Laurie Graham - The Importance of Being Kennedy

Jimmy went off to a training camp, but the doctors failed Frankie because of his chest and he was sent to a uniform factory in Pennsylvania, as a machinist. Margaret thought we should have married them before they went, but Jimmy never offered it and I had my mind on my nursery. Mrs Kennedy was very near her time.

A weekly nurse was hired and Mr K moved into the guest room so we could get the big bedroom ready. All the little trinket boxes and hairbrushes had to be cleared off the dressing table, and the rugs lifted and the floor washed down with carbolic acid and boiling water, for reasons of hygiene, the nurse said. It made you wonder how the human race ever got to be such a thriving concern.

Mrs K came along to the nursery still in her bathrobe that morning. She said she'd had a few pains in the night but she hadn't wanted to say anything till Mr K had gone off to business.

‘This is woman's work,’ she said. ‘Now we'll get on with it. We'll have this baby delivered and everything tidied away by the time he comes home.’

I took Joseph Patrick to the park and played with him on the teeter-totter and by the time he'd had his soup and laid down for his nap the doctor had been sent for.

I'd never seen a baby born. When Mrs Griffin had baby Arthur she went to the nursing home so they could give her the twilight sleep and then she had two weeks of lying-in before she brought him home. I knew the facts of life and I'd seen plenty of sows dropping their piglets but it was hard to relate that to Mrs Kennedy. I'd heard it said that women screamed and cursed and that there was blood and worse, but she'd hardly a hair out of place. She just lay there with the ether inhaler over her face and Dr Good fetched the forceps out of his bag and fairly dragged the poor mite into the world. John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Though, as I recall, he was hardly ever called John. He was Jack right from the start.

The nurse told Mrs K she had another boy but she was too doped for it to register or even to hold him, so he was given to me to put in the crib. And it was a grand thing, to cradle him in my arms and see his surprised little face and his tiny fingers weaving in the air, to wonder what life had in store for him. I was the first to hold the next three Kennedy babies and every time it gave me that nice, funny feeling, like someone slipped a piece of velvet inside my tummy.

But by the time Mr Kennedy came home from business, Herself was wide awake, washed and powdered and sitting up in a new satin bed jacket. Then His Honour the Mayor turned up, with Mrs Fitzgerald, who I'd never seen before, and a bouquet of carnations. They came to the nursery to take a look at Jack but they didn't seem very interested in him. He'd been given Fitzgerald for one of his names so I'd have expected them to be thrilled.

His Honour said, ‘He'll do, for a spare. Now let me see my best boy.’

And I had to go contrary to all Mrs Kennedy's instructions and wake Joseph Patrick from his bed, to be petted and made overexcited by his grandpa.

‘See this fine feller?’ he said. ‘This fine feller is going to be President of the United States.’

It's a funny thing, there was never any love lost between Mayor Fitzgerald and Mr Kennedy but that's one thing they always agreed on. Joseph Patrick was going to be President.

But I was saying about 1948. The minute her mammy was on her way to the aerodrome Kick got the shine back in her eyes.

She said, ‘That was pretty gruesome. Daddy'll fix everything. He can probably get us a special dispensation from Rome.’

I said, ‘The Holy Father won't change the rules, not even for a Kennedy.’

She said, ‘This Holy Father might. He's practically part of the family.’

Part of the family my eye. He paid a call once, that's all, long ago, when we were in Bronxville, and that was only because Mr Roosevelt couldn't think what else to do with a visiting cardinal all afternoon, only send him to Mrs Kennedy for a cup of tea.

She said, ‘And we had a private audience. He gave me a rosary.’

I said, ‘I know. I was there. And so was Fidelma Clery He gave us all rosaries. He gets them wholesale, I'm sure. But that doesn't mean he hands out dispensations so a man can have two wives.’

She got into such a paddy.

She said, ‘Why doesn't anyone understand? Blood married Obby in one of their churches, so as far as our church is concerned he's never been married. Anyway, the Holy Father can change anything he wants to. Especially if Daddy sends him a big fat cheque for a new altar or something.’

There were cablegrams flying back and forth all that week and then Blood Fitzwilliam turned up, like the bad penny. He was back in town and expecting to take her to lunch. When you're in service you notice that the ones who're too grand to give you a ‘Good day’ are not necessarily the ones with the biggest estates or kings in their family tree. Just a middling rip like Fitzwilliam can be full enough of himself to ignore the help.

As soon as she heard his voice, Kick was ready to grab her pocketbook and go.

I said, ‘Didn't you tell me Lady Ginny was calling for you?’

‘Oh Lord,’ she said. ‘Well, she's late. Just tell her something came up, would you? She'll understand.’

He'd picked up the telephone without so much as a by-your-leave, putting through a call to his club, tapping a cigarette on his silver case. Kick was watching me watching him.

She said, ‘Darling, no smoking in the hall. Nora's got her fierce face on.’

‘Sweetie,’ he said, ‘who pays Nora's wages?’

It was four o'clock when she came home, pink and silly from champagne wine.

She said, ‘Blood's going to take me down to Nice for a vacation, next month. Such bliss. We're going to stay with his friends at their villa, and then by the time we come back Daddy will be in Paris, so we'll be able to stop off and see him. It's all worked out perfectly. We can have a big powwow about asking the Pope and things, without Mother being there to have a fit, and Daddy and Blood can get to know one another.’

I said, ‘Angel girl, will you listen to yourself? All this talk about marrying. Is the man divorced from his lawful wedded wife?’

‘He soon will be,’ she said. ‘He just has to see the lawyers. Then it won't take long. Obby's going to cooperate. You know they haven't had a real marriage for years.’

I said, ‘And what about his child? Where does she fit in to a divorce?’

She said, ‘She'll be fine. I expect we'll live at Coolatin when we're not in London, and she'll be able to come to visit us and keep a pony there and everything. I'm sure she's an absolute sweetheart, and I'll bet she'd love to have some little brothers and sisters. I'm going to have dozens of babies for you to look after, Nora, and we'll all live happily ever after. Blood will charm Mother off her feet, and Pat and Jean'll come over for the hunting. We might even be able to have poor Rosie to stay.’

Ah yes. Poor Rosie. Well, there was a name she knew better than to bring up with her daddy if she wanted to get him on her side. We never mentioned Rosie any more, except below stairs.

Rose Marie was born in the September of 1918. It was a darker time even than when Jack arrived. We didn't only have the war still dragging on and our men far from home, we had the influenza too, and that was on our very doorstep. We hardly left the house. There was such a scare on that Herself didn't even go to Mass. Cook went out in a gauze mask to do the marketing and the laundrywoman was told not to come, for the duration, because she was in and out of different houses all the time. There was no telling what germs she might carry with her. Mr K slept on an army cot at the shipyard most nights sooner than risk bringing the infection home. Some people said the docks were where it had started.