Rachel felt an electric current seize her heart. She tried to hold back her tears. Eight years, she thought. Eight years stolen from us, and here we are again.
Dorothea kept her eyes on the ground as she and her child plodded towards the terminal building, but that didn’t stop them from walking through a puddle. Rachel heard herself laugh abruptly. Still blind as a bat. Probably worse, now.
Rachel felt the hot hugeness of her love swelling in her heart.
Rachel waited on the crimson suede banquette, her handbag on her knee, her kid gloves growing damp as she clutched them. She had dressed as smartly as she could today. Working at Niemann Marcus had given her the choice of the best couture clothing.
When she’d started as a store assistant during the war, she’d felt it was only a step up from the switchboard, and hardly the life she would have chosen for herself, were it not for Hitler. The years had taught her to be grateful. She had risen quickly, and now managed one of the most prestigious ladies’ wear lines in Niemann Marcus.
The years had also taught her that clothes made the woman. And her job enabled her to live in a world of women, surrounded by her own sex, her eyes filled each day with refinement and beauty.
The clothes she had chosen today were expensive and stylish. She didn’t want Dorothea to think she had grown dowdy, now that she was past thirty. She hadn’t anticipated that Dorothea would choose to wear the old houndstooth coat which had captured her heart all those years ago. That had been a master stroke.
Finally, she saw them coming through the doors, carrying their suitcases.
Rachel got to her feet, her knees shaky, and hurried to meet them.
Dorothea didn’t see her until the last minute; but Rachel had time to notice that the years of war, hunger and hardship had made the houndstooth coat threadbare, the woman inside it thin and careworn. The child, too, was shabby, a black mourning band for her father around the arm of her jacket, which was too thin, even for this mild autumn day. She was sweet-faced, but looked undernourished, her blonde pigtails lank, her cheeks hollow. American food and a few trips to Niemann Marcus, Rachel thought, would cure all that. She had the means to make their lives beautiful again.
Dorothea looked up with a start as Rachel confronted her. Behind the round lenses, her eyes were still the grey-green of Saxony rain. She’d touched her lips with pink to make herself more attractive. But nothing could make that face more lovely to Rachel.
‘I’ve waited for you,’ Rachel said, her throat dry.
‘And I for you,’ Dorothea replied, almost inaudibly.
‘We don’t have to wait any longer.’ She held out her arms. ‘Welcome.’
The tired child stared up at the two women as they clung to one another. After a while, they drew her into their embrace.
Wisconsin
Cubby reached St Coletta at mid-morning. He’d started making his travel plans the moment he’d heard about the assassination on Friday. He’d wanted to be with Rosemary as soon as possible. During his long journey from California to the Midwest over this weekend, he had seen the grim faces, the women who still cried in public, the huddled groups who talked in hushed voices and occasionally glanced up at the sky. People were still saying the killing of the president was the prelude to a Russian attack. Some were waiting for the nuclear missiles to begin raining down.
Out here in rural Wisconsin, that horror seemed less likely. The November skies were cold sapphire, scattered with fleecy clouds that caught the sun. The last of the autumn leaves were clinging to the woods, red and frail. He saw a flock of wild turkeys scrambling across the road, and once a solitary whitetail buck, looking at him over its shoulder.
He turned off County Road Y towards the school, which was set among trees on a rise of land. As he drove slowly between the school buildings, several people waved to him. He was well-known here.
It had been called many things: ‘St Coletta Institute for Backward Youth’ had been pretty blunt. ‘St Coletta Feeble-Minded School’ had been well-meaning but discouraging. Finally, the Catholic Church had hit on the brilliant idea of renaming it ‘St Coletta School for Exceptional Children.’
It had been called many things, and it was many things: a school where the young were given hope, a farm, an orchard, a haven where the irreparably damaged were sheltered, a housing programme where the vulnerable could live with dignity. And it was now Rosemary Kennedy’s home.
Rosemary had her own cottage, a little white unit that was screened off from prying eyes by tall firs and cypresses that were always dark green at any time of the year. There were borders of geraniums and a patch of lawn, all kept neat by the gardeners. Compared to the residences of her surviving siblings, it wasn’t much to look at, but it was sufficient for her simple needs.
He pulled the rental car up in front of the cottage and got out, his ears singing in the silence. There was nobody in the little garden, so he entered the house. The television was on. Rosemary sat in front of it, flanked by two of the sisters. The sisters were both in tears. Rosemary, whom they’d dressed in black, was watching the images on the screen intently but with no outward show of emotion.
‘Oh, Mr Bigelow,’ Sister Ursula said, rising and coming to Cubby, ‘isn’t it terrible?’ She was pressing a handkerchief to her mouth so that Cubby could barely understand what she was saying.
‘How is Rosemary taking it?’ Cubby asked.
‘She was watching the television on Friday when the news came through. I don’t think she really understood. We’ve been trying to explain to her, but—’ Sister Ursula blew her nose. Her eyes were swollen and red. ‘Perhaps it’s a mercy if she doesn’t quite get it.’
Cubby sat on the sofa next to Rosemary. Her hands were lying open in her lap, as they so often did. He took one of them. ‘Hello, Rosie.’
She drew her eyes away from the screen and glanced at him. ‘Jack is dead,’ she said.
So she understood that much, at least. ‘Yes. I’m so sorry, Rosemary.’
She squeezed his hand briefly, then returned to watching the television. Jack Kennedy’s funeral was underway in Washington.
They watched the widow emerging from the White House, draped in black lace, leading her two small children by the hand. The coffin, covered with the Stars and Stripes, was laid on a gun carriage, pulled by six white horses. They began the long, slow march up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol.
As the funeral cortege passed the blocks, the television cameras panned across faces in the crowd, the soldiers immaculate and expressionless, the civilians stunned, grieving. Many of the women wore headscarves, as though in church. A young girl looked on with tears streaming down her cheeks. Mostly, people were silent and motionless.
Cubby was remembering his meeting with Jack, twenty-four years earlier, in Southampton. He’d liked the young man, despite everything. Everyone liked Jack. He was luminous, persuasive, disarming. His murder in a public street in Dallas had changed America. A light had gone out and nobody knew how to reignite it. The nation was groping blindly.
The nuns brought cups of tea as they continued to watch the long-drawn funeral on the small TV that stood on a shelf next to a brightly glazed tortoise made by Rosemary in pottery class.
‘Is he the president now?’ Rosemary asked, pointing. Her words were slurred. You had to get used to the way she spoke before you could understand her.