Page 89 of An Invitation to the Kennedys
‘You’re pleased, aren’t you?’Honor said.
‘Rather.Isn’t it lovely when the men are away?’She stretched her legs out into the sun.‘And the Americans.And the young people.Honor, do you think we might have drinks out here?’
‘Elizabeth, it is scarcely noon.’
‘That is the downside, of course,’ Elizabeth said.‘Without Chips, one is left to your tender mercies.And they aren’t so very tender.Who cares if it’s “scarcely noon”.Don’t be so middle-class,’ she complained.
‘Oh, very well.Kill yourself with drink if you must.What’s it to me?’
‘Precisely.Now, watch Duff follow the tray.Once he sees Andrews and the cocktails, he’ll be out like a shot.’
But Duff didn’t appear.Andrews, ever a mind-reader, came and deposited a jug with slices of orange and a ruby-coloured mixture with the bitter, herby smell of Campari, to which Elizabeth helped herself.Doris and Honor both declined.Elizabeth had a second glass, and still no Duff.‘It must be a worse row even than I supposed,’ she said happily.
‘Why so pleased?’Doris said.
‘You’d be pleased too if, your whole life, Maureen was always in front of you – better, richer, happier.Like a hare going around a greyhound track that you can never catch, no matter how fast you run.And always – always!– flaunting it so that you knew her happiness grew on yours, fed off yours, grew stronger as yours grew weaker.’
‘But why so personal?That’s just Maureen, surely?’
‘All those Guinnesses,’ Elizabeth insisted.‘Not you, Honor, but the others.You might think it’s not, but itispersonal.Even my wedding – especially my wedding – poor bit of a thing that it was—’
‘Hardly!’Honor said.‘Quite the social event.’
‘It was alright, until Oonagh thoroughly eclipsed it by having her own, barely a week later, in the same church—’ Her voice took on a whining tone.
It was a tale – pitiful, irrational – they had heard before.‘Everyone gets married at St Margaret’s,’ Honor tried to say.
‘—and the most lavish wedding of the season.But even that I didn’t mind, until Maureen took such pains to point it out to me – all the ways in which Oonagh’s wedding was better than mine.At least Oonagh’s marriage to Philip came a cropper too,’ she said.
‘Don’t be cruel, darling, it doesn’t suit you,’ Honor said.‘I know it is not how you really are.’
‘And it’s not really the wedding, is it?’Doris asked after a minute in which she had watched Elizabeth smoke furiously, finish one cigarette and start another with an angry snap of her lighter.
‘Of course not.’Elizabeth shrugged.‘I can’t even pretend to myself that it is.Maureen married the man she loved, and so did I.And now, eight years later, she has three children and the man she loves is still in awe of her, and what do I have?Nothing.Nothing at all.No children.No money.Pelly and I don’t talk.We barely lasted four years.The constant rows about money did for us.’
‘Not just money, from what I heard,’ Doris said.
‘Money,’ Elizabeth reiterated firmly.‘Imagine the misery of trying to scratch a living?Never, ever more than half above water, liable to drown at any time.Knowing that every time my parents saw me, they knew I would ask for a loan.Or if I didn’t ask, that they would feel compelled to offer, and I would say yes, because I couldn’t afford to say no.Endless hopeless jobs in nightclubs, in hotels, in a dress shop.’She shuddered.
‘Hardly Maureen’s fault,’ Honor said loyally.
‘Maybe not, but it became intolerable.To be constantly comparing myself and my poor scraps with her abundance.’She shook her head, then picked a shred of tobacco from her top lip.‘So yes, when I hear Maureen and Duff fight, there is a part of me that is simply thrilled.’
It was, Doris reflected, awful.And yet, the awfulness was really in how much Elizabeth must mean it.It was one of the few serious things she’d ever heard from her.
‘I say,’ Elizabeth said then, eyes gleaming suddenly, ‘what’s this I hear about you being out all night, Doris?And being caught sneaking in at dawn …?’
‘You should really turn your talent for intrigue to better use, Elizabeth.You’re barely up, haven’t seen a soul as far as I can tell, and already you know everything.’
‘One picks things up,’ Elizabeth said vaguely.Then, ‘I think I’ll walk down to the village.Another afternoon hanging around here, waiting to see what exertions that Kennedy girl forces us into, I cannot bear!’
‘You’d better change,’ Doris said.‘You do know you’re still wearing your pyjamas?’
‘My pyjamas,’ Honor corrected automatically.
‘Yes, I’m aware,’ Elizabeth said with dignity.‘I am not a complete fool, you know.’
‘Not a fool at all, Elizabeth, that’s my point,’ Doris said.‘Why don’t you come with me to Berlin?I’m sure you could be useful.’
