The Ocean Liner

London

Joseph P. Kennedy, the United States ambassador to the court of St James, was up late in his private study.

It had been a long day. Since the outbreak of war there had been lines of people right around the imposing Mayfair mansion every day, screaming for passports, visas and other documents. His staff were exhausted. And today there had been a formal embassy dinner with a host of grandees: the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, the Earl of Such-and-Such, the Viscountess of So-and-So, the Honourable This, the Grand Panjandrum That – the usual crowd, bursting with the bitter comments and the poison barbs which the British upper classes were so adept at launching. God rot them all.

All of them hated him and knew that he hated them in return. They had all read the bulletin – ‘Ambassador recalled to Washington for consultations’ – and were praying that he had been fired.

But Roosevelt wouldn’t dare fire him yet. Not with the war just begun, and the full might of the Nazis yet to be unleashed. Roosevelt was many things, but he wasn’t a fool.

Kennedy loosened his silk tie, unfastened his collar, and ran his fingers through his thinning red hair. He needed a real drink. He sat behind his broad, leather-topped desk and poured himself a large Dewar’s. The amber stuff glowed in the Waterford crystal tumbler as he held it to the lamp. It had been his favourite whisky ever since the 1930s, when shiploads of it had built his fortune. He drained the glass and then poured another, beginning to relax.

Not that he was looking forward to the interview with Roosevelt. He didn’t hate the man. In fact they called one another friends. But there was in him much that could turn to hate – a long tally of humiliations and slights, going back twenty years. Roosevelt enjoyed taking his money, letting him believe he was part of the inner circle, then showing him clearly that he was not. The assaults on his dignity were no less vicious for being disguised as pranks.

Roosevelt had made him drop his trousers in the Oval Office to get this job. He’d stood there in his undershorts, his pale brow burning with shame as Roosevelt chuckled at his bare legs and told him he was too bandy-legged to be ambassador to Britain.

‘You’ll have to wear knee-britches and silk stockings to court,’ Roosevelt had chortled, ‘and you’re about the most bow-legged Irishman I’ve ever seen. You’d make America a laughing-stock.’

This, from a man in a wheelchair.

That was why Roosevelt did it, of course; because he was stuck in that chair while men like Joe strode and kicked and screwed their way through life. It was the envy of a cripple, refined into sadism.

So he’d had to drop his pants to get the job. Well, he’d done worse. Bow-legged Irishman he might be, he’d got the job (in long pants) and faced the Brits on his own terms. He would endure anything to get where he was headed.

As for Roosevelt, a reckoning was coming. Kennedy believed fervently that the poisonous old gimp would be defeated in 1940. His day was done, as was that of the Jew financiers who supported and funded him. Roosevelt would be relegated to the wilderness, the Jews would all be shipped off to Africa, and the way would be paved for a red-headed, bow-legged Irishman to reign in the Oval Office.

And by then – he also firmly believed – the Luftwaffe would have reduced London to smoking ruins, and England to subservience. Churchill would be hanged; Hitler would be master of all Europe.

He’d told them so tonight, over the port and cigars. He never scrupled to tell the truth. ‘You can’t stop the Germans,’ he’d told them, ‘so you’d better learn to live with them.’

How he enjoyed the disgust that curdled their faces. He knew they called him ‘Jittery Joe’ and hummed Run Rabbit Run behind his back. God rot them all. Their day was done, too. They thought he didn’t know that they were spying on him, their much-vaunted MI5, opening his diplomatic bag, intercepting his cables. Well, he knew right enough, and he didn’t care.

At least he would be home for Christmas.

The official line was that none of the Kennedys would leave England until every American had been repatriated, but that of course wasn’t true. Joe Junior had sailed already on the RMS Mauretania. Jack would be on the New York flight in a few days. His wife, Teddy and the girls were waiting for the arrival of the SS Manhattan from Le Havre.

He would get them all home as soon as he could. The German ambassador had privately told him what was coming: a rain of fire such as the world had never seen, devastation on an awesome scale. ‘Get your family out,’ von Ribbentrop had whispered. ‘When this is done, we will need men like you, men who understand our Jewish policy so perfectly, men with whom we can build the future.’

And by God, he looked forward to that day.

The telephone on his desk buzzed. He picked it up. ‘Yes?’

‘She’s here, sir.’

He checked his watch. It was two a.m. ‘What condition is she in?’

‘Quiet.’

‘Have them bring her up.’ He drained the second glass of whisky and poured himself a third. He’d drunk nothing more than water during the interminable banquet tonight, damned if he would give them the satisfaction of adding ‘sodden Paddy’ to the book of insults they compiled on him. But he was the son of a man who’d started life as a saloon-keeper, and he knew hard drink was medicine for anger. It didn’t kill it; it kept it alive and burning, so you didn’t forget it.

There was a knock at the door. He pulled his suspenders up and squared his shoulders, fixing a bright grin on his face. ‘Come in,’ he called.

His eldest daughter had grown into a tall, curvaceous beauty in the last couple of years. But the woman who was led in to his study now was dishevelled and dazed, her head bowed. She bore little resemblance to the vivacious Rosemary he’d last seen a few days earlier.

His smile faded. He got up and hurried over to her. ‘Hello, Rosie.’

She didn’t seem to know where she was, and looked around dazedly, her face blotched, her lids swollen. Then her dull gaze landed on his face. ‘Oh, Daddy!’ she whispered.

She collapsed into his arms. He enfolded her, pressing her face into his broad chest. ‘Rosie, my Rosie. You’re safe, now.’

The nurse who had brought her into the room stood back, her hands clasped dutifully around the handle of her Gladstone bag. ‘She’s had a strong sedative, sir. She might be a little confused.’

‘When’s her next dose due?’

‘As soon as she seems to be getting agitated again.’

‘Have you got the stuff?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Put it on my desk. I’ll give it to her.’

The nurse took the packets out of her bag and laid them on the desk in a row. ‘A single dose stirred in a glass of water,’ she murmured. ‘Whenever necessary. She goes out like a light.’

He nodded, still holding Rosemary, who had buckled against him, her body getting heavier in his arms. ‘I’ll call you if I need you. You can go.’

When they were alone, Kennedy lifted his daughter’s head and looked into her face. Her features were blurred, coarsened, as though someone had beaten her with fists, though there were no injuries to be seen. Her beauty had gone. She looked, he thought, hideous.

‘God damn it,’ he said angrily, ‘how could you let yourself get into this state?’

His displeasure, always terrible to her, made her break out in fresh tears. ‘I’m so – sorry – Daddy.’ The medicine they had given her made it hard for her to talk properly. Her tongue lolled in her mouth, her words slurred into each other.

He gave her a handkerchief. ‘Clean yourself up.’

She swayed as she tried clumsily to wipe her eyes and nose. She had been barely conscious during the drive from Southampton, lying on the back seat of the car, her misery suppressed by the medicine, all her functions slowed to a standstill so she could hardly even breathe, her heart a slow thud. Now she felt as though she had been broken all in pieces, and put together wrong. Her head ached dreadfully. She could barely see. Her father’s softly lit study swam around her. All she knew was that Cubby was far away, and that her mother had promised she would never see him again. The grief of that was like a vast chasm, at the edge of which she teetered, only prevented from falling in by the thinnest of threads.

‘Tell me about this boy.’ Daddy always knew what she was thinking. Daddy knew her better than anyone. ‘Have you slept with him?’

‘Yes, Daddy,’ she whispered.

He didn’t scream at her, the way Mother did, but his expression made her want to curl up and die. ‘Did you go all the way?’

‘Yes, Daddy.’

‘How many times?’

‘I – I don’t know.’

‘Ten times? Twenty?’

‘I – I don’t know, Daddy.’

‘Are you pregnant?’

‘I don’t – don’t think so. But I want a baby!’ He had put on his glasses and was looking at her intently, one fist on his hip. ‘Please don’t be angry with me,’ she begged. ‘I love him!’

His face grew more hawk-like for a moment, his eyebrows coming down. He turned and filled the whisky glass on his desk. ‘Drink,’ he said, pushing it into her hand.

Rosemary tried to obey, but the stuff burned her throat, which was swollen and raw from all the crying she’d done. She choked. ‘Can I have ginger ale with it?’

‘I don’t have any here. Throw it down, Rosie. You’ll feel better.’

She closed her eyes and drank the whisky obediently. She got it down in two gulps, but her head instantly began to spin even more wildly. She staggered.

‘Stand up straight.’

‘Daddy, I have to go back. The ship – the ship is leaving.’

‘Yes. But you’ll be staying here.’

‘No,’ she moaned, shaking her head from side to side desperately, ‘no, no, no.’

He took the empty glass from her. ‘You have to forget him, Rosie.’

‘No, Daddy!’

He spoke slowly, reasonably. ‘Even if I would accept a son-in-law like that – a musician, and a Protestant into the bargain – you’re not ready for marriage.’

Rosemary struggled to articulate her anguish through the fog of the whisky and the sedative. ‘I am, I am. I love him!’

He gripped her arms in strong hands, shaking her. The green glitter in his eyes was cold. ‘You don’t love any man more than you love your Daddy, do you?’

She hung her head. ‘Daddy…’

He shook her harder. ‘Do you?’

‘No, Daddy,’ she whispered.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘And you know that no man will ever love you better than I do, don’t you?’

‘Yes, Daddy.’

‘You know that I’ve taken care of you all your life. You know that no man could have taken better care of you. Don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘All your life. From when you were a little, tiny girl. I dried your first tears.’ He rubbed his thumb under her brimming eyes. ‘Just as I’m drying your tears now. Isn’t that right?’

A heavy calm was settling over her, following the slow, rhythmical cadence of his voice, an acceptance that was like despair. But it was better than the anguish. It stopped her from falling into the chasm. ‘Yes, Daddy,’ she said dully.

‘You see, Rosie, the difference between me and all other men is that I understand you. Nobody else can. Nobody else ever will. I’m sure this Cubby is a nice enough boy, but he can never know you the way I know you. Sooner or later, he’ll find out what you really are, and then he’ll hurt you. He’ll go away. I will never hurt you. And I will never go away. I will always be here.’

‘Daddy…’ She swayed against him. He took her in his arms again, stroking her tangled hair with one hand.

‘It’s all over now,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ll forget everything and then you’ll be better again. Calm again. It’s going to be great. The best. You and me. Nobody else. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Just you and me?’

She nodded her head, no longer able to speak.

‘Good.’ He studied her face. ‘You’re so tired. This has been bad for you, Rosie. Very bad. We can’t let this happen again, can we?’

She shook her head.

‘You need to sleep, now. Go to your room and get into bed.’

She walked away from him slowly, like a woman in a dream, her eyes almost closed. He made sure she got out of the door without bumping herself, and watched her drift down the dimly lit corridor and vanish into the shadows.

Then he went back to the telephone on his desk and called his wife.

‘She’s arrived safely,’ he told her. ‘She’s calm now. I’m putting her to bed. Everything’s under control.’