Page 77 of The Gathering Storm

‘What d’you think I’ve been working towards all these years?’ Kennedy said, flashing him a grin with his great white tombstone teeth. ‘First I’m gonna be president, then my son, Joe Junior. I’m gonna make it hereditary!’ He laughed infectiously.

‘I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,’ Lennie said, laughing too. ‘If kings can do it—’

‘Kings nothing! They get it handed on a plate. I worked for mine from the bottom up. I deserve it – and I’m gonna have it. And my nine kids are all gonna benefit. The Kennedy Dynasty. It’s got a ring to it, don’t you think? But what about you, Len? You married yet? No? You ought to think about it. People trust you more when you’re a family man. And you can’t get far in politics if you’re single. You should get married and get a family going. You’re not getting any younger, you know.’

‘I haven’t met the right girl yet,’ Lennie said. ‘Or, rather, I met her, but she met someone else.’

‘There’s thousands of girls out there,’ Kennedy said cheerfully. ‘And I’ll tell you a secret,’ he added, with a wink. ‘One’s pretty much the same as another, when you get right down to it.’

Kennedy was a famous ladies’ man, despite having a high-energy, politically engaged wife. Or perhaps, Lennie thought, because of it. He had met Rose Kennedy a few times and had found her exhausting. And a little bit frightening.

The next morning Lennie, feeling idle, decided to stroll along Fifth Avenue, look in the shop windows and take note of the fashions so that he could report them back to Rose. It was a still day, very cold, but dry and bracing, and in his coat with the big fur collar he felt impervious. He was staring at a display of hats in Saks’s window and composing an amusing letter in his mind when he was accosted by a lady just coming out of the store – a tiny round thing bundled up in furs, tottering on high-heeled boots. ‘Lennox Manning, I declare! I didn’t know you were in town!’

He submitted dutifully to an embrace from Mimi Niebling, one of New York’s noted hostesses. ‘I’m just here for a few weeks on business,’ he said. ‘You’re looking wonderful, Mimi. I swear you get younger every time I see you.’ There wasn’t much of her to be seen between fur hat and fur coat, but it was the right thing to say.

She giggled like someone a quarter of her age and girth. ‘You and your silver tongue! You get that from mixing with all those Hollywood types, I suppose. Oh!’ Her eyes widened as she thought of something. ‘Now, that’s a wonderful coincidence. You’ll never guess who’s coming to my cocktail party this evening.’

‘No, I never will,’ Lennie said solemnly.

‘Anthea Taylor! There! What a lucky thing I bumped into you! You must come and meet her!’ Most of Mimi’s utterances came with exclamation marks. ‘You know her, of course?’

Anthea Taylor was one of MGM’s stars, and on the rise. Sifting through his mind, he remembered that he had read she was starring in a play on Broadway between pictures. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I know who she is.’

‘She’s my guest of honour. We’re celebrating her Academy Award nomination,’ Mimi beamed. ‘You must come and help me look after her. She’ll be feeling a little lost, so far from home, and you’ll be a friendly face. Now, say yes! I must have you! And we’ll make up a party for dinner afterwards. That’s settled, then.’ She beamed again, certain she had got her way. It was her practice to ride over obstacles like a tank across no man’s land. ‘Come early! Bless you! Now I must dash!’

‘Let me call you a cab.’

‘No need!’ she said, and produced from nowhere a small silver whistle, which she blew piercingly. As if by magic, a large yellow cab scorched to the kerb, and she waved a fur-gloved hand to him as she climbed in.

Lennie smiled to himself and strolled on. He’d had no plans for the evening, and he felt he might as well submit to Mimi as anyone. Her hors d’oeuvres were always excellent; and through the wealth and connections of her husband, who it was said ‘owned half of everything’, she was able to command the most interesting guests. It would be worth putting on a tuxedo for.

On the corner of Tottenham Court Road, Oliver bumped into a small, wiry man with horn-rimmed glasses, a scarf wound up to his chin and a soft hat pulled down to his eyes. He was carrying a canvas bag, which he now clutched to his chest as though fearing it might be snatched away.

‘Good gracious!’ Oliver exclaimed. ‘Beefy Oxenford, as I live and breathe!’

The little man looked up and blinked, ‘Oh, hello, Winchmore,’ he said mildly.

‘Old Beefy!’ Oliver said, grinning. ‘I haven’t seen you since the Armistice! What are you doing these days?’

‘Oh, this and that,’ Beefy said vaguely.

The nickname Beefy was one of those ironic labels, Beefy being notably slight of build. But he had a wiry strength. He had been an anaesthetist during the war, and had served with Oliver in many a sticky part of the Front, where delirious soldiers often had to be restrained as they were being put under.

‘Still passing gas?’ Oliver asked. He knew most of the gasmen in London, and he hadn’t heard Beefy’s name mentioned. But there were other cities.

But Beefy said, ‘No, I gave that up after the war. Never wanted to go into another operating theatre.’

‘I don’t blame you,’ Oliver said. ‘That was quite a picnic, wasn’t it? Come and have a wet, and tell me what you’re up to.’

The Rising Sun on the corner of Windmill Street was just a step away, one of those old pubs full of oak panelling and acid-embossed glass screens. Established at a table with two pints of beer, the men looked at each other. ‘I say, do take off all that muffling,’ Oliver said. ‘You look like Sergei Sokolov, the Sinister Spy. What’s in the bag?’

‘Nothing in particular,’ Beefy said, unwinding the scarf. ‘Just some bits and pieces. For my hobby.’ He thrust the bag under the table.

They talked a bit about the war, and the fate of various people they both remembered, and Oliver spoke briefly about his plastic-surgery work. Beefy then admitted that after demobilisation he had had what was nowadays called a ‘nervous breakdown’, and had gone home to live with his parents in Stevenage. He had been shaken out of the state by the sudden death of his father. Having to comfort his mother and sisters and deal with all the practicalities had put his feet back on firmer ground. He had inherited a large slice of his father’s fortune, and, on the death of his mother in 1928, he had sold the family house – his sisters being settled in marriage by then – and had come to London, where he lived modestly on his private income, and devoted his time to his hobby.

‘Television.’

‘Good Lord!’ Oliver said. ‘I thought you were going to say you’ve been working on some wonderful new surgical invention. You always were interested in machinery and gadgets and so on. But television?’