By Myself and Then Some (50 page)

Soon Dr Brandsma arrived. I waited downstairs while he examined Bogie. I was still a basket case, in a state of semi-trauma, and I clearly looked it, for when Brandsma came downstairs he took me by the arm and sat down on the sofa with me and proceeded to talk to me like a child. ‘Look, Betty, I’m sorrier than I can say that this happened. There was no way of our knowing. The effects of the nitrogen mustard are cumulative – they just knocked Bogie flat all at once. He should have come home with a nurse, but I was hoping we could get away without one.’ But why had it happened – would it happen again – what would it be like tomorrow – how could I prepare myself to take care of him? ‘We have to take it one day at a time. I think he should have a nurse, perhaps a male nurse, until the treatment wears off and he’s stronger. A male nurse could carry him down the stairs.’ My heart sank – Bogie would be upset by that. I said, ‘Let’s try it a day or two without one.
The butler can carry him down. If I can’t manage, okay, but you’ll have to explain to Bogie that you feel it’s a good idea and why.’ I was looking for constant reassurance from Brandsma – any ray of light. I never thought in terms of this being the beginning of the end either – it was just another temporary crisis. After that experience I dealt with our life minute by minute. But I was scared.

I made some ground rules. Whoever wanted to visit Bogie had to call and ask what would be the best time, and I didn’t want too many at once, no matter how close friends they were – it was too much of an effort in his present condition. His second day home Sam and Mildred Jaffe came over. Mildred hadn’t seen Bogie for a while and on entering the room I heard her gasp – she couldn’t help it, she was so shocked at the sight of that figure in the bed. Having seen him daily, I hadn’t realized how drastic the change had been. I glared at her, and as we were walking down the stairs after their visit, I told her, surprised at my fury and my ability to articulate it, that if she couldn’t control herself she must not come again – that the point of friends coming to visit was not to commiserate over his illness but to cheer him and get his mind off it. Of course she apologized profusely, hugged me, kissed me – she was like a mother to me. I loved her a great deal, but I was steely about this, determined that it must never happen again. Mildred said she could see him and contain herself, but only if there were other people in the room.

After a few days I had to agree to a male nurse. Bogie was still weak – he got out of bed every day and walked across the room to sit on our chaise-longue, and he’d go to the bathroom, but it was better if someone was close by to help him if he needed it. The male nurse was young, strong, not entirely sensible, and had the personality of a flounder. One afternoon I walked into the bedroom to find Bogie very agitated. In raised voice to the nurse: ‘What do you mean, no improvement? What do you mean, my appetite stays the same – that there’s no weight gain? Of course there’s no weight gain. That takes time …’ and on and on. That nurse had shown him his own chart. I could have killed him – demanded to know why he’d shown it. ‘Well, he asked to see it.’ I wanted no one around who might make extra waves in Bogie’s life, so it was agreed that the nurse would be there no more.

I had finished
Designing Woman
, and
Written on the Wind
had just
opened in the East. As I said, it was a soap opera – Rock Hudson and I always knew that – but it turned out to be a very successful one. I remember Bogie stretched out on the chaise reading a review, me squatting alongside – and his saying, ‘I wouldn’t do too many of these.’ His standards were as high as ever.

We were able to get the really good nurse Bogie had had in Good Samaritan. She made him feel very safe and was easy to get along with – did whatever was necessary for Bogie without making him feel a total invalid, and she had some wit, praise the Lord. The doctors came every day, Dr Brandsma literally morning and evening. We tried to have people for drinks upstairs in the bedroom, but Bogie wanted to be in the Butternut Room when his friends came. Swifty was one of the few who saw Bogie upstairs – he came before official drink time, armed with a story or joke to bring a smile to Bogie’s face. Bogie didn’t like being carried. At last it was worked out that we would put a chair in the dumbwaiter – an old-fashioned one that was very roomy. Aurelio removed one board to give him more headroom and we used a wheelchair. Downstairs he would transfer to his favorite orange chair and drink with his buddies. He could walk, but it was hard for him – he just was not strong, and there was no point in wearing himself out unnecessarily. It was a neat arrangement, though not a happy one. He looked so frail sitting in that dumbwaiter, and it was a dark, though short trip. It couldn’t have been anything but very unpleasant, but he wanted to do it – he insisted upon doing it. That cocktail hour became the high point of his day. Friends would phone to book themselves between five and seven and I’d try to keep it to two at a time. Niven often came directly from the studio in full make-up on his way home – the regulars could always come in, though they never came without calling. It became more and more apparent who was not a regular. Dick Brooks, for instance, a close friend who had almost been invented by Bogie as a character – Bogie had certainly influenced his life in every way – did not come for a long time. I was furious – and I voiced the fury once. Bogie’s comment was, ‘Well, don’t be too hard on him – some people just don’t like to be around sickness.’ Too damn bad, I thought. Dick could have swallowed his distaste in the name of friendship. I was fierce – I admit it. I had taken on some of Bogie’s color, gaining strength while protecting him. There was no way for me to understand or to forgive the ones who fell short of the mark. There
was no way for me to forgive Dick. I think he finally did come once, but he was shamed into it – probably I put him on the defensive. But I didn’t care about him – I cared only about Bogie; I cared about his not being let down. Had positions been reversed, Bogie would have been there. And Swifty, who had a true phobia about sickness and cleanliness, rose above it out of friendship – out of his high regard for Bogie. Clearly it was the fact of Bogart – indomitable, indestructible, always-there Bogart – suddenly not having strength, physical strength. No one wanted to face that fact. And Bogie through those last weeks made an extraordinary, superhuman effort, keeping the talk going – he did much more than his doctors thought within the realm of human possibility.

Raymond Massey came to town and visited – they were longtime friends and colleagues. Ray started the visit avoiding any talk about Bogie’s illness, but Bogie turned the tables on him by saying, ‘Wait till you hear what happened to me – it was awful,’ describing his operation in detail and asking if Ray wanted to see his scar. By the end of the visit it was Ray who needed cheering up.

Christmas was not far off. David and Jennifer Selznick came over one afternoon – David very concerned whether everything that could be done for Bogie was being done. Shouldn’t I maybe call in another doctor? Get another opinion? In this great country of ours, wasn’t there one mind who knew more than any other? He was sweet and loving, and I was grateful. Oh, how I wished there were one mind that had the answer! I told him I had asked the doctors the same question. They all had said no – if it made me feel better, I should by all means bring in someone else, but they had discussed Bogie with some of their colleagues, and it was agreed that they had done all that could be done. David understood – said he’d like to give Bogie pictures of me and the children for Christmas, and would I mind if John Engstead came over to photograph us? What a lovely idea. I didn’t know how to make Christmas and Bogie’s birthday even halfway normal, but I would have a tree and many gifts for the children, even gifts for Bogie.

It was around this time that the three doctors sat me down in the Butternut Room. Brandsma was the spokesman. ‘I’m sure you’d rather know the truth, wouldn’t you? I’m sure you know already. Bogie cannot last much longer. We don’t know how he’s lasted this long. The nitrogen mustard didn’t work – we would certainly have seen a
difference by two weeks after he’d had the treatment. We really didn’t expect it to work, we just hoped.’ ‘But isn’t it possible,’ I asked, ‘that it might still have some effect?’ I knew there was no answer they could give me that I wanted to hear, yet I still asked the question. I didn’t accept,
couldn’t
, the fact of Bogie dying. I heard the words – answered accordingly – but that was all. I had continually asked the nurses, ‘Isn’t he better today? He ate a little more – isn’t that a sign of improvement?’ They shook their heads. There was no way he would get better – it was just a matter of time.

Brandsma advised me to begin to think about arrangements, to prepare myself and figure out what I would need and from whom. I remember looking pleadingly at these men who held my husband’s life in their hands – John Jones, wonderful and dedicated, saying, ‘I’ve done everything I knew how to do – I hoped I’d gotten it all, but clearly I didn’t.’ They were all sad – they admired Bogie so much. I didn’t know what to do. I thought of K.C. On some excuse, I left the house one afternoon and drove to All Saints Church and sat in Rev. Smith’s office, telling him what the doctors had said. ‘So I suppose it will happen sometime soon – it could be days, weeks, no one is quite sure. K.C., he is not a religious man in the churchgoing sense, but he’s very religious in the life-everyday sense. He believes in the Ten Commandments, he believes in the Golden Rule, and he’s lived his life by them. So if you’d just think about it, so when the time comes you’ll know what to say …’ I knew K.C. would help with the children. He had a gift of communication with the young which was to be envied – they loved and trusted him.

I don’t remember repeating my discussion with the doctors to anyone else. Mother and Lee were at the house daily, but they spent more time with Steve and Leslie than with Bogie. I suppose one reason I kept silent was that voicing it might make it happen. I know I didn’t articulate even to myself that he would leave me soon. As long as he was breathing, could talk, I felt our life would continue. I knew the word
death –
but I’d never really been in the presence of it.

I knew he wanted to be cremated, but that too was only a word. How much preparation could one make when dealing not with fact but with emotion?

He still shaved every morning – on a tray in front of a mirror, with
an electric razor. I don’t know what he saw in that mirror, but he never turned away. So how could I?

Spence and Katie came to visit almost every night – about eight-thirty, after everyone else had gone and Bogie was back upstairs. He looked forward to their visits – so did I. They behaved as they always had: Spence pulling up a chair at the foot of the bed, using our bench as a table for his coffee – Katie on the floor. Spence telling jokes – kidding around as he always did with Bogie. I don’t know how he managed, but he did. Much later Katie told me that he was shattered before each visit and shattered after. While he was there it was no different from the way we had all been in better days. I loved those people so much – they were both so solid, so complete, so unqualified. They helped me as much as they did Bogie.

I remember Carolyn picking me up one afternoon to go Christmas shopping. As we were driving away from home, I said, ‘If anything happens to Bogie, I’ll never get married again – never.’ Her reply was ‘Never say never.’ She was right. But despite such apprehensions about a future without Bogie, I never sat down and thought to myself, ‘He’s going to die.’ I never thought each day could be his last – or that I would waken one morning and find him gone.

By that time we had two nurses. When the pain increased, the doctor prescribed something. I don’t know what – morphine? Bogie was so thin by then that every time a needle touched him it left a mark – there were fewer and fewer areas that were in the clear. One afternoon he got out of bed and, with only his pajama top on, pushed the wheelchair across the room to the chaise. His will to live was so strong, he forced his body to do what it was incapable of doing. The sight of him walking away from me – he was skin and bone, I don’t know how he stood up – was devastating, heart-breaking.

When Brandsma came, Bogie would ask careful questions – no life-or-death ones. ‘Why was I in pain after the last treatments?’ ‘The scar tissue hadn’t completely dissolved and was pressing on a nerve.’ Bogie knew you had to eat to stay alive, but he couldn’t. The malteds came twice daily – coffee, water, liquids mostly. He just couldn’t get food down – he would chew endlessly a bit of toast. His plea to me was always the same: ‘If I could just work.’ Because if he worked he’d be okay.

I often left the room when the doctor was there, hoping Bogie might
say something to him he wouldn’t say to me. I’d ask Brandsma endless questions afterward: ‘What did he say – what did you tell him – what does he think?’ Finally Bogie began having trouble breathing. The doctor told me we should have oxygen in the house – he told Bogie it would make it easier on him while he was trying to gain strength, an occasional whiff was a great pick-me-up. Even I should try it – it’s terrific. Nothing was terrific. But two enormous green tanks came, one for upstairs, one for down. I was shown how to work them – not too complicated. I took some and it
was
good. Bogie tried it – he didn’t make a fuss – another indignity which had to be borne. It made him feel easier and he used it from time to time – more often each day.

One afternoon Steve and Leslie were in our bedroom playing. Bogie was on the chaise – he just watched them. When they went for their baths, he said, ‘Don’t have them in here too often, Baby.’ He didn’t want them to see him as he was, or he didn’t want them to remember him as he was. Or, he couldn’t bear to look at them knowing he wouldn’t be around for the rest of their lives.

It is extraordinary that not once did Bogie ever say a word to me along the lines of ‘If anything should happen to me’ – or ‘When’ – or ‘I know.’ We continued the game of its being nothing more than a bad virus. Bogie set the tone, and his attitude was such that I had to play along. He said to me once, ‘If you’re okay, then I am – if you’re upset, then I am.’ So there was nothing for me to do but be okay.