"Lot 173: second World War Navy issue white cotton boxer shorts. With snap closures and drawstring waist, sewn label 'Jack Kennedy' in red. . .Lot 175: pair of JFK's shorts, soiled front and back. . ." Kevin Myers was going to write about Lot 175 today, but he finds he simply can't.
Lot 175 is part of an auction of Kennedy "memorabilia" due to be auctioned tomorrow, though considering Lot 175, perhaps a preferable term would have been amnesibilia. Other items include Jackie Kennedy's turquoise slip and various nightdresses, though whether any are stained, and with what, has not so far been made public.
The collection of Kennedy detritus was assembled by Mary Gallagher, who was first JFK's and then Jackie Kennedy's personal assistant, and Providencia Paredes, Jackie's "private attendant" from 1960. Hmmm. I suspect that should read "privates' attendant." As I say, I have no intention of writing about Lot 175, but before I move on to more salubrious subjects, I have to ask: how did Mary Gallagher come across it, or rather, them? Of course, as an auction item, it is a singular; but when the late President was wearing them, and so on, they were a they. Maybe they had originally been a present, so they were singular then; but when they were on display they were shorts, and therefore a they. And of course, when they were bought, they were a purchase, and thus enjoyed a singular status.
So is it surprising that with all this switching between singularity and plurality, the poor President might have been confused on occasion? Does this account for the melancholy condition the shorts are said to be in? On the other hand, we should not presume the worst. And whatever about the shorts, what are we to make of Mary Gallagher? Did she hide under the bed overnight in order to make her acquisitions? And was that really the best way of spending eight hours beneath Jack and Jackie? So, next morning, did she lie there while Jack rummaged round on the floor, cursing and looking for his underwear? Did she stay there, prone, while he wandered off, muttering, to get a shower, while his wife did what Jackie Kennedy would usually do whenever her husband left the bed, but which she would never do while he was there, namely have a good snore?
Other questions arise, which we'd better deal with before we move on to other, more agreeable matters. It is 40 years since President Kennedy was shot, and I suspect that, for all the embalmer's arts, there's not much left of him. So how it is possible that Lot 175, complete with whatever characteristics qualify it for the catalogue description, is still around? Or are still around. Take your pick.
So: did Mary Gallagher - once, that is, Jackie had finished her little sonic indulgence above and also pottered out to have a shower - dash off with the prize shorts and put them in the deep freeze? And what other items of apparel was she embalming for posterity? Was the laundry basket's loss the fridge's gain? And did she keep the hamburger mince, and the Birds Eye vegetables alongside the knickers and the shorts and whatever else she found about the place? It's enough to put one off servants.
Paul Burrell appeared to be going a little far when making off with Princess Diana's trinkets; but that's even before we discover what's in his three-star deep freeze. (And am I alone in feeling that somehow or other we are in a place where we would be better off not being?) It's possible, of course, that Mary Gallagher didn't grab Lot 175 from the bedroom floor. Maybe JFK left them in a broom cupboard after a brief but meaningful discussion with a young secretary he had bundled in there, and Mary found them while about her usual household chores. And maybe we shouldn't suspect the worst about the condition of the shorts: maybe the stains were caused by other items in the deep-freeze, and yes, that at the front is actually pea, and that at the back is peanut butter.
No, no, no. La, la, la, la. SING AT THE TOP OF OUR VOICES! We've had enough of this already. Do you know that Argentina has just legalised homosexual marriages? That NASA has more astronauts than it knows what to do with? That a beggar in Hong Kong was so scandalised when his bank paid him just $2 interest on his $40,000 savings that he withdrew his money and set fire to it? That the Philippine government has offered to pay a $60,000 bounty to anyone who captures a certain Islamic terrorist, "alive or torn to pieces"? There now. That's better. It's put Lot 175 quite out of my mind. Happily, most of us can reflect that popular democracy and mass employment have pushed us beyond the predatory range of servants crawling out from underneath the mattress and slinking off with a sock or two, or tights, never mind one's favourite Y-fronts.
But stay! It was not always so. I've just remembered! In my distant, pampered childhood, my family had not one but two charladies. Did that account for the mysterious underwear shortages which used regularly to ravage our household, rather like famines in 19th-century Ireland? Moreover, does it explain why the chars were always skulking at the fridge? Were their names Gallagher and Paredes, the Burke and Hare of domestic service? And now, aaaaarrrrgh, should I be awaiting each Sotheby's catalogue with the abject terror of a grouse contemplating August the Twelfth?