Page 45 of An Invitation to the Kennedys
‘Not Rosemary?’
‘Rosie is different,’ Kick said.‘The dearest girl alive, and the one we all go to when we are unhappy or in trouble, but she doesn’t take part in the discussions so much.She dislikes arguments and cannot be made to see that a disagreement is just that, not personal.She cries if the boys are too hard on her, and tears always make Mother angry, so we have learned to leave Rosie out of it.’
It was more – far more – than she usually said about Rosemary, and still not enough to fully explain how much she worried.There was a part of her that knew her mother wouldn’t wish her to reveal even that much.More, even, there was another part of her that felt the sharp sting of disloyalty at putting into words the things about Rosie that made her different – as though to say such things made her seem less a Kennedy.
But Brigid’s face was so sympathetic, her expression so warm, that Kick had been borne along.And Brigid seemed to understand that she had said enough.‘What about the younger ones?’she asked, skilfully changing the subject.‘Surely they don’t debate too?’
‘Oh yes.Even the little boys – Teddy and Bobby – give as good as they get.’
‘I worry you will find Kelvedon very dull,’ Brigid said.‘For we are not at all like that.’
Kick shook her head, smiling.‘Maybe not, but with you it’s all hidden,’ she said.‘We are all out in the open and even quite blunt, and no one needs to wonder for very long what it is that someone thinks or wants.Here, everything is a mystery.How can that be dull?’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Maureen
Maureen looked over to where Brigid and the Kennedy girl were sitting a little apart – the Kennedy girl was barefoot and had her feet curled up under her.Brigid sat on a footstool beside her.Both were laughing at something, oblivious to everyone else.Maureen could see how much Fritzi wanted to approach them, and how he cast around for some excuse that would allow him.
‘May I offer you a cigarette?’he tried.But that was no good.
‘My mother doesn’t allow it.She says I am too young,’ Kick answered, with a quick look at Rose.
‘I don’t.’That was Brigid.‘I find I cannot bear the taste.’And they went back to their private laughter.
Maureen remembered what it was like to be that age.How interesting one was, to everyone, as they strove to understand who one might marry.How interesting one was to young men, who strove to understand if one might marry them.Or, in the case of a different kind of young man, how much fun one might be, without there being any talk of marriage.
She missed it, Maureen realised.Missed the hot spotlight of being centre stage.Once you were married, well, that was you settled.Unless you were to go about bolting in the way Oonagh had.The way Elizabeth had.Even then – no one cared very much for one’s second marriage.And if you chose to behave well, to stay married, then something of dullness clung to you.You no longer had the capacity to surprise.
It was that, more than anything – the feeling of being, no longer, a main player in the performance of her life, but rather a supporting part – that preoccupied her.No wonder she filled her parties with bowls of fake vomit, disguises and other practical jokes, she thought gloomily – so much of the natural excitement had receded, slipping away like the tide.It was that, too, that made her call out to Fritzi, ‘Come and sit by me,’ patting the sofa.And when he did, ‘They tell me you have been at Cambridge?You must tell me all about it.’
She bent the full force of her charm upon him and watched, gratified, as it began to have an effect.Soon he was leaning closer, talking more, sharing his impressions of England and how it differed from the Germany he had grown up in.Like that – animated by memories and the effort of comparison – he was, she decided, less of a bore.Rather sweet really.He squinted and frowned and wrinkled his perfect features trying to remember, looking human rather than divine, and was the better for it.
The prince was embarked on a story about hunting wild boar that seemed complicated – like all hunting stories, except that really, they were simple – and Maureen pretended to follow it so as to flatter him.She looked up and found Duff was watching her.He caught her eye and gave a quick smile.A sympathetic smile.Sympathy for what?she wondered.For her?She wanted to fling her glass into the fireplace and watch as the broken shards flew about the room, cutting and slashing where they landed.
Duff went back to talking intently to the ambassador, and she knew that was how he would be: talking, talking, as though he alone could persuade Joe Kennedy to act against all the shrewd instincts of his selfish heart – there was no hiding that from Maureen, who recognised self-interest where she saw it – and throw his lot in with Duff and Churchill, with the few who believed that England must stand up to Germany at any cost.Her husband was a romantic, a patriot.How she loved him for it, and despised him.
‘Yes, and in the end you killed it,’ she said, moving irritably in her seat.Fritzi looked surprised, then hurt.‘All hunting stories end the same,’ she added, standing up.
‘Actually, the boar got away,’ Fritzi said with dignity.
But Maureen didn’t stay to listen to him.She went to poke the fire, shivering exaggeratedly until she was certain Chips was paying full attention to her.
‘Why do you invite these people?’she hissed.‘I would never have come if I had known who would be here.’
‘But you knew,’ he said.‘You knew exactly.In any case,’ slyly, ‘I see your husband is having a rather jolly time.’
They both looked to where Duff sat with the ambassador.Both had large glasses of brandy and were seemingly wrapped in a pocket of space all their own, talking in low voices, heads inclined towards one another.They looked, she thought, separate to the rest of the room.Different to it in substance and density.Maureen felt the silliness, the emptiness of everything even more keenly.
‘I can’t believe you don’t smoke, Biddy,’ Elizabeth said loudly then.She was a little behind everyone, like a train running late, puffing to catch up.‘I don’t know what I’d do sometimes without a gasper.’
‘Have another drink?’Maureen said nastily.
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Elizabeth said cheerfully.‘Chips, ring the bell, darling.Don’t be mean.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
Honor
