Jack's Widow (21 page)

Thank heaven her own sister supported her. She and her family had arrived yesterday.

Jackie knew that Ari was watching them from the privacy of the boat house.

The couple had decided that they would meet inside.

It would be the start of their life together. So far their love had been hidden. She and Telis had decided that only their families would see their greeting. There would be no photographs of them at the airport in Athens or taken by some trippers out on the sea.

His son was at the jetty. He was cool toward her.

Luckily, she had never believed that anything about this wedding was going to be easy.

T
he honeymoon had been better than either of them had expected.

The sex had been exciting. Jackie was enthused by Ari’s zest for lovemaking and the extraordinary nights of their courtship had taught them both a great deal about what pleased the other. But the moment they returned to New York as man and wife their idyll was over. The East Coast gave them as lukewarm a welcome as it dared. There were more rebuffs than receptions. Manhattan and Washington acted in unison; from the White House to the Russian Tea Room, it was the same. Few wanted to see or be seen with them.

Jackie was not surprised. The hideous response worldwide to their nuptials—she went from a greek god to a goddamn greek—ran the headlines, was a clear warning that there would be scant acceptance. While still honeymooning she had warned Ari that this was how it would be, but he had absolutely refused to believe her.

He was confident that once everyone had recovered from the shock, they would soon become used to the idea. He told Jackie that he had overcome bigger obstacles making his millions. This he
could handle. It was simply a question of dealing with the American suspicion of all things Europe an.

He blamed the press. Those cartoons showing him as a toad or a warthog straddling his American beauty still rankled. He assured his new wife that after he had entertained a few editors and journalists at lunch, one or two papers would separate from the herd. Cynically he was convinced that it was in the nature of the beast for the press to disagree with one another. Once some of them would begin to be more favorable to the marriage, the whole drama would be over.

She, however, did not believe it would be that simple but she lacked the heart to disagree with him. Throughout their honeymoon, he had made it clear with much plea sure that he was looking forward to returning to the States with his bride, his prize.

“Now they will have no choice,” he said, “those rich old-moneyed families will have to let me in. Now I shall be able to take my proper place.”

He would laugh while cooking up plans on how to run into this friend or that acquaintance. He would gleefully discuss with her how “these poor sops” would react. The ways in which they would have to hide their chagrin because he, not they, had walked off with the biggest deal the West could offer. He would turn with gusto to the imagined fury of his compatriots and competitors, the other Greek billionaires.

On the shakiest of gossip and no real evidence, he had convinced himself that all of them would have had no hesitation in dumping their wives if they could have won her.

Then he would think of her countrymen, enumerating those who he was sure would have been thrilled to be in his place and who, he was certain, would feel doubly thwarted that a foreigner had carried off this beautiful American trophy.

If she tried to remonstrate that many of these men were happily married or would frankly have been too terrified to have taken her on, he would hear none of it. He would respond that she was far too modest and unworldly.

In the end it was he who ended up not understanding.

Universally it had been made clear that by marrying the Greek she had not only blemished the ex-president’s memory but had tarnished herself forever.

She had understood this before agreeing to marry him because she knew what her friends and the public didn’t. In her eyes security was more important than reputation, although she had never imagined that they would be so reviled.

As they looked forward to their first Christmas together, she covertly watched him read the papers every morning. On the island he had always turned first to the financial pages; now he hunted through the gossip columns for stories of parties that they had been excluded from. Once she overheard him phone his secretary to ask whether the invitation to that season’s grandest affair had not been sent to his office in Athens by mistake.

He would never reveal to her how hurt he was. Although this had been going on since their return to the States in early November his pride forbade him to say a word.

Her family had done its best.

At Christmas her mother had organized a dinner for about sixty at Merrywood. The number of guests should have been nearer a hundred, but her old family, her ex-in-laws, or as she now called them, the outlaws, sent regrets. The same applied to old political friends when her sister held a party for them in Washington.

As Easter came round she herself tried to arrange a large picnic, “so that the children shouldn’t lose contact.”

The ensuing conversations made it very clear that the children were more than welcome at the Kennedy compound near Cape Cod or to stay with their cousins in Palm Beach, Boston, or Beverly Hills, but apart from the ever-faithful nanny it was made perfectly clear that adults were not invited.

Of course it had all been done with the most glacial politesse. One couple said that they had building going on while another used the excuse that the children had invited so many friends to stay that making any new arrangements was impossible. Another explained
that the house was being turned into a tennis camp and only the children would enjoy the daily round of serves and volleys.

It was obvious to Jackie that her in-laws’ attendance at her wedding had been strictly for public consumption and for pleasing Greek-American voters. From now on she was history.

Ari, surprised by the coolness of many of his own friends in New York, refused to be defeated. He decided that he would buy their way back into society. He bought tables at charity events and vacuumed up raffle tickets as if they were confetti. His donations were record-breaking but even this failed to get any of the real movers and shakers to invite them to dinner. Socially, politicians, U.N. diplomats, Manhattan moguls, Oscar winners, and other creative megastars cold-shouldered them.

It took just one evening, with the Greek-American community to sadden them completely. Here at last was a loving, warm, effusive welcome. The contrast with the way they had been treated by everyone else could not have been greater.

She knew that the CIA in the shape of Harry Blackstone was keen that they return to the island. They were missing the busy comings and goings that their arrival entailed. Without much difficulty Jackie induced her husband to return to their own piece of paradise. But once there, try as they might, they could not re-create the happiness they had experienced before.

She found it impossible to console her husband because he refused to talk about the subject. Every time she tried to raise it she found that he had surrounded himself with his cronies. His right-hand man, Nikos Dervizoglou, a distant relative, had virtually moved in. Jackie did what she could to charm him but knew that she would never be able to win this man’s approval. Everything Nikos said, even his slightly arrogant gestures, suggested that when it came to relationships he was an archconservative. As far as he was concerned, she was too independent, too opinionated; he believed a good wife should walk in her husband’s shadow.

Soon just being alone together seemed to upset Ari as if he blamed
her for bringing this curse on him. As communication between them worsened, he made a frenzied return to work. His office, a pale green edifice in the garden, filled with extra staff. Seven days a week they came and went. It became usual for his most senior employees to join them for lunch where the main items under discussion were deals, contracts, contacts, and friends that Jackie knew nothing about. Often Ari, in his disgust at America, seemed to encourage these conversations in Greek. The only Greek words she knew were the naughty ones he had taught her, words only uttered by a lover.

Soon she started to lunch alone, or when they were there, with the children.

Ari decided the only way to show the world what he was really made of was to be ever more successful. He would only return to the States when he had done the greatest deal of all time.

Only the sex was not in short supply.

As if he were fighting to obliterate the world’s resentment, he demanded to be given more caresses, more kisses, more sensual thrills and excitement. He was insatiable and made love to her frequently and often roughly.

She was desperate. Now not only did the whole world think she had married a monster, on occasion she was starting to agree with them. She had to make this work. She needed to. There was no going back for her. Those weeks in New York had made that very clear. The people they knew despised her and loathed her husband. As she thought calmly about it, she realized, What did they know? They just thought that he was low in the looks and high in the wallet departments. How amazed they would be if they knew that even now she thought her second husband was as funny, knowledgeable, and exciting to live with as her first and so much, much better in bed.

After the assassination she had been counseled by everyone to move on but in reality they wanted her to be stuck in a time warp, staying loyal to a flame that had never really burned for her.

Her bitterness deepened, knowing that the New Yorkers with the biggest pursed lips had such double standards. Those most resolutely against the new Mr. and Mrs. Onassis were such hypocrites, many of them with secrets far more shameful than her marriage.

Another six weeks went by. Her family came to visit but only briefly. When her mother started to apologize to her son-in-law on behalf of her country he immediately held up his hand and insisted she stop. “As your daughter must have told you,” he said in a slow, deep monotone, “we do not discuss that in this house. It is a temporary situation. We’ll get over it.” He then withdrew to his office with a wintry smile.

Once her mother had gone, Jackie was left to her own devices and she explored the island.

Everywhere she went she took her basket of Greek conversation tapes and a copy of the Greek alphabet. She tried to absorb herself in Greek songs and the poems of Cavafy.

She was bored and she was lonely so although she knew it was risky her walks took her to new beaches. After several visits when she had failed to see evidence of anyone else being there, she found a secluded spot that was perfect for nude sunbathing. Ari had told her that all the strippers in Paris did this. He described how much sexier an all-over tan looked by comparison to a body patterned with white skin.

Lulled into the certainty that she was alone she became confident enough to try it, and since her breasts and bottom had never before been exposed to the sun she took great care not to burn them, only baring herself toward the end of the afternoon when the sun was gentler. To ensure that her lithe body roasted to an even coffee shade she did this every day without fail.

It was the house keeper who showed her the down-market weekly magazine. nervously, as she left the veranda after going through the day’s menu, she signaled that she had left the tabloid for her employer on Jackie’s favorite sun lounger.

Jackie had discovered that reading rubbish in Greek, especially
the lurid weeklies, was a really easy way to understand the language, peppered as it was with names she recognized. It was so much simpler to understand with just a few new words to grapple with.

As she picked up the tabloid she was amazed to see herself in the full-sized, full-on nude photographs on the front page. The snaps left nothing to the imagination. Her skin gleaming with sun oil from her forehead to her toes revealed that she was a regular nudist. The only items that were not chocolate brown were her shaggy black hair, both on her head and lower down.

Tears welled up in her eyes. This was shameful. Now she and Ari would never be able to hold up their heads in polite society again. Her children would become objects of satire and ridicule, as she had been.

Everything, the marriage, Ari’s lack of communication and total involvement in his work, had gone so wrong, so quickly. All they shared was sex.

Before she had time to be depressed any further she saw her husband barge through the half-open French windows of his office and come running out, loudly shouting her name again and again. In his hand, the magazine.

This was terrible, how could she have been so stupid, so naive, she thought.

His face was contorted and there were tears on his cheeks. For a second she thought he might have been crying but then as he grew closer she could see that he was laughing.

“That’s done it,” he yelled. “They can put that in their bloody sanctimonious pipes and smoke it.” He pointed at the picture with his cigar. “You look fabulous, fabulous.” He bent to kiss her. He looked straight into her eyes. A hard, sensual look.

He was proud of her, but she knew he was also so proud of himself.

“You look sensational. The perfect woman, a goddess. Who cares about those numbskulls, they are not living, they are simply existing in their laced-up shoes, with their laced-up wives thinking that a round of golf is an exciting adventure. They are barely tasting
life. It is us, we are living.” He reached his arms out and did a yelp and a few steps of the Greek village dance he enjoyed so much.

And he laughed.

“We are living and we are leaving. Yes, darling, we are going back to the States and to hell with them all. Only this time, we will be clever. When we go out you will enter and exit on your own. You are the Venus of Botticelli, you should stand alone. This unknown photographer has done us a favor. Yes, there may be a few silly sermons on Sunday that might be a little nasty about you. But every red-blooded male in the world will know that you are the very best of womankind.”

He looked at the picture again and pulled her close to him.

“Be honest, it is me they object to! Not you, my darling.”

She tried to argue and say that the universal feeling was that she should never have married, but he shushed her.

“We will always be together but not in front of the camera, it will offend everyone less. As I said to your mother, they will get over it, but I never thought a picture of you naked as the day you were born would be the answer. We will be patient. I’ll be patient, well, I’ll try.”