By Myself and Then Some (48 page)

Suddenly it was homecoming day. I was given my instructions by the doctors. They would visit regularly and a nurse would come during the day to do whatever Bogie needed done. He was on the road to recovery. He felt much better – he was eating carefully, small amounts (never hard for him) several times a day, experiencing the ‘dumping’ process as predicted, but the muscles would strengthen with use and eventually adjust. He’d have three weeks before starting X-ray.

Home was humming with activity and expectation. The children, so excited about Daddy’s coming home, were briefed by me about no jumping all over him. Harvey would have to be kept at bay – May, Aurelio, Kathy, the butler were getting everything in order, looking forward to having us both back home. I was overcome with joy at the prospect of turning my back on Good Samaritan Hospital. That last day was a high point – Bogie so happy to be going home to normalcy – to get ready to work, to see his boat, be with his children – to be part of life again.

We had a gay dinner in his hospital room that night, catered by Chasen’s, then I was going home to get everything ready. He would arrive by ambulance in the morning. We were both excited about the next day, such a simple thing to be so excited about – going home. I kissed him good night – ‘See you in the morning and don’t be too late.’

It was strange being in our bed again, knowing I could wake up to a leisurely breakfast – I had been living by the clock for weeks. I was keeping Steve home from school so he’d be there to greet Bogie. Up early. I paced, kept looking to see what time it was – he was due by eleven. Nervous as a cat, I kept checking the same things over and over – only Bogie’s favorite foods were to be prepared for him, plus a food supplement tasting like malted milk. The bed was ready – the room looked beautiful – books, magazines, glasses within easy reach. There was the sound of a door slamming. I rushed to the bedroom windows – he was there. I called Steve and Leslie – Kathy and May were at the door – we waited upstairs and as he was being brought up the stairs he looked up and saw me with a child on either side. With that old emotional chewing gesture of his, he said, ‘This is what it’s all about – this is why marriage is worth it.’ I smiled down at him, on the verge of tears, suddenly realizing that he was too – and realizing how much he’d
been through, and how far away coming home must have seemed to him, and how good it was to have him back. Then he became the old Bogie again as the attendants helped him to bed. ‘I’ve been trying to tell these guys how great it is to be married – that you can’t beat having your wife and kids there to greet you, that there’s nothing like it.’ They’d been giving him an argument, all in good fun – but he was right. The only thing better than having your wife and kids waiting for you was to have your husband returned to you, where he belonged.

T
he next few weeks Bogie
was stronger every day, coughing less, smoking filtered cigarettes for the first time – ‘These are pretty good, aren’t they?’ – feeling well. The worst was behind him. Only food was a problem. He was eating some, but the dumping process was not helping his appetite. Yet he tried hard – food was the way to strength and gaining weight.

Flowers, books, booze, letters, phone calls kept coming, and friends to visit with him. He wasn’t ill, just recovering from surgery. His spirits were terrific – the Damoclean sword was the X-ray. It was explained that they’d removed the cancer, but in case something was floating around that shouldn’t be, the X-ray would kill it. We had to do as advised – the doctors knew a lot more than we did. My encounter with the medical world filled me with wonder, admiration, frustration, and fury. The doctors were all good men, the best in their fields, but I always felt there were things they never mentioned. Those inscrutable expressions! There were no definite answers, they didn’t
have
the answers, there was so much they just didn’t know in the practice of medicine.

It would be an eight-week X-ray program on the million-volt machine – there was only one in the city. Five days a week. Bogie would feel a bit nauseated – the effect was cumulative – but after it was over he’d be fine. Even this program was accepted by us without panic. We believed what they told us. His color was coming back, he did feel quite well and cheery. And I reflected his attitudes completely – it was so good to have him home again, to see him in our own bed again, to have him next to me again. Steve and Leslie were in the room every afternoon and evening, watching television with us. Harvey was remarkable. He was in our room daily, of course, and knew – don’t ask
me how he knew – not to jump on the bed, on me or Bogie. He was so gentle and concerned. He would sit alongside the bed on Bogie’s side and Bogie would pet him and talk to him. Then he would just lie in front of the fireplace so that he could clearly see who came in the door and watch Bogie.

On a Friday, three weeks after Bogie came home from the hospital, he and I drove down to that machine just to see it before the treatment was to begin. The technical expert was there to explain the workings of it. I was not allowed in the room with the machine – only to look through a square of glass in the wall. The room was bare. In the center was a long narrow metal slat and overhead, pointed toward it, a large round metal object that looked like something from outer space. It was eerie and frightening – the atmosphere so heavy. Bogie explained it all to me afterward. The machine aimed its beam at the tiniest point in Bogie’s chest – wherever the medical team had felt would be the most vulnerable to cancer – while he lay on that slab, and for a very few moments one million volts of X-ray were concentrated into that area. The machine was frightening-looking; the procedure was frightening as well.

Louis Bromfield had been ill early in that year of horror – something to do with his stomach or liver. We’d spoken to him when he returned to Malabar from the hospital – strange that he and Bogie were having health problems at the same time. One afternoon just about at the time Bogie was to start his X-rays we were sitting at home when the phone rang. It was Ellen Bromfield – Louis had just died. He had been home, feeling better, and suddenly it happened – dead at sixty. When I hung up, I told Bogie. Bogie looked quietly straight ahead of him.

Bogie wanted to go to the boat for one day, as he knew he wouldn’t be able to for the next eight weeks. He wanted to go because he loved it. The boat was his health, his safety, and we wanted to make sure that it was being cared for. So we drove down on Saturday for a few hours. We didn’t take the boat out – he wasn’t up to that – but it meant so much to him just to be there. It was strange seeing Bogie on the
Santana
but not springing around. Usually he was filled with joy from the moment he stepped aboard, trotting down the gangway, even singing. Not this day, however. The spring had been taken out of him.

Monday came, and Bogie left for his first treatment. I did what I had to do at home, busying myself with an ordinary day, trying to get back
into some semblance of the old routine. Walking around the garden with Aurelio, seeing how all my plants, flowers, vegetables were doing – what I needed or wanted to add or replace. Going over food with May. She knew Bogie had to eat – together we tried to figure out every small thing that would appeal to him.

The first week of X-ray wasn’t too bad. Bogie did not react violently – he was far from enjoying the experience of coming face to face with that threatening machine, but he didn’t feel very nauseated at first. After two weeks he began to feel lousy. Tired, of course – it was a debilitating procedure – and he began to feel more nauseated and lost his appetite totally. He was determined to come downstairs to dinner every night even though he didn’t eat. We had trays before the fire. He could manage the liquids and some foods in small amounts. He’d suddenly ask for a boiled egg or creamed chipped beef; when it arrived, he’d eat a tiny portion. He wanted to eat, but when he saw the food he just couldn’t. He still had a drink before dinner, or an occasional beer. May would tempt him with his favorite steak tartare. Anything and everything was tried. Some days he’d manage more than others. I kept asking the doctors how he would ever gain weight this way – how the hell could you eat when you wanted to throw up all the time?

I remember Bogie coming home from a treatment and heading slowly right for the stairs – not even attempting to come into our room downstairs. He just said, ‘I think I’ll go upstairs and lie down awhile, Baby – I’ll come down later.’ I didn’t know quite what to do. I could only guess how he felt – Bogie wasn’t one to dwell on such things. He forced himself to sit in that room with me every night. That was our place – before surgery. I tried not to ask him continually how he felt, but it was hard not to – there was so much I wanted to know. The doctors had told us what the X-ray would do, but that doesn’t help you day to day. Bogie had to go through it physically, and I had to watch – neither of us really knew what was going to happen until it did. All we could do was deal with one day at a time until the eight weeks passed. A man’s illness is his private territory and, no matter how much he loves you and how close you are, you stay an outsider. You are healthy.

Occasionally Bogie would make me go to dinner at a friend’s house. Because he wasn’t up to it, he said, was no reason why I should stay home all the time. Secretly he wanted me with him constantly, just to
know that I was there, but realistically he felt I had to get out once in a while. So I did – once in a while, but not for long.

My career had come to a dead stop. No one offered me anything – I was caring for Bogie. Finally a film came along that I wanted to do. Dore Schary was producing, Vincente Minnelli directing, Greg Peck in it, and they wanted Grace Kelly. But she was in Europe preparing to become Princess Grace of Monaco. So I called Dore, told him I could play it, wanted to, and when I cut my salary in half, he finally said yes. It was
Designing Woman –
a lovely, funny script, a terrific part, and I was happy about working. Felt lucky to get it. I wasn’t sure about leaving Bogie to work, but he wanted me to.

Though Bogie was up to nothing physically, his head had never stopped working. He was concerned about
The Good Shepherd
. Would Harry Cohn hold it for him? Sam Jaffe and Morgan brought him full reports. Of course Cohn would hold it for him – he only had to advise the Navy of a postponement, Bogie was not to worry. Cohn felt sure Bogie would be able to start in the fall – would gain his weight back by then.

It must have been toward the end of May that Morgan told me Bogie would have to draw up a new will. I shuddered at the thought. ‘Why? After all he’s been through, why is it necessary?’ ‘Look,’ said Morgan, ‘I’m his friend – I love the guy – but I’m also his business manager. He may be all right, but he may not. It doesn’t look too good – I’ve talked to the doctors – and it must be done while he’s in shape to understand it. I would be delinquent in my job if I didn’t insist on it being taken care of now – it would be unfair to him and unfair to you. He wants to see that you and Stephen and Leslie are taken care of properly. We have to do it the right way. We have to do it without delay.’ I asked how he would tell him. He said, ‘Don’t you worry about that – I’ll tell him matter-of-factly. He hasn’t made a new will in years and it should have been done months ago, but because of his surgery we had to wait. Now he’s well enough to deal with it.’

So the words were spoken at last: ‘It doesn’t look too good’ – he might die. I felt ghastly. I didn’t want to see Bogie discussing his will – it was so horrible, so devastating a picture. I could not think in terms of Bogie not living – it was just totally unacceptable. So I heard the words and put them from my mind. They constantly hovered in the back of my brain, but as long as there was breath and life in my
husband, I flatly refused to bring them forward. It was the only way I could continue the game.

By the end of the eight weeks Bogie felt really bad – weak – no chance of gaining a pound. ‘He’ll feel so much better after two weeks.’ The hell he will! It seemed that to recover from the effects of the X-ray treatment takes as long as the treatment itself takes. That meant Bogie would be in the clear in July. Bogie weighed himself every day. No change. I kept telling him to wait awhile – once every two weeks was plenty – it was tough to get started once you’d lost. He finally did feel better. It was in August, I think, that things began to improve. Frank was going to play at The Sands in Las Vegas and he planned a birthday party for me in September – the Rat Pack – he’d have a plane to bring us up there, natch. Bogie said, ‘Sure, it’ll be fun.’ I didn’t need convincing.

It was also in August that I started to prepare for
Designing Woman. I
was still apprehensive about leaving Bogie every day, despite the improvement, but I couldn’t wait to go to work. I’d never worked with Greg Peck and was looking forward to that.

Bogie was definitely feeling better – the effects of the X-ray finally left him – he was ready for a weekend on the boat. He wanted to sail to Newport and take Steve. A couple of his sailing crew friends would be along – it was warm – it would be good for him. And Steve was anxious to go with his father – these last months had been hard on him. It had been an unnatural time, unfathomable to a seven-year-old. Bogie called me from the boat, as he always did: ‘Hello, Baby.’ His old hello. He felt he was on his way. I felt so too.

When Bogie came home that Sunday night I heard his car enter the driveway – I got his drink ready as I always had – he walked smiling into our Butternut Room in his sailing garb, hugged and kissed me, and announced that he had gained one pound! It was like being handed the sun.

The next day Bogie called Morgan and Sam, telling them he was beginning to gain and
The Good Shepherd
could probably be planned to start two or three months from then. They were happy to hear it, but said there was no rush – Harry Cohn could easily put off the Navy until we were sure of dates. Bogie hated not working – holding up production. He was so encouraged by that added pound, he was sure it would be a daily recurrence. For a couple of weeks our life was
almost normal – no lunching at Romanoff’s or dining at Chasen’s, no partying, but good friends came by for a drink, and we even fed a few on trays with us. Frank and Swifty in particular – Frank almost nightly – fell into the pattern of ringing the doorbell if the light was on. The nights were never late – Bogie still wasn’t up to that, and he wanted to keep getting stronger so that he could return to work – but the atmosphere was more cheerful. I began going to Metro daily for wardrobe –
Designing Woman
was to start shooting in mid-September.