Chapter Nine #2
That evening, Kick dressed with more than usual care.
She would never be the most beautiful girl in London, she knew that it was her way of being ‘jolly fun’ that people – men – liked, but she wanted to look as well as she could.
Because Debo was wrong, she decided. There weren’t thousands like Billy.
And neither, she thought, did Billy think there were thousands like her.
The Mountbattens’ flat was at the top of a vast new block, with views across all of London.
‘It used to be all one house,’ Debo said, ‘Brook House. Edwina’s grandfather bought it.
Farve says he was a filthy Hun so he loathed him,’ she continued comfortably.
‘He tries to loathe Edwina too, but admits it’s impossible. ’
They went up in a spacious lift, mirrored on every side so that their reflections came back to them over and over.
Kick watched her own familiar face from so many angles, then Debo’s wide-apart blue eyes and neat mouth.
Such a candid face, Kick thought; as unruffled as a child’s.
That was part of Debo’s charm – the extraordinary placidity of her features, and the whirling mind behind them.
Debo nudged her. ‘The mirrors are so Edwina can see if any of her lovers is about to jump out at her,’ she said. ‘You know she is the most scandalous woman in London?’
Kick giggled and was still giggling when the lift opened into a marble hallway and a tall woman in gold silk evening dress, her honey-brown hair dressed in sleek waves, came to greet them.
She felt foolish and tried to cover it by being as ‘American’ as she knew how.
This was how she phrased it to herself when she was particularly casual and irreverent.
‘You must be able to see all the way into the king’s dressing room from here,’ she said. Lady Mountbatten just smiled.
‘Come and have a drink,’ she said vaguely, turning away towards a vast drawing room that was white and gold and filled with flowers.
Debo nudged Kick once again. ‘Her husband is the king’s cousin,’ she hissed, half laughing, but half not. ‘He is always in that dressing room.’
Kick tried not to feel idiotic. How was she supposed to know? she thought. Why, if they came to America, there would be a million things they didn’t know.
They had drinks called Negronis and a man played the piano and sang songs.
It was a far more grown-up party than the kind Kick was used to.
Serious, even muted, in comparison with the usual giddy debutantes and noisy larks.
Older people – Lady Mountbatten must have been at least thirty-five, Kick thought – mostly married, moving discreetly about to form groups, then dissolving and reforming in a way that seemed idle but wasn’t.
And for all that they were old, they had a humming vitality.
They didn’t shriek, or rag each other, but there was purpose in everything they did.
They talked gracefully and intently, not simply piling up jokes the way Kick’s friends did.
Debo disappeared and Kick walked through the two large drawing rooms, watching and trying to understand. No one was interested in her. It was a new kind of feeling. At home in America, everyone was interested.
Maybe it’s because she was here alone, she thought, watching the sky through the large windows trade shades of blue in an ever-darkening parade.
No Jack, no Joe Jnr to sandwich her between them and see that she was included in everything.
No one here was impressed with her family, their wealth – Kick wasn’t stupid, she knew that was part of it; the whispers about where exactly that wealth had come from – certainly not her opinions.
Beyond repeating ‘ambassador’s daughter?
’ as though it were a question, when she was introduced to them, no one showed any wish to talk to her.
By a round table in the centre of the second drawing room, she saw Billy.
He was part of a group of older men that included Lord Mountbatten, who was thin and watchful with shrewd eyes that never followed his politely smiling mouth.
Kick leaned against the back of a spindly sofa and watched.
Here too she saw Billy was listened to, regarded.
He was someone, and she – clearly – was not.
‘Do help yourself to anything …’ Lady Mountbatten said kindly, passing by but barely pausing.
Kick went to join the group around Billy. He greeted her warmly, taking her hand in his and pressing it, but stayed where he was. A man with a high forehead was talking: ‘… gas masks will be issued next week.’
‘Which will start to panic the country,’ a thin man with a moustache said. ‘Would it not be better to wait?’
‘No.’ That was Mountbatten. ‘We need to get them into every home, and allow time for them to become ordinary, so that people will no more think of going out without them as without a hat or gloves.’
‘Give the panic time to subside?’ said the thin man.
‘Precisely.’
‘My father says the opposite,’ Kick interjected eagerly.
Thanks to Rose’s habit of cutting out a newspaper article each day that they were together at Hyannis Port, and insisting they all debate the topic over dinner, she had no fear of giving her opinion.
She understood that debate was just a matter of taking opposing views and giving a convincing argument for them; a game, like touch football or tennis.
‘He says that issuing gas masks now just means everyone will be sick of them and bored by them in no time. He says that sending them now is like getting down to the last out.’
‘What a great deal he says, your father, Ambassador Kennedy,’ the thin man said.
Was it the way he emphasised says that made the man with the high forehead laugh? she wondered.
‘What exactly is “last out?”’ Mountbatten asked politely.
‘It’s from baseball,’ Kick said.
‘Baseball,’ he repeated, as though trying out a brand new word. Kick blushed.
‘It means you have nowhere left to go, no more chances,’ she explained. But her voice sounded thin.
‘There’s something to that …’ Billy said.
But he said it kindly. And then suggested they look at the view from outside on the balcony, ushering her away.
Was it because she was American? she wondered, as they walked out.
Or a girl? At the dinner-table discussions at home, she had noticed that her opinions got more attention when she spoke about books or plays, far less when politics were the topic.
Or was it something more, even? How was it that they seemed to see the ways in which she was different, when she saw the ways in which they were the same?
‘Was it the baseball?’ she asked Billy as they leaned over the balcony railings. The sky was darker now, a deep indigo that was the colour of iodine.
‘Partly,’ he said.
‘Only partly?’
‘It’s more what the baseball represents,’ he said cautiously.
‘Which is?’
‘How far from this you actually are. You see, for us it’s all very close to home. So close that baseball metaphors seem a bit …’
‘A bit off?’
‘Exactly.’ He sounded awkward.
‘In that case, thank you for walking me away.’
‘You don’t think me frightfully rude?’
‘No. I’m glad. I guess I needed it.’
‘You know, I’m half sorry I did,’ he said then, looking at her in an amused way from the corner of his eye.
‘Why?’
‘Most people tell Mountbatten exactly what he wants to hear. So all he ever hears are his own thoughts echoed endlessly back at him.’
‘I wouldn’t do that even if I knew how. After all, what’s the point of a debate if everyone says what other people want to hear?’
‘No point at all. But what an unexpected person you are, Kathleen Kennedy.’
‘Kick.’
‘Kick.’ He sounded faintly amused.
‘And is that something good, being unexpected?’
‘I don’t know,’ he responded slowly. And he began to show her things out on the skyline – ‘See that building …’ – so that she knew he was uncomfortable.
Kick let him, all the while trying to puzzle out which bit was really him?
Was it the bit where he was serious and worried, or the bit where he made jokes and laughed?
And why was it so strange that she said what she meant?
She thought back to the exchange with Mountbatten and the thin man.
How men liked to hear themselves talk, she decided.
And war was just another of the things they liked to talk about.
No different to sailing or hunting. None of it meant anything.
It was no more real than Teddy boasting, ‘I will make the biggest sandcastle. I will jump the highest …’