America's Queen by Sarah Bradford

Author:Sarah Bradford
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141931616
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

13: Rendezvous with Death

But I’ve a rendezvous with Death,

At midnight in some flaming town …

I shall not fail that rendezvous

John F. Kennedy’s favourite poem, by Alan Seeger1

For Jackie, lazing away the days at Palm Beach, 1963 promised to be the best year yet. On 1 January, with Jack and Lee, she sailed along the Florida coast to Forth Worth marina, where they disembarked for lunch at the Vanderbilt. Much of the rest of the week was spent on the ocean cruising on the Honey Fitz with Lee and Peter Lawford among others, and visiting Palm Beach friends like the Earl T. Smiths. She had every cause for satisfaction. Her White House restoration project was well under way and would be almost complete by the end of the year; she had saved Lafayette Square, lighting a beacon for the restoration of old city centres that would be followed down the succeeding years. The new house in Virginia would be ready in May. Most importantly, she knew she was pregnant.

Her present life seemed under control. The White House no longer worried her. She intended to relax and enjoy herself while waiting for the birth of the baby. On 8 January, with Jack and Caroline, she returned to Washington by helicopter. Two days later, as she was dictating to Mary Gallagher in her White House sitting room, she asked casually, ‘Mary, would you say I’ve done enough till now as First Lady?’ It was a rhetorical question and her secretary, suspecting Jackie was pregnant, answered, as expected, that she had done more than enough and should do only what the President felt she must do. Then she called Tish to announce, ‘I am taking the veil,’ and ordered her to cut off all outside activity and limit her engagements to only the most important things. She did not see enough of her children, she said, and felt she had done enough as First Lady. She concentrated on family, household affairs, varying the children’s menus, instructing the assistant housekeeper on how to make the perfect daiquiri for the evening pre-dinner drink she always had with Jack – two parts rum, three parts frozen limeade, one part fresh lime juice and a few drops of Falernum as a sweetener – and added new recipes to the chef ’s repertoire – since the previous autumn Jack had suffered a recurrence of his stomach trouble and had been ordered on to the blandest of diets.

With Lee she attended a few inescapable official functions – the President’s State of the Union message, a $1,000-a-head Second Inaugural Salute dinner and reception, a dinner for the Vice-President and other dignitaries at the White House – and a few private dinners given by the Douglas Dillons and the Franklin Roosevelts, before flying with Jack to New York for a week’s shopping, gallery-hunting and the theatre. The three dined at Le Pavillon before going to a performance of the British satire Beyond the Fringe, then on to a fund-raising party given by the Steve Smiths.

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