‘I hope you like gin,’ she said. ‘We’ve drunk everything else.’
Southampton
The Kennedys were sitting in the smoking room of the Royal Hotel in Southampton. Their mother sat very upright in an armchair, while the children – Jack and Rosemary, who were in their twenties, teenage Patricia and six-year-old Teddy – clustered around her on sofas. At that hour of the morning the smoking room was the quietest area in the hotel, away from the eyes and ears of the journalists who had been pursuing Jack for two days.
Now twenty-two, and still full of the importance of his mission, Jack had never seemed more grown-up and glamorous to Rosemary. She hung on her brother’s words breathlessly.
‘They gave me a rough ride,’ Jack said, leaning back and crossing his long legs, just the way Daddy did. The newspapers piled on the coffee table between them were full of Jack’s trip to Glasgow to speak to the American survivors of the Athenia on behalf of his father, the United States ambassador. For once it wasn’t just his luminous good looks and charm that fascinated the journalists. That eighteen Americans had gone down with the Athenia had raised speculation the atrocity would draw America into the war. ‘They’re screaming for a convoy to escort them back to the States. I tried to reassure them. They’ve had a hell of a time. Most are still in the clothes they were wearing when they were torpedoed.’
‘Did they see the submarine?’ Rosemary asked.
‘Oh yes,’ Jack said. ‘A lot of them saw the periscope and the wake of the torpedoes. And when it was dark, the sub surfaced and shelled them. That finished her off.’
‘Jeez,’ she said, wide-eyed.
‘Rosemary,’ her mother said severely, ‘I wish you would watch what comes out of your mouth. Jeez stands for our Saviour’s name. It’s blasphemy.’
‘Jack said “hell”!’
‘Don’t you answer me back.’
Rosemary huddled close against Jack. Mother was so irritable these days, and that made Rosemary more anxious than ever. She was constantly afraid of doing the wrong thing. Yet it always seemed like the wrong thing was just what she most wanted to do. Like laughing when she was supposed to be serious. And putting her mouth close to Jack’s ear and whispering, ‘Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick.’
Jack snorted. Their mother looked at them sharply, but luckily she hadn’t caught what Rosemary had whispered. Rosemary was going to be twenty-one soon. Her body had turned into something she herself almost didn’t recognise in the mirror. Men said she was gorgeous and a doll, and sometimes that was exactly what she felt like, a big doll that smiled and fluttered its eyelashes, while the real Rosemary was a scrap of something that had come loose inside it and rattled around, never knowing which way up she was.
‘There was a little girl who died,’ Jack went on. ‘They showed me her body in the mortuary.’
Rosemary shuddered. ‘Was there blood?’
‘I only saw her face. Her eyes were open. She looked like an angel.’
Mrs Kennedy crossed herself. ‘Poor child.’
Rosemary thought of that still body lying there, staring. ‘But she couldn’t see or hear anything?’
‘Of course not, Rosie. She was dead.’
Rosemary nodded. She wished she could get the picture out of her head.
‘And there was a teacher who was in the water for hours, looking after a bunch of woman students. I don’t know how she survived. Some of the students are still missing. She’s the one demanding a convoy.’
‘Was she demanding a screw?’ Rosemary whispered, her breath hot and moist in his ear. She didn’t know why her doll body said these things, while the little rattling Rosemary inside quailed. He crooked his elbow around her neck and pretended to strangle her. She pinched him so hard in the ribs that despite his superior strength, he squirmed.
‘No horseplay, please,’ Mrs Kennedy rapped out. ‘We’re in public.’
They let go of each other. ‘What am I going to do without you, Rose Marie?’ Jack asked.
‘You’ll get along just fine, John Fitzgerald.’ But the thought of parting from Jack was like a punch in the stomach. She slumped back into the sofa, her head hanging, her arms folded across her bosom. Seeing that Rosemary’s lashes were sparkling with tears, Jack’s voice softened. ‘Aw, come on,’ he said, ‘we’ll see each other in the States in a couple of months.’
‘I don’t want you to go into the Navy,’ Rosemary said. Her lower lip quivered. ‘I don’t want you to be in the war.’
‘America is not going to be in the war, Rosemary,’ Mrs Kennedy said impatiently. ‘We’ve been through all that.’
‘Rosemary’s crying,’ little Teddy said, turning his Kodak Brownie her way. He snapped the shutter. He had been given the box camera on his birthday, so that he could photograph their exciting new surroundings in London, and he was inseparable from it.
‘Get that thing away from me,’ Rosemary said in a choked voice.
Teddy clambered over the sofa to poke the camera at Rosemary. She had been hidden away in special schools for most of his life, and she was more of a curiosity to him than a sister. ‘Watch the birdie, empty-head.’ He snapped the shutter again. Rosemary hit out at him clumsily, knocking the Brownie from his hands. He squealed and grabbed a fistful of Rosemary’s hair. The siblings intervened swiftly: Pat lifting Teddy on to her lap and Jack stopping Rosemary from retaliating. Teddy was red-faced with fury. The Kodak had burst open. ‘She’s broken it,’ he yelled. ‘She’s retarded.’ He’d heard the word whispered around Rosemary and though he didn’t know what it meant, he knew it hurt her worse than pulling her hair.
Pat rescued the camera and closed it. ‘It’s not broken,’ she said.
‘Everywhere you go there’s trouble, Rosemary.’ Mrs Kennedy was tight-lipped. ‘Can you never learn to behave?’
‘I don’t want him sticking that thing in my face,’ Rosemary said, feeling her throat all swollen and hot.
‘There was no film in it,’ Pat said.
‘I don’t care.’ She was fighting down the tears. For her to be with her family – and out of school – was such a rare treat, but something always happened to spoil everything. If only Dad were here. She longed for his strong arm around her waist. ‘Why does he have to call me names?’
Pat whispered in her little brother’s ear. Teddy’s face was sullen. ‘She is retarded,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m not sorry.’
Rosemary flipped him the middle finger. Mrs Kennedy rose to her feet with an exasperated sigh. ‘Jack, I need to talk to you.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
They walked to the corner of the smoking room, where a thin glow of autumnal sunshine was filtering through the heavy drapes. Jack saw that his mother’s face was strained. The sudden escalation of European politics into world war and the prospect of another long separation from her husband were taking their toll on even her resilient nature. She put her hand on his arm. ‘I’m so proud of you, Jack. You did well in Scotland.’
‘I’ll always do my best.’
‘And you know that we have the highest hopes for you.’ Her clear, cool eyes searched his. ‘I don’t want you to be held up by anything.’
He smiled. ‘Don’t worry about me, Mother.’
‘It’s not you I worry about.’ She glanced across the room to where Pat was trying to comfort Rosemary. ‘There’s a man who’s been pestering Rosemary.’
Jack frowned. ‘Has she complained about him?’