Jack's Widow (2 page)

Gently she tapped on the double doors. There was no answer so she knocked again. The nanny had assured her that this was where Bobby would be.

As there was still no answer she carefully turned the handle. She would leave him a note.

As she entered the darkened room she was shocked to see her husband’s leather jacket. It was one of a kind and had the presidential seal tooled on the back.

Her hand went to her mouth as she saw it move. The man wearing it was sitting slumped forward, his head in his hands, a shock of hair falling across his brow.

For a second it could have been him.

As he lifted his head, in a way that so reminded her of what she had lost, she felt tears so plump, so rotund they didn’t fall but bounced onto her cheeks, her chin, her neck, and through her fingers as she put them up to catch them.

Bobby stood and they held on to one another.

“For a moment I thought it was Jack.” She was clinging more to the jacket than the man, for the feel of it, the smell of it. Jack had worn it so much that it exuded his essence. As she inhaled the scent the horrific reality became believable.

“Oh, Bobby, what will I do, what will I do? I miss him so much. I just can’t bear it,” she cried. He pulled her close. “I know, I know.”

The sound of her crying escalated.

He tried to calm her, took off the jacket and wrapped it round her shoulders.

Like this they stayed together until she had no more tears.

Together they divided his things in a way that brought succor to them both.

J
ackie had always liked N Street. On the day that they were shuttled out of the White House she was grateful that she was returning to familiar territory. The bosky grounds, the neat lawns, the muted gray and blue paint shades on the elegant houses.

They had lived here before moving to Washington’s grandest address. Janet had borne this in mind during her house search, especially after Jackie began to tell everyone that her future was going to be “devoted to the children, living in the places Jack and I lived with them.”

But even though the new house was just a few yards along the road, the second move, in as many months, did not go well.

There were a few joyful moments when they first arrived. Caroline, thrilled that her bedroom was a replica of the White House nursery, squealed with delight as she opened drawer after drawer filled with her old favorites. John, excited at being re united with his swing and sandbox, rushed into the garden the moment he spotted them.

There were other familiar bits that resonated with echoes of happier times. Much of the furniture had come from their private quar
ters in the White House: the comfy linen-covered sofas in pale ivory, the pleated lampshades with salmon pink silk linings that threw a flattering glow.

“I am so pleased you used that color,” said Jackie to her mother when she saw that her bedroom had the same pale blue walls and matching fluted drapes she had commissioned at the White House.

As they completed the tour of the house Jackie realized how much care had gone into its preparation.

“Here I’ve been in my ‘misery mist,’ while you’ve gone to so much trouble to make us feel comfortable.”

She surprised her mother with a huge hug. “Thank you, thank you so much for everything.”

Knowing how much her daughter enjoyed homemaking, Janet left 3017 N Street, NW, feeling satisfied that some sort of corner had been turned.

In a way she was correct. It was early February, so the first Christmas and the first New Year’s of her daughter’s widowhood had been weathered, but Janet had been misled. Because Jackie, always proud and very private, could not discuss her secret fears with anyone, her mother had no idea that her daughter had barely moved forward in the weeks since Dallas and that in truth the former First Lady wished that they were still in the borrowed home that they had shoehorned themselves into.

For Jackie impermanence had a great advantage: nothing was expected of her. Now she was being forced to proceed. Acceptance and adaptability were, she knew, the stepping-stones to normality, but now that she was forced to take stock, she realized that—as a woman of thirty-plus years, a widow, in a small gossipy one-business town where, through no fault of her own, she had been ejected as a senior member of the ruling elite—she simply didn’t fit in.

Another problem was that, for all its prettiness, the new house was completely impractical. It had no driveway, no rolling front lawns, so inevitably, both the Secret Service detail, and anyone who chose to camp out on the pavement just a few feet from the front door were too close.

She suspected that the Secret Service was overcompensating. It was well known that they felt guilty about Jack’s death. But to her they were intrusive and seemed judgmental.

Late at night when she played and occasionally even sang along to some of the records of the songs her husband had loved, “Heart of My Heart” or “Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey?” or Chet Baker’s “I Married an Angel,” which was the first song that they had danced to at their wedding, she sensed they were close by, listening, wondering what the “mad widder-woman,” her own name for her capricious self, was up to.

Ridiculous as it now seemed, she had always felt safe when she was the president’s wife. Now without him she was finding it very hard not to feel frightened.

She read all the conspiracy stories about Jack’s death. She knew that there were still frequent threats to both her and the children. She felt cornered and the feeling fed her recurring nightmares.

Images that had sieved through her subconscious for years refused to be exorcised.

The most frequent one found her rushing to an assignment carrying a Speed Graphic camera, the cumbersome equipment that she had used when she was single, working as the “Inquiring Camera Girl” for the
Washington Times-Herald
.

She was in a panic because she was late. The job was to cover Jack’s second wedding. It was the same every time. She recognized the setting, the rackety Palm Beach Kennedy vacation house, and most of the guests. She also very clearly saw the loving gleam in Jack’s eyes as he gazed adoringly at his new bride. She was even able to catch sight of the dress, short ice-blue satin molded around a voluptuous hourglass figure, but unable to get close enough to catch sight of his new wife’s face. She always sensed that it was someone she knew.

Other reveries would find her alone in a strange hospital bedroom next to an incubator that was empty except for a tiny plastic nametag labeled “Baby Kennedy,” another had her urgently tracking her father down in a crowded bar that he frequented. Before Dallas she was struggling to get through the door against a tide of
oncoming congressmen, senators, lobbyists, and other alumni of the political scene. Since November 22 it was smiling Texan policemen that kept her from reaching the barstools and her goal.

The other horror that had been a regular exerciser in her mind gym was the question: Had Jack really loved her or had she been just a useful prop in his political life? It didn’t matter now but it was a query that would not go away.

As time passed she barely noticed the first signs of spring, not even when she went riding. She sat in, night after night, now reading anything, in any publication, about Jack’s career and their life in the White House.

Old friends came around. They tried their best but in most cases the relationship was not strong enough to accommodate them. Either their friendship was too fragile to cope with losing one of their number or perhaps they had just been Jack’s friends.

Maybe, she mused, they would have been pals with any president.

How much did she have in common with them? So little.

She disliked the thought that she missed the White House, but deep down she did. Not the endless political gossip—the insider chat in Washington, D.C., had always been too mean for her taste—but she had relished her role as the president’s wife, being useful, being a helpmate. An avid reader she often delighted Jack with nuggets of fascinating, little-known facts.

During his three and three-quarter years in the job she had enjoyed making discoveries that occasionally led him to new thoughts and ideas that could alter his dreams, his plans.

It was a letter from President Johnson that forced her to think of the future. She was galvanized by his suggestion that she should be the next U.S. ambassador to France or Mexico.

Even though she knew that it would probably be wrong to both uproot the children and to upset her brother-in-law Bobby, who hated his brother’s successor, the job offers aroused her interest.

“How would you like it if we moved to Paris?” she asked her mother.

As the paint on the walls of the new house was barely dry Janet almost spluttered in shock.

“Paris, where did that idea come from?”

After Jackie explained Janet took a good look at her daughter, sitting on the floor, minus the bouffant hairdo, the high heels, and the perfectly maintained perfection of yesteryear. Jackie had lost weight, they all had, but the former First Lady had lost most. With her wide shoulders, long waist, and slim hips her current appearance was that of a two-dimensional wraith. Janet, already worrying about her daughter’s finances, wondered how her eldest would react when she finally resumed normal life and found that none of her perfect wardrobe still fit.

“I don’t suppose it pays very well,” was all she could manage.

Janet understood enough about their relationship to be careful not to dismiss the idea outright. She would do nothing to make her daughter go abroad for the wrong reason.

“No, but all, well most, of your expenses as an ambassador are paid for,” breathed her daughter in reply.

“And, I might make a difference, you know, properly, like Jack.”

Janet tried hard not to raise her eyes to the ceiling.

“But you’ve always been uncertain about politics, disliked them, if we are going to be honest about it,” she said. “Remember how you didn’t like it when Jack had to say one thing and then do another? You hated it. So how do you think you could handle doing it yourself?”

Even Janet could sense that her voice had risen to a querulous timbre.

Speedily she added, “Not that they don’t love you over there and would probably agree with absolutely everything that you suggested.”

She could see her daughter was not deterred.

“After everything, I imagine that I could handle that now,” she muttered.

“Anyway, anything would be better than being wheeled out as
the Democrats’ totem pole for the next fifty years! Just think about it, the children are at the perfect age, it would be so easy for them to become bilingual. On weekends we could travel around Europe and there really is so much I could do workwise.”

For the first time since November her daughter was sounding enthusiastic, but still Janet felt apprehensive.

Maybe she was against this idea for selfish reasons. She, of all people, should understand Jackie’s need to feel useful. After all, wasn’t she herself secretly reveling in it? She had never seen so much of her grandchildren, and having to take care of her daughter again had revived a maternal role that she found very satisfying.

“Of course, there could be problems. If I do well, Lyndon looks good, and if I screw up, well, there goes the neighborhood.” Jackie smiled slightly. “Either way the Kennedys, especially Bobby, would hate it.”

Sunlight flooded Janet’s mind.

She didn’t want to lose her daughter, but she realized that she wouldn’t have to be the one to keep her at home. She said nothing as she watched Jackie go into the study, select a leather-bound atlas from the shelf, and tuck it under her arm as she readied herself to disappear for her afternoon nap.

On her way out, after she had kissed the children goodbye, Janet allowed herself a short explosive snort.

Bloody Lyndon. Why didn’t he keep his nose out of their affairs?

The new president followed up his note with a telephone call. “I don’t want to rush you but I’m serious about you doing either of these jobs,” he drawled. Jackie recognized that his offer was more than just a kind gesture. Simply pondering how she might tackle either of them was therapeutic. She started to make lists, and as she did so she realized that despite the foreign holidays, her riding, and her shopping expeditions, she had worked hard as First Lady. Whether it was arranging the seating plan for the state dinner for
the president of the Republic of the Ivory Coast or the reorganization of the White House garden, she prided herself that she’d had a hand in everything from the canapés to the canopies at Mount Vernon.

She had been a tireless, if courteous, fighter for detail. Planning, organization, and absorption with the fine print of life had always underpinned her entire existence.

Despite being involved with the setting up of the library in Boston in her husband’s name, she recognized that she had much too little to do and too much time to think.

Even though she eventually declined the two ambassadorships, she was grateful to her husband’s successor because the idea that she could be of real use, that she was still in a unique position to play a special role, that she could make a difference, caught her imagination.

It reminded her of the last man who had discovered that her abilities were exceptional.

Maybe he would be able to find something for her to do. That night she wrote a short letter enclosing her change-of-address card.

It went, by diplomatic pouch, straight to Moscow.

R
ed Square has never looked more beautiful, he thought.

Guy nudged the black turtleneck sweater higher up toward his chin with long, capable fingers embedded in fur-lined gloves. As ever, the glimpse of the Kremlin’s skyline lifted his spirits. Even the icy wind left a tinny taste on his lips that he savored.

Do I like it here because it is the most interesting place I have ever lived or is it the work that excites me? he wondered.

It was quiet in the Russian capital this Saturday morning; the few babushkas on the street walked silently, the limp sun had the consistency of a thrice-used tea bag, and even the snow was falling softly.

Remembering his military training, he drew himself up, threw back his shoulders, and breathed in deeply. Although he was accustomed to wearing clothes that would blend in with the Moscow street, everything in Soviet-style drab colors of possum and raccoon, he was already freezing despite the warm interlinings that had been sewn into his coat.

His plans had enabled him to get out of the house without an
argument. His wife suspected that since their five-year-old had begun piano lessons on Saturday mornings there was little to keep him at home. He explained that work called and he could not disappoint his oldest contact.

Sergei always asked him in his fractured English, “Please, Guy, the weekends are zo, zo much easier for me. I don’t have to go into my office or to any news conferences. Free press,” he would say, “no news allowed to happen on Saturday or Sunday! We can meet at my zister’s place, I go there for lunch every weekend. Don’t vorry, it is my usual pattern,” he had said, time and time again.

It was the only part of spycraft that the younger man had managed to teach the fifty-six-year-old.

Within minutes Guy’s long strides had taken him to the office. He would have just enough time to read the overnight memos.

After half an hour he had more or less finished. There was nothing special.

About to leave for his rendezvous, he was given an urgent message to go upstairs to collect a special delivery. His heart raced. Anything that was delivered to the office must be serious, must mean trouble.

The message was intriguing, one that he would share with his boss when he came to work on Monday morning.

He thought about the first time he had met her. It was on a day as cold as this, in the decaying grandeur of Prague in 1957.

It was Jackie’s first official foreign visit. She was accompanying her husband, Jack, then a senator for Massachusetts, who for the first time had been included in the bipartisan delegation attending the conference of the nuclear club. Four years before, despite deep distrust between the Americans and the British on one side and the Soviets on the other, the three nations had realized that they did have one thing in common: ownership of the atomic bomb. Their shared problem was stopping the spread of nuclear weapons across the world.

In 1953, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had received a standing ovation at the United Nations when he suggested that some of the stockpiles of these weapons should be given to the world’s scientists to discover a dual use for the technology. At a time when the Iron Curtain was callously billowing across Europe, the delegates were amazed to see that even the Russians were applauding. Thus the Atoms for Peace nonproliferation program was born—but it got off to a faltering start. During the first few years the only achievement in the search for ways to harness nuclear energy for peaceful purposes was the decision to hold a small, low-key meeting every year that would include politicians, the world’s top scientists, and other experts.

Geneva was chosen as the first place to meet.

It did not go badly and as protocol demanded that the three nations could take turns to decide the venue for the next meeting, in 1955 the British chose London. When Winston Churchill, who had always believed that as few countries as possible should have the ultimate deterrent, was invited to one of their dinners, grown men felt lumps in their throat at his oratory.

As the months went by the Russians suspected that the British and Americans were maintaining their spheres of influence by helping allies like France to acquire the bomb. The United States and the United Kingdom were equally skeptical about the Russians’ intentions.

Assuming that the Russians would follow the British example and choose their capital as the next venue, both MI6 and the CIA begged their governments to kiss and make up. Throughout the long reign of Joseph Stalin, the Russian capital had been virtually impregnable to most Westerners.

The mistrustful Russians were well aware that the West was curious about Moscow and had decided to thwart these ambitions by nominating Budapest. The Soviets explained that the Hungarian capital already had the reputation as the most glamorous city behind the Iron Curtain. Unfortunately for them, by the late summer of 1956 this sophistication took the form of a longing for neutrality
and democracy. As the meeting got closer the Soviets, sensing that the Hungarians might just be mad enough to rise up against them, hastily canceled it.

The Atoms for Peace meetings might have come to a complete end, but in November the Suez debacle opened all their eyes to the risk of a Middle Eastern despot gaining control of a nuclear weapon, so the three reconvened in the spring of 1957. This time the Kremlin chose Prague.

Installed in the Czech capital’s oldest hotel, Jackie was excited if a little worried about her health. Just a week before the trip she had found out that she was once again pregnant.

Less than a year earlier she had given birth to a stillborn daughter, Arabella. Before this she had miscarried with their first child. She was desperate that this time nothing must go wrong.

She was going to take extra care.

So on the third day of the conference she begged off from that afternoon’s arrangements for the delegates’ wives. In the morning they had seen how the famous glass of Bohemia was created, but her assigned vehicle included a talkative interpreter from Minsk and three enthralled Mamie Eisenhower types. The hour-long trip had made her feel nauseous.

She didn’t want to tell her husband that she was feeling unwell as he would be bound to suggest that she return home early, something she was unwilling to do. She loved being with him in these circumstances; even though they were a part of a group she felt there was a coziness, a special intimacy between them.

Perhaps if she had discovered a kindred spirit among the other women she might have been less secretive, but she was by far the youngest and the most traveled of them all. She had visited Europe regularly since she was a teenager. Some of the crass or naive comments from the others in the group told her that they had little in common.

All she needed was a little rest. But when she went up to her room after lunch the sheets were so cold they felt almost damp. She remembered that the radiators would not warm up until after five.
She decided to take advantage of the large open fires in the reception rooms downstairs. This was obviously why Czech café society spent the day keeping the grand salons of the hotel busy with cake, coffee, and conspiracy.

She swiftly changed into an ice-blue cashmere twin set that had been dyed to match her moleskin trousers. Slipping into navy moccasins, she grabbed a new novel and descended to the ground floor.

To avoid meeting any of their traveling companions, she searched for a deep armchair that was tucked away. She found one in a niche behind a tall column where she could sit unobserved. She ordered a large pot of tea and settled down to her book, which turned out to be so dull she spent much of her time gazing into the high mirror ahead of her that reflected the comings and goings of the room. She watched as one glamorous couple, obviously not married, interspersed sips of their large vodkas with much mutual finger-stroking, when her attention was caught by the entrance of two women who, she was sure, were with some Russian scientists attending the conference. Having swept in and noisily arranged themselves, they quickly looked around and, confident that there were no Westerners in the room, began a dialogue in heavily Russian-accented Spanish.

Carefully, using the mirror, Jackie analyzed their clothes, hairstyles, and makeup. Not only did they look far more sophisticated than most females in this part of the world, their husbands were obviously quite senior as they had been wealthy enough to pay for good-quality furs and leather. Their schoolgirl use of the foreign language had obviously been newly acquired from a textbook. So not only had they been well educated, and recently so, they had absorbed the lessons of self-preservation. They knew that it was wise to be careful about where and when they spoke not only their mother tongue but also French, the second language chosen by the majority of those in their empire. A hotel like this was sure to be full of many who had the facility for both languages and would be very interested in anything they had to say.

But they were so sure that no one in the room would understand a word of what they said in Spanish, they spoke loudly and freely.

Jackie, confident that she was situated where she would not be seen by them, stopped being nervous. Even if they did glimpse round her corner she was quite certain that they would never expect an American senator’s wife to be able to understand their every word. It was hard not to eavesdrop.

After being served tea, cake, and schnapps, the women launched into a discussion about this morning’s visit. Grateful though she seemed for her free gift, one of the women sought the other’s advice on whether she thought it more practical to send the sixty-piece Bohemian glass set directly to the next place that they “would call home, rather than drag it back to Moscow.”

Conversation about their new billets, a long and detailed one, was so shocking to Jackie that she remained in her hidden chair for a full fifteen minutes after they left to make sure that they did not see her.

Jackie was no politician but even she realized that what she had heard was alarming. Some of the Russian scientists were going off to live in China one week after this conference. Could they have done a deal to share their nuclear-power know-how with the Chinese?

It was vital that her countrymen hear about this. Cool and calm as ever, she knew she must do nothing out of character. There were watchers from the Czech Secret Service everywhere in the hotel, stationed on every floor. After she reached her room she bathed, put on her cocktail dress, and firmed up a plan for Jack’s return.

As soon as her husband entered the room she put her finger on his lips before he had a chance to exclaim how extraordinary it was that she was ready for dinner.

Gently she held his hand and pulled him into the bathroom, all the time smiling at him and touching his lips so that he would not speak. Only once the bath taps were spitting out a Niagara of hot water did she begin.

“You may not have noticed two of the younger Russian wives, the tall blond one and the redhead.”

He had.

She explained how she had spent the afternoon.

“Jack, I heard them distinctly, next month they and their husbands are off to live near Peking.”

His shocked expression was enough for her to recount every word she had heard.

“Would you be willing to repeat this?” He made to move toward the phone, then smiling and nodding, acknowledging that she had quite correctly assumed that the room would be bugged, he laughingly commented that for once he would have just a two-minute bath as he was longing for a scotch, and wouldn’t it be great if they could be the first ones down for cocktails.

Standing at the bar in the ballroom, Jackie and Jack appeared to be doing nothing more than enjoying their drinks. The moment that Jackie touched his hand to signal that one of the women she had seen that afternoon had come through the door on the arm of a Russian physicist, Jack gently wheeled them both around the room to join the most senior nuclear expert on the American team. She smiled at the pair while her husband pretended to be whispering a slightly off-color joke to him. As Jack was dispensing Jackie’s information, carefully indicating the woman and her spouse, the change of expression on the nuclear expert’s face confirmed she had not wasted her time. Seconds later she glimpsed the American scientist sidling out through the large mirrored doors of the hotel ballroom. As they sat down for dinner, some twenty minutes later, he reappeared and slid into his seat on the right of the British Foreign Secretary’s wife.

As soon as the meal was over, but before coffee and
digestifs
were served, Jackie was surprised when the tall blond press attaché from the American embassy whom they had met on their first evening came over and reintroduced himself as Guy Steavenson. Within moments he had asked if the senator would object if, even though the night was very cold, he could escort his wife out onto the balcony to show her the view of the Charles Bridge.

Without waiting for her to exclaim about the Gothic towers of stone at each end, Guy explained, in a low voice, that he handled more than press at the American embassy.

“Not wanting to be melodramatic, I wonder if it would be too boring for you if you told me absolutely everything you heard this afternoon?”

She looked up at him. He had a kind but strong face, twinkling eyes divided between white and cerulean blue, lips that seemed more comfortable curved in an upward direction rather than the reverse, and both his pale blond hair and dinner jacket stood out—they had been expertly cut.

Swathed in her mink stole, she recounted everything while pretending to look at the stars.

When she finished he thanked her and asked if she would be prepared to help again.

Still simulating entrancement with what she was seeing, rather than what she was hearing, she nodded.

Staring deeply at her, he said, “If I were to rig things so that you could spend tomorrow together with them, could you cope? I’ve looked at the schedule, it’s a shoe factory in the morning and a children’s drama school in the afternoon.”