CHAPTER 5
“Jack!”
Kick ran down the stairs at 14 Prince’s Gate and threw herself on her brother in an enormous hug. It was always a bit of a shock to see him after a long time away, and remember how golden he was, especially in the summer, how tan, how rakish the glint in his blue eyes. Through his rumpled travel suit, she could feel how thin and bony he was—the mysterious afflictions that had tormented his back and lungs since childhood were at work again. Mother would have many choice words about his characteristic lack of concern for his appearance and health when she returned from checking every detail of the Independence Day bash to be held at the embassy that night. But for now, right now, her brother was hers.
“Kick!” he exclaimed, embracing her in return; despite his skinniness, his arms felt strong around her.
She pulled away with a sisterly challenge on her face, and sang, “I said it fi-irst.”
“No rest for the weary, I guess,” Jack sighed with good humor. “All right, then.”
And assuming the familiar waltz position, they began dancing jig-like around the foyer, barking the rhymes with each beat.
“Jack,” she began.
“Hack,” he followed.
“Black.”
“Shack.”
“Rack.”
“Tack.”
“Mack.”
“Lack.”
“Uh . . . uh . . . track!”
“Knack.”
“Stack.”
“Thwack.”
“Pack.”
Jack opened his mouth for another rhyme and instead began to laugh, then cough. He backed away so he could cover his mouth with a hankie. “You win, little sister.”
“Are you all right?” she asked, her heart thudding from their dance.
He finished hacking and said, “I’m fine. All that sea air, you know, and now the fog. I hope Mother isn’t here to see me.” As usual, he didn’t sound worried that their mother might see him in such a state, but rather annoyed at what her reaction would be if she did.
Kick shook her head. Everyone else in the family had gathered around. Joe Sr. and Joe Jr. had followed Jack into the house, and all the other Kennedy kids plus Luella had rushed down when they heard Kick and Jack’s familiar rhyming dance. They hadn’t seen their brothers since Christmas, and hadn’t seen their father in weeks, since he’d gone to America for his namesake’s graduation from Harvard. In fact, the whole clan except for Rose was at that moment standing in the exact same spot, the foyer of Prince’s Gate, for the first time in nearly a year, and there was a raucous round of hugs and greetings and tickles and pokes and “Come here, let me show you this!”
Joy filled Kick’s heart as she hugged and kissed her father and Joe Jr., who looked handsomer than ever and utterly carefree now that he was finished with college, ready to embark on what he had always referred to as “real life.” He was darker than his younger brother, in looks and disposition. Ever the brooder, Joe Jr. had thick cola-colored hair he kept combed back, and his eyes were deeply set like Kick’s own. He smiled less easily than Jack, and sometimes Kick thought that made his smiles more precious to win. He smiled at her now, and enveloped her in a hug so much stronger than Jack’s that Kick felt more alarmed about her other brother. But the last thing Jack needed was a mother and sister nagging him about his health.
As she’d predicted to herself four months before when she arrived in London, Kick became all but invisible to her father with his oldest sons in the room. “Give them some space!” he shouted at the rest of his children, so that he could lead Joe Jr. and Jack on a grand tour of the house. The littler Kennedys trailed behind like eager spaniels, but Kick slipped away to her own room, where she could savor a little privacy before the big events of the day. Perhaps there would be benefits to her new invisibility, but still, she’d begun to get used to her father’s compliments and attention in recent months, and this slide back into her brothers’ shadow jabbed at her insides.
The next few hours were a chaotic sprint to the Fourth of July dinner at the Dorchester Hotel given by the American Society of London, to be followed by a party for 1,500 hosted by Joe and Rose at the embassy. There was no time for catching up, only bathing and freshening and throwing clothes and footballs down the halls in euphoric excitement. Somehow, under the sheepherder-like guidance of Luella, all nine Kennedy children—Joe Jr., Jack, Rosemary, Kick, Eunice, Pat, Bobby, Jean, and Teddy—all managed to make themselves presentable for the soirees. Together with their parents, they occupied three taxicabs that honked and shoved their way through London toward the festivities.
The Dorchester was festooned with American flags and red, white, and blue swags of every size, shape, and dimension. Sparklers crackled and men attired as minutemen drank ale. As the Kennedys entered, a big brass band wearing white linen jackets, stars-and-stripes bow ties, and white straw hats was playing an up-tempo “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
“Is this really England?” laughed Jack.
“Looks more like New Orleans to me,” agreed Joe Jr.
The two brothers shook hands and grinned so hard, their cheeks practically eclipsed their eyes, and Kick knew why: they had a running bet for how many women each of them would speak to that night, and likely another for who would bed one first. Kick sighed. Her brothers were NSITs. She didn’t like to think what Debo and the others would say about that. Tomorrow, she’d have to give her brothers a stern talking-to about which of her friends were off-limits.
Fortunately, it was mostly Americans that night. The Kennedys were seated with the Rockefellers, who were in town with their son David. Joe Jr. and Jack immediately set about grilling him for his knowledge of local haunts. Because of course Kick’s word as a girl wasn’t good enough—even though David gave them precisely the same advice about the 400 and Café de Paris that she had in the car on the way over. She rolled her eyes at them.
John Rockefeller had imbibed just enough of the freely flowing “Independence punch” to ask Kick’s father, “So, Joe, what are you planning to do about the Jewish problem? You must know from your recent visit stateside that they are very unhappy with the things Hitler is saying. Damned incendiary, I have to agree. Do you believe what he says? Take him seriously?”
“I think we have to,” Joe replied, keeping his expression a balanced mix of appreciation for his countryman’s concern and stoic belief that he was in the right. Kick watched Jack and Joe watching their father, as if they were memorizing images for a test. “Hitler is many things, and I think so far he is showing himself to be a man of his word. For better and worse. His opinion of the Jews in Germany is . . . unfortunate.” Joe frowned, letting just enough emotion onto his face that Kick could tell the subject was painful to him, though she’d heard her father get annoyed at the Jewish journalists over the morning papers many times.
“Rest assured,” Joe went on, “Lord Chamberlain and I are working on ways of getting the oppressed out of Germany. But I’m sure you’ll agree that peace between our nations is the essential thing. No one wants another war.”
“Wanting and getting are two different things,” warned John. “Be careful, Joe.”
“I can’t be anything else, can I?” her father replied. Jack nodded subtly.
Then, expertly, before anyone had a chance to utter another word on the uncomfortable subject, Rose swooped in: “I’ve read such wonderful things about your Sealantic Fund, Mr. Rockefeller. Please tell us all about its first beneficiaries.” Is that the extent of a woman’s role in a conversation like this? Kick wondered. To make everything pretty again? If so, her mother had certainly mastered it. But she couldn’t help feeling its triviality.
Leaning over, Kick whispered to Jack, “Which oppressed people was Daddy talking about?”
“The Jews,” he whispered back. “He wants to get some to America and some here to England.”
His answer had come so fast. “How do you know that?”
“We had a lot of time to talk on the boat.”
Of course their father had used that time to confide his plans to his sons. To educate and groom them. The last serious conversation Kick had had with her father was about the weekend she’d spent at Hatfield. She’d amused him with the irony that she’d been put in the Oliver Cromwell room to sleep and say her prayers. She had to figure out how to change that.
She needn’t have worried about her brothers. They fit right in with her new friends and set their less honorable sights on women several years older. In fact, Jack did such a first-rate job of disarming everyone that after one supper at Londonderry House, Debo’s mother Muv Mitford told her daughter, “Mark my words, someday that boy will be president of the United States.”
This report sent Kick into a fit of giggles. “Jack!?” she said to her friend. “Doesn’t she mean Joe? Surely the English of all people believe in primogeniture.”
Debo shook her head and said, “But she’s very aware that the Kennedys are not English. And come on, you must see that Joe’s more . . . sullen. Jack has such a light touch with everyone, and gets them to do everything he wants.”
“I suppose he does,” said Kick, unworried. Her father would likely be president first, anyway. He’d struck some sort of deal with FDR, and this ambassadorship was just a stone on that road.
It was Rosemary she was starting to worry more about.
Kick had just come back from a hot afternoon selling programs with her sister for a Tower Hill improvement cause, and was sitting on her bed massaging her legs, when Rosemary burst into Kick’s room, her voice dangerously shrill. “Why can’t I go?”
The obvious answer to Rosemary’s question was that she wasn’t going out that night because she hadn’t been invited to dine with the Duke and Duchess of Kent, nor had she been invited to attend Sally Norton’s ball afterward. But Kick knew that to utter such a truth out loud would be a kind of betrayal of the whole family. Her mother simply didn’t admit such oversights—for the same reason that she sent Joe Jr. and Jack to escort Rosemary to every single dance back home that she was invited to. Make sure she dances all night, boys! Kennedys should never be wallflowers.
“Honestly,” Kick said, hoping to distract her sister, “I wish I could stay home tonight after all we did this afternoon. I’m sure Bobby and Jean would love to watch a movie with you downstairs in Daddy’s theater.”
“I’ve seen all the movies already! I want to go dancing! Why do you get all the invitations? Everyone says I’m prettier.”
Kick swallowed deliberately and reminded herself not to take Rosemary’s slight personally. After all, her disheveled older sister didn’t look or sound pretty at the moment.
“You most certainly are the prettiest, Rosie,” said Kick, rising off the bed and gently approaching her sister to rub her back.
“Don’t touch me!”
Rosemary coiled her long fingers into her dark curls and started to tug forcefully, her wide-eyed gaze directed at the ground.
“Rosemary, it’s me, Kick. Didn’t we have fun together today? Let me take you to Luella and Bobby and talk about a movie. Clark Gable can cure any ill.”
“Don’t touch me! Don’t! Don’t!”
Rosemary was yelling and crying now, and Kick heard fast footsteps on the stairs and in the hall outside. She was expecting her mother, but it was her father who cradled Rosemary in his arms, leaning her head against his chest. “There, there, my darling girl. How can Daddy help you?”
Rosemary clung to her father and sobbed into his lapel.
Joe gave Kick a what happened? look, and Kick shrugged. One of those times.
Her father stood and patted Rosemary’s back, then hushed her into submission. No one else was as good at this maneuver as their tall, broad-shouldered father. As she watched him patiently sit with her sister, something cracked open in Kick’s chest and she felt like crying herself. She felt like a child. Why should she be jealous of this attention? She certainly didn’t want to be like her sister in order to get it.
Her mood improved at the Mountbattens’ penthouse, where everyone was in the mood to dance, and the feeling in the air was closer to that of a club than one of the staid debutante dances, even though this party was to celebrate Sally Norton’s presentation. Maybe the more relaxed atmosphere was because it was a smaller affair in a fashionable apartment looking down on the shimmery London streets. Or because of the Naughty Showgirls, an original and very strong cocktail the Duke of Kent was serving up. Or because the band specialized in swing. Whatever the reason, everyone danced that night. Big Apples, Lindy Hops, and the Charleston.
A little after midnight, Kick was catching her breath with Debo and Jean when Sally Norton dropped into a chair looking happy and flushed, her blond curls bobbing cheerfully at her shoulders.
“The boys are at their best tonight, aren’t they?” she asked.
“Indeed!” agreed Jean. “And what a wonderful party, Sally.”
“Thank you, darling,” she said. “Of course, I had next to nothing to do with it.”
“Don’t be so modest.” Debo waved her hand.
“I may have had some input on the band,” Sally said. “After all, I wanted to make sure all my girlfriends got to take plenty of turns with their beaus.”
“Speak of the devil,” said Jean as Andrew pulled Debo up from her chair and spun her onto the smooth parquet floor to “You’re the Top.” “I think I might go find James,” she added, leaving Kick and Sally alone at the table.
“Too bad about Billy and that Oxford girl,” Sally said.
“Pardon?” asked Kick, her stomach giving an unexpected lurch.
Sally looked embarrassed at her gaffe, but Kick wasn’t entirely sure it was genuine. Sally elaborated: “Oh, you know, Margaret . . . oh, what’s her surname? I can’t remember. Anyway, she’s reading literature at one of the women’s colleges at Oxford. How dull, right? And she’s not from an especially good family, so Billy’s parents would be absolutely opposed. Still, there was that photo of them in the Oxford paper.”
“Well,” said Kick, trying to laugh although she felt queasy—and she wasn’t sure if her uneasiness was because of the news itself or because of the snaky way it was being revealed to her. Serpents lie in wait, Nancy Astor had warned. “It’s a good thing Billy and I aren’t serious or anything, or I’d be terribly upset.”
“Yes,” said Sally with a raised eyebrow. “Good thing.”
Kick couldn’t help adding, “And who reads the college papers anyway?”
Sally didn’t have a reply for that.
To her dismay, Kick spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out how to get more information about this Margaret girl without sounding jealous. At last, dancing slowly in Billy’s arms, she decided it did not—should not—matter. They weren’t serious. Best to emulate Jack and keep things light.
Then she thought, Boy, am I in trouble if I have to use Jack as a model in romance.