A Kennedy Affair

by Emily Hourican

Genres: World War II; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

When Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy left London four years ago, Europe was facing war and Billy Cavendish, the man she loved, had told her he could never marry her. Now, as London stands a shell of its former self, Kick returns to volunteer with the Red Cross, determined to do what she can for the city that holds a part of her heart, and to reconnect with Billy - despite what London society thinks of her.

For Lady Brigid Guinness, life is unrecognisable. She has swapped dinner parties, social engagements and high fashion for long shifts as a nurse helping wounded soldiers. And the only person she can really talk to is a man shunned by her inner circle.

When Sissy, a young Irish girl, arrives from Wicklow under the care of the Guinness family, she brings her own secrets and all three women begin to realise that in a time of war, friendship might be the only thing they can rely on.

A Kennedy Affair is a story of forbidden love, family discord, and how in the worst of times, we can discover the best of ourselves, and each other.

Release date: October 17, 2024

Publisher: Hachette Books Ireland

Print pages: 400

Sample

The light was already as bright as a bare electric bulb although it was only seven o’clock. Kick threw off the covers and sat upright. She could smell smoke from last night’s beach bonfire on her hair, and remembered the crackling flames that had flickered across the faces of her companions, those summer friends who were as much a part of holidays at Hyannis Port as sailing and swimming. Her brother Jack’s face, lit up and merry as he told a story from his recent Harvard graduation; Joe, so quick to cut in and tell his own story – a bigger, better one. The girls on either side of those brothers of hers who had laughed and urged them on. One especially, newly come from Boston, a friend of a friend, who couldn’t seem to make up her mind between them, flirting with both.

Kick yawned. They had come home when dawn was already throwing out pinkish streaks, like grappling hooks, to attach itself to land and pull against the dark, but for Kick, used to being woken at six every morning at her convent school, there was still something decadent about lying in till seven. In any case, their mother would never allow anyone to sleep longer. Breakfast was at eight sharp, every morning, even Sunday. And if you missed it, well, Cook was under strict instructions not to slip you so much as a slice of bread. ‘If you’re late for meals, you go without,’ Rose said.

Kick rolled her shoulders back. They were tight. All that sailing the day before. They would be even more sore by the evening, she knew. A race was planned – first to the gull-rock and back. They did it every year, had done since they each turned, what, eight? Nine? They’d set off in their separate sail boats, as many of them as were deemed old enough to go, rounding the rock as close and tight as they dared, then home again to where their father waited on the dock, ready to judge the winner and give his verdict on their performances.

‘Rosie,’ Kick called across to her sister, in the bed on the other side of the room. Rosie slept, as always, curled into a tight ball so that only the top of her head poked out of the crisp cotton quilt that was patterned with tiny pink and white flowers. Rosie slept later than any of them and was the grumpiest in the mornings. ‘Rosie, we should get up.’

‘You get up!’ Rosie called back. She hadn’t moved and the words were muffled. Her dark hair spilled from the top of the tightly bundled quilt.

‘Come on, Rosy-posy. You know Mother will only be fretting and fidgeting, if we don’t go down for breakfast. “I won’t have any Lazy Susans in this house,”’ she mimicked.

That made Rosie laugh, unwillingly. She pushed back the quilt and heaved herself up. Her eyes were swollen and her face puffy. Rosie was by far the prettiest of them, but you wouldn’t know it in the mornings, Kick thought, with a grin she hid carefully by turning her head towards the window. Rosie didn’t like being laughed at. Not any more. Before, she would join in, eager for any joke. But this last year she’d been so touchy.

Rosie swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat, yawning and stretching, with her feet flat on the bare wooden floor. Sun from the window glanced across the top of her head.

Kick got up, put on her dressing-gown and threw Rosie’s across to her. She walked to the window and pushed it open, breathing in the sea air that was as much salt as anything else. ‘Those birds must have the same kind of mother we do,’ she said, with a laugh. ‘They’re mighty busy.’

Rosie laughed too. ‘It’s a beautiful day,’ she said, in the monotone she affected when she imitated their mother. ‘We don’t want to waste a second of it.’ She stretched and yawned again. ‘But it’s too early for Mother’s moralising. My head’s telling me I should be asleep.’

‘You can’t be as tired as I am,’ Kick said, trying to cheer her. ‘I think I only slept about two hours.’

It was the wrong thing to say. She knew it immediately from the way Rosie’s face scrunched up, cross and resentful. ‘I wanted to go to that party!’ she said. Older than Kick by nearly two years, she was almost twenty-three, and had come to resent all that Kick was allowed to do and she wasn’t.

‘It wasn’t a party, it really wasn’t,’ Kick said hurriedly. ‘Just a bonfire on the beach and a few of the same people we see every day. You don’t even like them very much.’

‘I like Glen,’ Rosie said, her face lighting up momentarily. Glen was a friend of Joe’s, handsome and sporty. Rosie wasn’t the only girl who liked him, Kick knew. In fact, she had once kind of liked him herself. But that was before England. Before Billy.

‘Glen wasn’t there,’ Kick said. It was a lie, and she felt hot under the arms as she told it. She would confess it later, she promised herself. Right now, it was the smart thing to do. ‘No Glen, and no one interesting at all, really. Come on, we’d better hurry.’

They dressed and ran downstairs, arriving at the breakfast table just after their father. They were the last. All the other children were seated in their places and Rose was ready to say morning grace. She bowed her head as Rosie and Kick slid into their seats.

‘Who’s sailing this morning?’ their father asked, when prayers were over. Only Bobby said yes. The race was that afternoon, and the rest of them decided to spend the morning doing other things: tennis, swimming. ‘Who’ll play rounders with me?’ Jean asked.

‘I will,’ Kick said. ‘If Teddy and Rosie do.’ It was her way of trying to ensure Rosie did something. Too often, that summer, Rose had found fault with her eldest daughter for ‘not doing anything’. More and more, Rosie wanted to spend her days just lying on a striped towel on the beach, sunning herself, ‘Not even reading,’ as Rose said in displeasure. She didn’t have the same need as the rest of them to be always in motion, doing and proving themselves.

It wouldn’t have mattered, except that it mattered to their mother. ‘Idle hands, idle mind,’ she would say, disapproving. She would chivvy Rosie to ‘do something’, and Rosie would refuse, and then there would be an argument. There had been more lately. Rosie was so stubborn, but Kick hated to see how upset she got, and how her rages would fly so quickly out of control. They all had tempers – they were Kennedys – but even little Teddy controlled his better than Rosie did. She let fly, and was so upset afterwards that she couldn’t seem to calm herself down, pacing and ranting that things were ‘unfair’ and people ‘mean’, long past the time the argument should have been forgotten. Because while it was OK to lose your temper, bearing a grudge was not. That was ‘unmanly’, even for the girls.

‘All right,’ Rosie said now. ‘I’ll play.’

Kick smiled at her, and Rosie grinned back. ‘I’m trying to get in her good books so she’ll let me go out with you and the boys tonight,’ she whispered, leaning close.

Kick’s heart sank. She didn’t think it would work but she didn’t say so. ‘Good,’ she said.

They dispersed as soon as breakfast was over. Joe, for all that he’d said he was playing tennis, went to the beach club to meet Clarice, the girl from the bonfire. He made sure to tell Jack how she’d telephoned first thing to ask if he had seen a head-scarf she’d lost. ‘I’ll bet that scarf is in her pocket right this minute,’ he added.

The morning was hot and bright and perfect. Kick, Rosie and the younger ones ran about the beach until they were exhausted, diving into the ocean to cool off, then flopping down onto the warm sand to dry.

‘I’m going to wear my new dress with the blue stripes,’ Rosie said. She had continued to talk about the evening – how she would do her hair, whether she might get away with wearing lipstick. Kick felt worse and worse. She resolved to talk to their mother privately, and try to enlist Jack to help her.

‘If we say we’ll look after her,’ she said to Jack, when she got him alone, ‘maybe Mother will let her.’ They were in the downstairs cloakroom, good-naturedly jostling one another at the washbasin as they washed hands. The slanting window beyond Jack showed stripes of yellow and blue – sand and sea – and the wooden shutters were so warped by years of wet, salty air that they no longer closed.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘But you have to say it to Joe and get him to agree.’ Joe would be less inclined than Jack. He felt Rosie needed too much looking after, and she came out with strange remarks that made other people laugh, but sometimes fall silent in embarrassment. ‘He’s more against taking her out than ever since she made that pass at Glen.’

‘She was only dancing with him,’ Kick said. That had been at their house, maybe two weeks ago now. A small party, not even a party, just a couple of friends and some records.

‘He said she put her hands all over him and he didn’t know what to do,’ Jack said, grimacing a little as he spoke.

‘He just needs to tell her no, and not be silly about it,’ Kick said. ‘That’s just Rosie.’ She giggled. ‘I think it’s funny when she does it.’

‘Glen didn’t think it was so funny. Neither did Joe, when Glen told him. He said Rosie had better learn to behave or he’ll start agreeing with Mother that she can’t be allowed to do the same things as the rest of us.’

‘But can’t he see that the less Mother lets her, the more she wants to? If Rosie was allowed to go out with us – even Eunice is sometimes – she’d soon learn it isn’t all that wonderful. Just a bunch of kids.’

‘Is that what it seems like to you now, after England?’ he asked, with a sly grin. ‘I suppose after coming-out balls and being presented at Court, a game of baseball must seem silly all right.’

‘Don’t!’ Kick said, drying her hands and leaving faint streaks on the blue-and-white striped towel. ‘I get enough of that from Molly and my other friends. They all watch like hawks in case I say something that suggests England’s better, and then they pounce.’ She rearranged the towel to hide the stains. ‘Anyway, I’ll watch Rosie tonight,’ she continued, ‘if you help me persuade Joe.’

‘Well, OK. But I don’t think much of your plan. Rosie doesn’t learn like other people, you know that. She’s not going to tire of going out. Not when she’s got Glen to put her hands all over.’ He grinned and flicked water at Kick, who swiftly held up the striped towel as a shield. ‘Any luck with England?’ he asked.

‘None.’ Kick handed him the towel. ‘I tried and tried again. They just will not let me go back.’

‘I tried too. I told Pa I didn’t think the newspapers would be half so mean to you as he thinks, with you being a girl and all.’

‘They were real mean when we left – all those headlines about what cowards we were to run away from war,’ she said ruefully.

‘Sure, but mostly they blamed him for sending you away, not you for leaving. Everyone knew how much you wanted to stay.’

‘I really did,’ she said. Then, eagerly, ‘Anyway, what did Pa say to that?’

‘The same as ever – that part of our lives is done now. That he’s no longer ambassador, and England is now at war, and that’s nothing to do with us. That the best thing we can do, as a country and as a family, is to stay well away.’

‘Oh.’ She was glum after the momentary surge of hope. ‘Well, thanks for trying.’

‘Do you really want to go back?’ he asked curiously. ‘After almost two years? Isn’t it all just like a beautiful dream now, and best left that way?’

‘No. I know I’ll go back. I’m certain of it. I just wish it was sooner rather than later. Now that all my poor English friends are so much in need of cheering up.’

‘You mean Billy, don’t you?’

‘I suppose I do.’ She had spent so many months, back in America, longing for Billy. Longing for London and her London friends, and for the person she was with them – somehow unlike the Kick she had grown up as: the wholesome girl who was, first and foremost, a sister and a daughter. From the very moment the family had disembarked at Southampton in March 1938, the English press had chosen her to make a fuss of. More even than her father, it had been Kick the camera bulbs flashed for, Kick who was written and talked about.

Billy had been the coming-together of all of it. His instant attraction to her had been flattering, and welcome, but she hadn’t been terribly serious about him until she realised – when Debo Mitford told her – that he would never offer to marry her. ‘He can’t. Absolutely can’t,’ Debo had said, oddly precise for one who spoke mostly in charming riddles. ‘It’s not even that his family won’t allow it, it’s that Billy himself would never begin to consider it. He likes you – oh, we can all see that – but he won’t allow himself to be serious about you. If you ask me,’ she had continued, ‘it’s only because war is on the way that he’s even let it go this far.’

‘Like before a half-day holiday, when everyone gets real giddy?’ Kick had asked. She had been curious, and a little insulted.

‘Exactly.’

It wasn’t just that she was Catholic, Kick had discovered, it was her Irishness too. Her father was so self-consciously ‘Irish’, marshalling the Irish Americans of Boston and delivering them to Roosevelt, proud as a cat with a dead bird. His Irishness was careful, expedient, like everything he was and did, so that Kick had never before thought there might be different kinds of Irish, even different Irelands.

Joe Kennedy was vocal about his Irishness, yet had only been there once. He spoke of Irish freedom as something tangible, to be chased, like a football, but always at a remove, watched over from the fastness of Boston and America.

Billy’s family, meanwhile, had a home in Ireland, an actual castle in a place called Lismore. They visited often and talked of how much they loved it yet they seemed to see a country almost without people when they spoke of it, and recoiled from any mention of ‘freedom’. Generations of their family had been appointed to positions of great power, there in a country that didn’t want them, sworn to prevent the very thing Kick’s father cheered for: Irish freedom. ‘Romeo and Juliet are a match-maker’s dream compared with you two,’ Jack had said when she first explained it to him.

The impossibility of it all was what made her really fall for Billy. It had made her certain where she had been uncertain. The knowledge that he would likely not propose had made her determined that he would. It was a game. Until it wasn’t a game: it had become the most serious thing in her life.

It was when she realised that he loved her and would never ask her to marry him that she felt she understood him and loved him too. It had happened at the very end of her time in England, when the certainty of separation had made them both speak openly. Then war came, and they were roughly pulled apart.

Through the years that they had been on opposite sides of a wide sea, it was Billy she had come to long for. Not the victory that his proposal would mean. Not any more. Just Billy, with his quiet voice and clipped sentences, so much more eloquent when he wrote to her than he had ever been when they sat side by side or danced together at the Café de Paris.

His letters carried a great deal about how he missed her, how he thought of her, without ever suggesting what could be done about it. He said he would never forget her, but didn’t ask her to come back, or propose ways for them to meet. Which was how Kick knew that if there was to be anything for them, it was hope she would need to ignite.

‘Still?’ Jack asked sympathetically now.

‘Still.’

‘Better start to wear a hat, then,’ he said, looking past his own face in the mirror above the washbasin to hers. ‘Those freckles are not at all the thing for English girls. Or girls who like English men.’

‘They’re the same as your freckles,’ she said.

‘Yes, but I’m not trying to marry a duke,’ he said, only half joking now.

Kick chose her moment carefully. Her mother had finished her thirty lengths – breaststroke, her head held out of the water and a flowery swimming hat to protect her hair – and sat by the side of the pool on a reclining chair, with a pad of writing paper balanced on her knees. Standing above her, Kick caught the words Bishop Spellman maintains that …

‘Mother,’ she began.

‘What is it, Kathleen?’ Rose asked, looking up through dark glasses. Only her mother called her that.

‘May Rosie come out with us this evening, to the Brightmans’ party? Jack says he’ll help keep an eye on her.’

‘No, Kathleen.’ Rose returned to her letter.

‘But why not?’ Kick was still standing so that Rose had to turn her head again to look up. With the sun behind her she was a thin dark shape placed on a backdrop of blue.

‘It’s not suitable,’ Rose said, clear and precise. Kick’s younger sister Eunice had once said she thought their mother kept a tiny stone in her mouth at all times, and spoke around it. Kick had known exactly what she meant.

‘But why? She won’t be alone. I’ll be there, Jack and Joe too.’

‘You know very well how Rosemary gets. She’s excitable. She can be too much. Especially nowadays. No, she’s better off at home. Besides, you don’t want to have to look out for her when you’re with your friends. I believe Peter Grace will be there.’ By which Kick knew her mother hoped Peter Grace would be there, and that Kick would let him spend the evening at her side.

‘He might.’ She shrugged. She kept her irritation hidden. Why must her mother – her father too – continue to parade Peter Grace, and other rich Catholic boys, before her, as though she were a kitten to be distracted by a piece of dancing string? They knew very well that she wrote to Billy, hoped to return to him. And yet they continued to suggest the sons of their friends as though her attention was as easily caught as a brisk wind with the correct tack of a sail. She clenched her teeth. ‘But I don’t mind looking out for Rosie. I know how to do it so she doesn’t exactly know about it.’

‘She’s not going, Kathleen. There are things you can do that Rosemary can’t, and you will both have to learn to accept that.’

‘But Rosie isn’t learning. It’s making her unhappy.’ Kick sat down on the seat beside her mother, pushing her faded pink hat off her face. She hoped that sitting would encourage Rose to talk to her, to explain things, rather than just issue crisp orders. ‘You’ve seen how different she’s been lately. We all have. She’s angry about things she used not to notice so much, like everything that me and Eunice—’

‘Eunice and I,’ her mother corrected.

‘– Eunice and I get to do that she doesn’t, even though we’re younger.’ Kick clasped her hands – an appeal for her mother to listen. ‘She just wants to do what we do. And she can if we watch her, surely she can. We can dilute her.’ She laughed a little, mostly to see if her mother would laugh with her. She didn’t.

‘That’s not what will happen. Rather than you all diluting her, Rosemary will tarnish you.’ Kick flinched at the word. ‘That’s what your father says, and he’s correct. She is altogether too forward now. She can’t be trusted not to say and do things that are not at all suitable.’ Rose smoothed a hand over her perfectly set hair. ‘And everything she does reflects on all of you. Your father is very clear that she mustn’t be allowed to go around in a way that will be bad for you.’

‘But it’s only Rosie. Everyone here knows what she’s like.’

‘They do not. And your father doesn’t wish them to. Rosemary will have a different path,’ Rose said, her voice softening a little. ‘That will be a cross for her, but she must resign herself to it and bear it, same as we must all bear the hardships that come to us. You, Kathleen, I have noticed, have been trying very hard to bear your own cross.’ Did her voice soften a tiny bit? ‘You may think I don’t see the effort you make, but I do. I have prayed that you would learn acceptance,’ Rose continued, ‘and you have.’

‘I prayed for it too,’ Kick said. She didn’t add that, so far, she had learned only to pretend to have found it. That all her prayers had shown her was the unwavering determination she felt that she would get back to Billy somehow.

As if her mother caught the tone of her thoughts, Rose then said, ‘I know how much you want to ask your father again to let you return to England, and I have seen you hold yourself back from that. It’s admirable.’ She patted Kick’s hand briskly, her fingers knobbly with rings. ‘Your friendship with Billy Cavendish took us all by surprise, Kathleen, all the difficulties of his religion and ours, the many obstacles in the way. It was no easy matter. And I have been impressed by your fortitude in understanding this.’ Fortitude was one of Rose’s favourite compliments. She reached out to grasp Kick’s hand once again, then picked up her pen and repositioned the writing pad against her knees. Kick stood up. The conversation was clearly over.

She tried to find a way to tell Rosie but there wasn’t one. Not when her sister was so excited. Rosie had seemed to think permission was certain. She’d talked about what she would wear, who would be there, what they would do, the music they would listen to, the dancing. Kick said nothing.

Bobby won the race, by ‘a handspan’ as Pa said, and because of that, Cook made her special fluffernutter cookies. Dinner was animated. Bobby, because it was his first win, was allowed to talk them through his every move on the boat. ‘For the one and only time,’ Pa said indulgently. He loved a new winner. ‘There is nothing in the world so boring as the person who makes you relive every round, every stroke, every kick of the ball.’

Kick thought of her English friends, and how they would solemnly describe a day’s hunting, every hoofbeat, every hold-up, as though these were moves in an intricate ballet.

After dinner, as they cleared their plates, Rosie said, ‘Well, I’d better go up and change. You too, Kick.’

‘Change for what, Rosemary?’ their mother asked. Already her tone was chilly, and Kick wondered why she had to sound like that.

‘For the Brightmans’ party,’ Rosemary said. Her lower lip trembled and she stuck it defiantly out. She knew, Kick realised. She knew what was coming. But being Rosemary, she tried to tough it out. ‘We’d better hurry or we’ll be late.’ She started for the door of the dining room. Kick could feel her urgency, as though Rosie believed that if she could only get out that door and up the stairs, somehow her mother would let her go. She felt sick. She saw Jack, Joe and Bobby slide out of the room by the door that led to the kitchen and hated them for it, but could hardly blame them. She’d have done the same if she could.

‘No, Rosemary,’ Rose said. ‘You will stay home this evening.’

‘I’m going to the party,’ Rosie said. ‘I have a dress picked and everything.’

‘You will stay home,’ Rose repeated, voice icy now.

Pa, Kick saw, had followed the boys out the kitchen door. Of course he would, she thought. The rule was his; its enforcement was up to Mother.

‘Kick, you say I can come, don’t you?’ Rosie appealed to her.

‘It’s not Kathleen’s decision to make,’ Rose said.

Kick stood helpless as Rosie looked pleadingly at her. Her eyes filled with angry tears that spilled out and down her cheeks, seeming to take the blue with them.

‘Kick?’ she asked, voice wobbling.

‘I’m sorry, Rosie,’ Kick whispered. ‘We’ll go somewhere tomorrow, just the two of us, I promise.’

‘Stay home with me,’ Eunice said, trying to make it sound like a choice Rosie might make. ‘We’ll have our own, better fun.’

‘I want to go to the party.’ Rosie looked at them all, one after another, finally turning to face Teddy and Jean, who stood behind their chairs, hands resting on the wooden backs, as though pinned there.

‘No parties,’ Rose snapped.

Rosie shouted, ‘I will go, and you can’t stop me.’

‘Edward, will you call Kikoo, please.’ Kikoo was the nanny who had minded all of them and now just had the care of Teddy and Jean. She was an Irish woman with great strong arms, as liable to slap as she was to hug, to bellow angrily as she was to sing snatches of ‘Willie McBride’. Teddy ran from the room and Kick heard his feet thumping on the wooden stairs, driven by an urgency that didn’t need to be voiced.

Rosie was still shouting, ‘I will go.’ She was trembling all over with rage and stared at their mother with a blazing anger that was almost hatred. Kick was relieved when Kikoo came thundering in.

She seemed to know exactly what to do, and wrapped her arms tightly around Rosie, in a way that must have been painful though loving too. ‘Hush now, Miss Rosemary,’ she said. ‘Don’t be upsetting yourself.’ Rosie struggled, but not for long. It was useless and she knew it. ‘Come with me now, alanna,’ Kikoo said, and she began to walk Rosie from the room, still with her arms around her so that together they were ungainly, almost grotesque. Eunice followed them. Their mother stood still and straight as a flagpole and Kick wondered what colours would be run up – triumph or alarm.

When they were gone, Kick tried once more. ‘If we only stay a little while …’ she began.

‘No, Kathleen, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t give false hope to your sister. She cannot go and that is that.’

‘Perhaps I won’t go either,’ Kick said. She was so tired, she realised. The sun, the swimming, rounders, the race. Most of all, Rosie.

‘I know Peter Grace is particularly looking forward to seeing you,’ Rose said. ‘You should go.’

When she went upstairs, Rosie refused to speak to her. She wouldn’t answer when Kick tried to tell her things they might do tomorrow – walks and picnics and even a trip to the drugstore in Hyannis – just lay silent on her bed, face down. In the end Kick did go, mostly because she couldn’t bear an evening of Rosie not speaking to her. Maybe once Kick was gone, she would forget about it and go down to play cards with Eunice. Sometimes she did forget.

But the evening was spoiled. She asked Joe to take her home early, and insisted even when he tried to make her wait another hour.

‘She’ll be asleep now anyway,’ Joe said, as they drove the winding sea road back towards Hyannis Port.

‘Maybe. But I didn’t want to stay out.’ Kick tied her scarf more firmly under her chin. Joe’s open-topped car was cold.

‘Well, I’ll drop you at the gate and you can walk the rest of the way. I want to get back to Miss Clarice of Boston. She wasn’t pleased at all that you took me away.’

‘No, I saw that,’ Kick said. She didn’t say it, but the girl had seemed silly and selfish. Joe wouldn’t see that, not when she had such shiny brown hair and soft pale skin.

But when they reached the gate, the house that should have been in darkness was lit up. Lights were on in every window and shutters open so that the ones facing the ocean banged in the wind. ‘Uh-oh,’ Joe said. Instead of dropping her off, he drove to the back door.

Eunice must have been watching for them, so swiftly did she appear on the porch. ‘Rosie’s gone,’ she said, leaning over the wooden rail.

‘When?’ Joe asked.

‘We don’t know. It was only when Mother went in to say prayers with her and found Rosie wasn’t in her bed that anyone noticed.’ It was their mother’s habit, after an argument with one of her children, to go in before her own bedtime – sometimes it meant waking them up – and pray together for reconciliation. ‘Strategic,’ Joe had once called it. ‘No one is going to hold out when they’ve been dragged from sleep.’ But Kick had always thought it beautiful, willingly kneeling beside Rose and asking forgiveness with her in the quiet dark of her bedroom.

‘When was that?’ Joe asked now.

‘About forty minutes ago. We’ve looked all over the house and down as far as the beach.’

‘You’re looking in the wrong places,’ Kick said swiftly. ‘If Rosie’s gone out, it’s to town, not the beach.’

‘We’ll go into Hyannis,’ Joe said. Already he was turning the car.

‘Joseph.’ Their mother’s voice stopped him. ‘Where are you and Kathleen going?’ She had come out onto the porch and stood beside Eunice.

‘Into town. To see if we can find Rosie.’

‘I will come with you.’

Kick heard Joe breathe out, ‘Darn,’ audible to none but her. She knew what he meant. Without Rose they might have been able to find Rosie, get her home and maybe even cover up the exact circumstances of her finding. Now that was impossible. Whatever Rosie was doing, she would be caught.

The drive to town was silent. Kick kept her eyes on the sides of the road and then the sidewalks, hoping they might yet intercept Rosie. ‘Turn onto Pleasant Street,’ Rose said, when they reached the main street.

‘But the drugstore’s that way,’ Joe said.

‘Turn,’ Rose repeated. Then, ‘There.’ She pointed to a bar that Kick had never been into. The yellow neon sign above the door said Beer. Or, rather, Bee. The r was broken. Joe parked and Kick nudged him to be quick. Seated in the middle between her mother and brother, there was no way she could get out before one o