‘It’s dreadful. I read about all these radical groups – there’s even one called the National Indignation Convention trying to get the entire Texas Democratic Party to defect to the Republicans. And to think Jack’s going campaigning there next month.’
‘He needs to, though; he can’t win in sixty-four if he loses Texas, especially if he dumps Johnson from the ticket as he wants to. There’s the rest of the South as well.’
‘I’m off to Washington tomorrow,’ I said, reluctantly parting from Ludo, ‘having a weekend with the Ormsby-Gores. I don’t suppose there’ll be much talk of this, but you’ve helped me to feel more primed. Thanks. I really must go, but it’s been great.’
I caught the five o’clock shuttle to Washington, which put Matt powerfully in mind. He’d called, but only to say that he couldn’t make the supper party with the Ferrones. I hadn’t even known he’d been asked. Joan must have wanted it to be a small surprise. I’d written to her about my father, so she knew quite a bit.
Having thought about Matt the whole way on the plane, I discovered he was asked to lunch next day – Sylvia Ormsby-Gore doing a Joan Ferrone.
It was hard to handle, a struggle sitting next to him, chatting politely – especially when over the coffee he suggested a spin in his car. I didn’t do well, saying with a panicky heart that I’d love that, completely failing to act with any suitable dignity.
But going to bed with Matt that Saturday afternoon ended up being good for me. It was flat, mechanical, meaningless. I felt unloving, unclean, and knew it was closure, an upper and downer in my life and nothing more. ‘So long, Matt,’ I said, as he drove me zippily back to the Residence. ‘It’s been nice knowing you.’
‘I wanted to ask after your father,’ he said, absorbing the finality of my words and not quite ready, it seemed, to let go of a not-so-bad occasional lay. ‘How’s he doing?’
‘Medium-ly. I’ll always be grateful for those few days in France.’
Dad had occasional angina chest pains, but he was being sensible and Mum wanted me to carry on as normal and see through the separation time. I was going along with that while saying a quiet prayer now and then.
Over drinks that evening, David Ormsby-Gore told me he was going to see Bobby Kennedy next day and we were all invited, children as well. ‘Ours wouldn’t be noticed anyway, in that ear-splitting madhouse. We could bring them and leave them there!’
Bobby and Ethel Kennedy lived at Hickory Hill which, like the White House, was large, white and handsomely proportioned. It had silver-grey shutters and immaculate front lawns where a tall flagpole proudly fluttered its Stars and Stripes flag. There were no Secret Servicemen to be seen as we trooped up to the front door. A maid hoovering in the hall let us in and David led the way purposefully through the house and out to the garden. He knew the form.
It was a boiling day, well into the 80s, and everyone was outdoors, back from church and letting off steam. Children were everywhere, racing and wrestling, rolling down the vast sloping lawns; a small boy was sailing up wildly high on a rickety rope swing. The branch it hung from was creaking ominously, but nobody seemed bothered. An older boy careered about in a Hot-Red Go-Kart, upsetting a horse in an adjacent field. Bobby was out in the garden too, wearing a yellow sweatshirt and pink trousers, leaning forward in a deckchair and talking on a telephone brought out from the house on an extended lead. He was concentrating intently and seemed undistracted by the noise.
Ethel appeared, followed by a maid carrying a tray of drinks, just as the black Labrador by Bobby’s side shot off after a squirrel. There was a near collision, yet even that seemed to pass the master of the house by. He absently patted the panting dog on its return, putting his hand over the mouthpiece then, but only to yell out, I wasn’t sure at whom, ‘Get him, get him!’ He indicated to David to pull up another deckchair and carried on with his call.
When David and Bobby, the British Ambassador and the President’s brother, had finished their murmured chat they rounded everyone up for a game of touch football. I was in a fog of incomprehension, being manhandled, childhandled, yelled at to run, to watch out, but exhilarated and enjoying it like mad. When a child shrieked triumphantly, ‘Gotcha!’ and I was out, Bobby came to sit with me on a bench.
I fell in love instantly. He talked about Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park, just opened on Broadway. ‘It’ll be a smash hit. People love all that witty schmaltzy humour and happy-endings.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘I don’t think it’ll be one of those in South Africa this week, with the Nelson Mandela trial; they stifle any breath of free speech out there, let alone political dissent.’
‘Unlike America, where no one holds back,’ I said, thinking of the UN Ambassador’s treatment in Dallas and the piece in the newspapers about crude anti-Kennedy Wanted for Treason pamphlets being scattered round town the next day. ‘It must give you particular headaches of security at times,’ I ventured, with a cautious smile.
‘Yes, sure, and some places are worse than others, but that’s politics – campaigning and facing your critics!’ Bobby smiled in return and ruffled his unruly hair, reducing me to an ever more adoring pool. ‘You have to take the flak.’
We talked on and it was a wrench when the time came to leave. My heart had been fluttering like the flag on Bobby and Ethel’s front lawn.
I was in Lillian Bassman’s studio when the President was shot. Sitting in a bath in a strapless bathing suit, a head and shoulders photograph, a cosmetics ad; the futile incongruity of that got to me. Lillian had the radio on and we’d caught the first bulletin, United Press saying that three shots had been fired and the wounds could be fatal. We listened, stunned, as more details began to filter through. Lillian, who was visibly moved, motioned me out of the bath.
‘I think we’ll call it a day,’ she said. ‘I can’t carry on. Everyone can go home.’
The account executive had left by the time I was dressed. I stood by the radio, tensed for news, needing to keep listening, to hear that Jack would live. It was terrible, frighteningly extra-dimensional too, having talked and laughed with him and seen his private face. ‘Sorry, I should go,’ I said, embarrassed at hanging around. ‘I just . . .’ I waved the air with a helpless hand, unable to explain.
‘You don’t need to,’ Lillian said, ‘but it’ll be on television soon, I expect. Do you have a set where you’re staying? You may prefer to watch than listen here.’
It made sense to get back to 48th Street, to Bella and Miss Hadley, and leave Lillian to her privacy. I admired her all the more, seeing her emotion, and left the studio fortified by her dignity. I wasn’t anxious for a taxi driver’s take on the shooting and walked the ten blocks down Third Avenue to the apartment. A curious hush had descended, as though a heavy snowstorm had blanketed the city, muffling the traffic and muting the horns. Few people were about; sparse huddles had formed round newsstands, although no news-sheets could surely have arrived. One stand had a radio on behind the counter, but it was hard to catch anything and I walked on.
Miss Hadley had the television tuned to CBS, and as I came in Walter Cronkite was saying, stumbling over his words, ‘Two priests who were with Kennedy say, apparently, that he is dead from his bullet wounds.’ Cronkite stressed that the President’s death wasn’t officially confirmed, but from his tone there was little doubt. It was 2.30 p.m. New York time, an hour since the first bulletin.
Cronkite talked about fearful concerns of demonstrations similar to the attack on Adlai Stevenson. When a paper was placed before him, the official news, he had to take off his glasses to blink away the emotion.
‘Awful, awful,’ Miss Hadley muttered. Bella was sleeping longer than usual, almost as though with an unconscious sense that it was helpful, and we watched in a daze. Miss Hadley sensitively didn’t intrude. She took Bella out for a walk eventually, telling me to stay by the screen, that I’d known him and must want to be alone.
I thought of Jackie, spattered with blood and brain, crying out, ‘Oh no!’ I thou
ght of Bobby Kennedy in Washington, how close he’d been to his brother. I thought of the unendurable pain. I imagined the news spreading ever more widely like spilt ink, and the differing reactions around the world.
Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President aboard Air Force One at Love Field in Dallas in stifling conditions, we were later told. Twenty-seven people had had to squeeze into the plane’s small stateroom with the air conditioning shut down for a speedy take-off.
At six that evening the new President and Jackie touched down in Washington. Bobby boarded the plane to escort Jackie off and when she and Bobby appeared they descended from the plane holding hands. She was still in her blood and matter-stained pink Chanel suit. Her legs, too, were still smeared with the shocking stains of her husband’s blood.
I’d thought of the Ferrones at the time, how close Walter had been to Jackie, and wondered if he’d been in touch. I’d commiserated, but hadn’t probed. Shortly before I was due to go home, though, when Joan and I were having a farewell omelette supper together, she began to talk about Jackie. Joan was always one for going into detail.
‘Walter spoke to her just after Jack’s death,’ she recalled. ‘Jackie had refused to change out of that pink suit, you know? “I wanted them to see what they’d done to Jack,” she said – and she’d also refused to leave without Jack’s body on board the plane. It caused a terrible rumpus apparently, as it was against the wishes of the Dallas Medical Examiner; he’d insisted an autopsy was required and had been furious.
‘She sure has guts, that girl!’ Joan burst out. ‘She told us how proud of the children she’d felt at the funeral – and on the very day of poor little John’s third birthday, can you believe?’ Joan paused, overcome, and wiped away a tear. ‘President Johnson was kind, it seems, despite the tricky relations between them, calling, telling Jackie to stay at the White House as long as she wanted. Even saying she should come right on over, have a good cry and he’d “put his arms around her”. She told us all about it.’
Joan, in her emotional mood, asked about Joe and the separation, what I felt about going home and whether I’d seen much of Matt Seeley. That was a fishing question; she felt involved, eager to know where we were at.
‘Matt’s for a good time, not for anything serious,’ I said, glad to feel a vacuum where black heartache had been. ‘It’s as well really.’ Joan squeezed my hand, she understood. ‘I’ve had one or two dates, though’ – only a small understatement – ‘one with an English guy, passing through. Max Thorsby, he’s called. He’s very beautiful and aristocratic, attentive without pushing it. He’s one of these impecunious younger sons of a lord, his father’s the Earl of Wickham.’ I smiled at Joan’s open-mouthed interest, but didn’t want her making a meal of it and I was keen to talk about Joe. He’d been in touch after a long silence and made me feel quietly hopeful.
‘Joe says he’s getting on top of things, Joan. I do hope so. It would make everything possible again if only he’d just settle into some sort of vague routine. I know regular life is a bit much to expect!’
Joan looked down at her manicured nails and back at me with a long face. ‘Now this is your Manhattan Mom talking, Susannah dearest. Don’t expect honey and apple pie when you get home. In my experience, people are what they are. Joe needs his kicks and I’d say he always will; I’d hate you to be too let down. I just want my girl to be happy.’
‘Oh, Joany!’ I burst into tears. She came round the table and gave me a long hug and cuddle, smoothing back my hair. She and Walter would miss me so very much, she said.
I told her how dreadfully I’d miss them, too.
Landing home, early morning on 13 January 1964, the temperature hadn’t squeaked above freezing. It had snowed the day before, not much, but Miss Hadley and I, both worn out from the journey, felt chilled through. Joe had promised to come to meet us. He was excited, he’d said, at the thought of seeing Bella.
He wasn’t there. We waited and waited. I phoned home. No answer – he’d probably overslept, early mornings weren’t his strong suit. Eventually, after an hour, we gave up and took a taxi. I had a bleak sinking feeling, hope snatched away like a cap in a blast of cold wind.
Joe wasn’t at home. Most of his clothes were gone, Frankie’s cage, too. The house was quite clean, which pleased Miss Hadley who looked desperately fatigued, older than her undisclosed years. I ordered her to bed and talked baby talk to Bella who was toddling about exploring. I needed her distracted, though, and gave her a Laughing Cow cheese triangle to nibble on while I read the two notes I’d found.
One, under a bowl on the kitchen table, was from Palmira, my warm-hearted Spanish help. Her writing was uneven and spidery, crawling over a scrap of lined paper.
Hallo Mrs Susann. I clean house. I take Franky at home. He Lonely. Mr Joe – he go. I come Tuday. I see you? My Spanish wouldn’t have been half as good.
The other note, on the hall table, was written on Basildon blue paper, not Joe’s fancy engraved stuff.
Guess you’re home now, wifey, if you’re reading this. I’m taking a break, a three-week holiday. It seemed like a good idea, as I haven’t been feeling that great. Frankie will need a good clean-up, the old squawker, and some chatting-up, as he’s been on his own quite a bit. I may not come back properly, but will want to see Bella, of course. Not sure what I’ll do: move to the country, near the sea: bucket and spade – or possibly go to California: Hollywood and the movies. I’ll send a PC. Joe.’
A tear plopped onto the paper. I sniffed and folded the note over and over, tucked it away carefully in the zip pocket of my handbag. Was it for the best? I thought of the wretched hour at the airport, Bella grizzling, with a stab of anger. He could have let us know. Was Joe ill? Was I being unfair? A sense of weary shame overtook me, deep sadness at the utter failure of my life, shame at the past wild three months.
Bella was at the stair gate and I chased after her. ‘Upstairs we go, angel,’ I said. ‘Let’s get you changed first, then we’ll wrap up warm and go out for some food for lunch.’
I called Joe’s agent, who said he’d gone to the Bahamas – an invitation to stay with friends, she thought. January work was slow.
A month later I heard his key turning in the door. He’d come to see Bella, and looking at him, his tan, I felt any so-called illness was on hold. And when the glamorous invitations dried up? My anger was momentary. I knew Joe’s moods, knew his depression would always dog him and return. Could I have helped more, done more? It was too late now, Joe had chosen to go it alone.
He played with Bella and asked suspiciously after Frankie. ‘Palmira took him home when you’d gone, and her husband, Fernando, wants to keep him now. He’s teaching Frankie Spanish! I said I’d have to ask you first.’
Joe shrugged, losing interest.
‘I think I must file for divorce, Joe.’ He stared at me hard, with cold, hurt eyes. Then he shrugged again and turned away.
The divorce was misery. I had to tell my solicitor about Gil; Joe had to go to a hotel with a woman and be seen by a chambermaid. It was a farce, but it was the law.
Dad had another heart attack, there was no treatment and it was unbearable news. He was advised that if he stayed in bed, stopped smoking and ate fat-free foods he could have a few more months, maybe six. My life was crumbling, tumbling. I drove up and down to Dorset. I wanted my father to live. It was heartbreaking and I clung to Mum.
I worked, but had lost every scrap of confidence and felt bruised, scarred and bleeding. I was a free woman by July, yet it left me with a sense of empty nothingness; I felt vulnerable, all too aware, with Bella to support, that modelling was ephemeral and would inevitably give me up in time.
By September, beautiful blond Max Thorsby was in my life, repairing my battered morale, surprising me with lavish gifts, making me feel he was proud of me and pleased to show me off to his friends. They lived in vast houses and ran family estates; Max dealt in antiques and lived in a rambling, slightly gloomy flat in Kensington.
By November we were married. I’d rented out my house and moved in with him a month before. Miss Hadley, who loved babies, had gone – after a fond parting – to be nanny to a newborn boy. Bella was going to a smart little morning playgroup and we’d moved smoothly on to au pairs.
My father was managing, saying he felt fine, so Max and I honeymooned in Portugal for a few days. Max popped out from the hotel one evening; he’d bumped into an old mate, he said, and was going for a jar. He was back at six in the morning. On our honeymoon? Was it hopeless naïvety to have yearned for marital perfection?
A month into our marriage I knew he had lovers, lots and lots of them. Max loved me, too. He never put me down, never stopped spoiling me, and I had the joy of Bella – but I wasn’t built to be one of a crowd. What was going to happen? Would I be able to stay the course?
It was hard to stare facts in the face. Rushing into marrying again hadn’t been the wisest of moves. My life at twenty-four was stricken, poised for loss and sadness, and it wasn’t turning out, for a second time, to be the marital bed of roses of my dreams.
Chapter 24
Daisy was having dinner with Warren at the Meadow Club and feeling bereft. Susannah had left that evening, and the pangs Daisy had felt, watching Jackson turn the car out of the gates, taking Susannah to the airport, were still with her. She’d stayed on the steps long after the gates had closed.
Susannah had postponed leaving for a couple of days, doing all she could to ensure that the construction work went ahead smoothly and was finished on time. It was important to her, Daisy was in awe of her professionalism, and that she’d faced staying on, being so fantastic and normal. Warren had taken off for the city, understandably, which had been a relief to all. They’d got on with the job, she and Susannah, even had some fun and laughs as ever, and been able to make light of what had happened.
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