in awe of her?She is not here, I think, is she?’Maureen looked around, as though Rosemary might be tucked away behind a chair or table.There was a strange little silence then.
‘Rosemary is delicate,’ the ambassador said.
‘So,’ Maureen swooped, ‘the extremes of healthy competition are not for all your children?’She looked from the ambassador to his wife but neither would quite meet her gaze.Beside her, Duff put a hand on her arm.
