The Camera Always Lies

by Hugh Hood

  “How much time did you have?”

  “I would estimate that she finished swallowing the tablets a little after nine-thirty; there was a margin of about forty-five minutes for assimilation to begin and accelerate. Mr. Aspinall went in to check on her just before ten, and they got her in here very quickly. We were working on her by ten-twenty, by my watch, which might be a minute or two slow.”

  The interviewer whistled. “That’s cutting it pretty fine.”

  “Yes. Another half-hour and she’d have assimilated a lethal dose. You get a fluttery heart action, progressively inefficient respiration, pale cold skin with a distinctly bluish tone. Deep coma and finally death. You ought to talk to the motel owner; he really did save her life.”

  “And she’s going to be all right?”

  “Oh yes, certainly, by Monday she’ll be fine. Her stomach will be stiff and sore tomorrow, the pumping has that effect. But there’s no physical damage.” He thought of a mysterious red welt on her stomach, wondered again how she got it, and decided to say nothing about it. None of his business.

  “Doctor, was it a massive overdose?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could she have done it by mistake?”

  The doctor’s face was without expression. “It’s possible.”

  “Would you care to comment further?”

  “Can we have your name, please?”

  “I’m Doctor Theodore Sampson.”

  They had what they wanted and at once went off to talk to Lou Aspinall, who was fidgeting and walking around in little circles at the other end of the room. Doctor Sampson stared at the reporters’ retreating backs for a moment, smiled to himself, and came over to Jean-Pierre.

  “You and Miss Starr are looking after her?”

  “Yes. Miss Starr is telephoning her mother. I’m afraid Miss Leclair led a rather solitary life.”

  “A recent divorce, wasn’t there?”

  “Yes. I believe she’s alone much of the time, and I’m sorry to say without many close friends.”

  Doctor Sampson grew sober, almost sad. “That’s remarkable, isn’t it?”

  “It’s sad,” Jean-Pierre said. “I don’t think it’s remarkable.”

  The doctor caught it. “Quite correct. You mean not unusual. All I meant to say is that here we have a woman who is young, rich, famous, admired, but without friends, passed out alone in a motel from an overdose of pills. It’s alarming.” His face was concerned. He was quite a young man.

  “She may have had feelings that we know nothing about,” said Jean-Pierre equably.

  “Unquestionably,” the doctor said, “but it’s a reflection on all of us. Is that what we do to our darlings?”

  Peggi had come back in time to overhear some of the conversation. She said, “Yes, that’s exactly what we do to our darlings. I thank God every night of my life that I never made it big as a star. I’m a big earner, I live a comfortable life, nobody bothers me. And poor Rose . . . I hate to think of her doing that alone.” She looked angrily at Jean-Pierre, without meaning to single him out for blame.

  “Her mother will be here in the morning.”

  “We’ll stay till we can see her,” said Jean-Pierre. “When will that be?”

  Doctor Sampson hesitated.

  “You said yourself there’s no physical damage.”

  “All right, you can see her when she’s comfortably in a room. They’ll be taking her up in, oh, I guess forty-five minutes. We just want to observe her heart action for a little while. Routine.”

  “If I’m any judge, her heart is fine,” said Peggi.

  “Sure it is, but we have to make absolutely certain. I’ll let you know as soon as she can be seen. We’ll give her our best accommodation. If you want to go and check at Admissions, they’ll give you the room number. Perhaps you could wait up there.”

  They thanked the doctor and turned to go, but as they moved towards the elevator a reporter identified Peggi, and there was a surge in their direction. Peggi talked it up to the press as though a huge crowd of Rose’s friends were pressing against the doors and windows. She felt it inappropriate that just the two of them should be there.

  “Do you want to say anything, Miss Starr?”

  “I’m not Rose’s spokesman, but I think you should remember that she has been under strain, working very hard, and she’s had personal problems to work out.”

  “What about her last picture? Was she disturbed about it?”

  “Do you mean our last picture?”

  “Yes, that’s right, you were in it.”

  “I was in it,” said Peggi, very coldly.

  “Was Miss Leclair satisfied with the picture?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wasn’t her part cut?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t edit the picture. It’s doing well and making money for all of us. As far as I know, Rose is satisfied with it.”

  “Why would she do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “Take an overdose.”

  “I have nothing to say about that at all. I haven’t talked to Miss Leclair. Look, can’t we postpone this till we’ve seen her? You can’t get it into the Sunday editions anyway, so another twelve hours won’t hurt.”

  “Who is this gentleman?”

  “This is Jean-Pierre Fauré, the director. If you know anything about French movies, you know his work.”

  Jean-Pierre seized his cue. “Never mind about my pictures, at least those I’ve already made. I’m interested in Miss Leclair, and I intend to make her an offer.”

  “For a new picture?”

  “Yes. I think Miss Leclair would fit into European filmmaking perfectly. She has certain qualities that are perhaps more appreciated there than here. I’m very eager to work with her; she has great charm.” He spoke quietly but with intensity, and the reporters grew less strident. It seemed to surprise them that the object of their inquiries should not be entirely without friends.

  “Why don’t we talk tomorrow, say around noon?” said Peggi. “You’ll be doing the follow-up. When we’ve seen her.” She got rid of them by charm and force of will; they went away and began to harass the hospital staff until an intern and some orderlies told them to get out.

  “I didn’t realize you were after Rose.”

  “Neither did I, until this minute. You know how you’ll carry an idea around in your head for weeks without fully realizing it. Then all at once some suggestion will cause you to act. When you introduced me to those men, I didn’t know I was going to say that, but having said it I see that it is true, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since I met Rose.”

  “That’s not very long.”

  “At the premiere, you know, I was procured for the job by your producers. I think that’s about the last favour I’ll do for them. They’ve caused me a lot of trouble, and I almost didn’t do what they asked. I’m glad now that I did. I had talks with Horler and Lenehan for over a year, about putting my pictures into general release over here. I’ve made four trips for these discussions. I trusted them.”

  “That’s a mistake. Look at poor Rose. Have you been seeing her?”

  “Three times. I think we’ve been getting to know each other.”

  “She’s a very nice girl.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  A nurse accosted them. “Miss Starr,” she said, “they’ve taken Miss Leclair upstairs, and she’ll be in Room 420 if you want to go up. You’ll find Doctor Sampson there, and I’m sure he’ll let you see her.”

  They thanked her. She went away and they buzzed for the elevator, and rode upstairs in thoughtful silence.

  He looks okay, Peggi thought, and he talks a good game; he spoke right up to the reporters. She was aware that there was no clear way to guess whether he would be a friend or not. He came from Bud and Danny and was therefore su
spect, would have to be checked out. She noticed again the slight physical resemblance to Seth. But his quality, his tone, his personality were all so totally unlike Seth’s as almost to conceal the likeness.

  She made a mental note to go and see one of his films, if one was playing in the city, or if she could borrow a print and arrange to have it screened. He had a big nose, and eyes like a friendly and rather large animal, an intelligent horse or bear. He wore heavily rimmed glasses, and looked more like a professor than a director. She was curious about his pictures, though she had always considered European producers very small potatoes.

  The elevator stopped with a slow whoosh, and after the doors opened they spotted the doctor at the end of the hall by the solarium. He raised a hand and smiled; everything was fine.

  Once in a while we have an acute sense of the physical presence of another person, and behind that powerful presence we somehow grasp the reality of that person as subject—the actual life of another self. We really can communicate with others—it’s possible though difficult—and Peggi felt, as they sauntered down the corridor, that she was receiving Jean-Pierre’s signal, was on his wavelength; she had a clear awareness of how he existed in himself, not as an object. The feeling wasn’t exactly that of sexual love or intellectual curiosity; it was what we call “coming across.” Like certain other kinds of artists, orchestral conductors especially, the director had an extraordinary ability to project the life of his intelligence and feelings, his soul, to the people whom he met. It’s hard to say how this is done, but it isn’t simply a trick of the heart, a meretricious device.

  This “coming across” or penetration of the trans-objective subject (to change the diction) requires enormous personal reserves of knowledge, experience, and reflection; there has to be something in the person. When we meet such people they are easy to recognize because they radiate understanding and wisdom; they are laden with esse intentionale, rich with the being of the people, actions, and things they’ve known. Peggi sensed this richness in Jean-Pierre; she could see him shine, and wished that for once this kind of action could be directed at her. She saw that she could easily love this man, and wanted to know him much better. But she also knew that Rose had got there first; she would be loyal. And yet she would be as attractive and as candidly friendly as possible, just in case.

  The doctor said, “They’re tucking her in, and you can see her for a little while before she goes to sleep.”

  “Has she been sedated?” Peggi asked.

  “I gave her very light medication to calm her. This is not a classical case, you know. The pattern is all wrong.”

  “In what way?” asked Jean-Pierre.

  “For one thing you can tell from talking to her that she’s a woman of considerable courage and wit, which isn’t typical of overdose cases. If you ask me, she’s been driven into a gesture out of unendurable irritation. It’s a damned good thing she reached for the phone.”

  “You mean that she won’t try it again?”

  “I wouldn’t have any hesitation about discharging her. I don’t want you to think that I’m treating the case lightly. I’m not a psychiatrist, not even a counselor. But I’ll willingly discharge her on Monday because I think we ought to treat the matter as a foolish spontaneous gesture, take it lightly and trust her, and our own judgment. I don’t believe she’ll try it again. I don’t believe she really tried it once.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Peggi.

  “She’s terribly strong; her organism is not death-centered, but full of life. As soon as she got that awful junk into her she started to fight it. That’s why she went for the phone.”

  “Consciously?”

  “Who can tell? I think the entire organism was involved: she is full of the desire to live.”

  Jean-Pierre gave a long exhalation, almost a sigh. “That’s what I think.”

  “Then don’t think me remiss when I discharge her on Monday. There isn’t a thing wrong with her, except the question of sleeping. She’s been taking a lot of sedatives and hates them. Can’t one of you figure out a way to help her to relax, and sleep in the ordinary way?”

  “I’ll take her to a Fauré Festival, that should do it,” said Jean-Pierre.

  “I’ll come too, and we’ll bore her to sleep,” said Peggi.

  “Go ahead in then,” said the doctor, “and maybe one of you can pick her up on Monday. She says she wants to go get her car and apologize to Mr. Aspinall—they don’t often think of that. I suppose you’ll be around most of tomorrow?”

  They said they would.

  “Stay about fifteen minutes,” he said, and went on his way.

  When they went into the room Rose looked at them and blushed. She said, “Golly socks, this hospital is just like a whole world.”

  Peggi said with relief, “Yes, little chum, and there’s good and bad in it too, like everywhere else. AND yes, yes, I’ll take care of you.”

  “Good,” said Rose. “Hello, Jean-Pierre.”

  “Hello.”

  “When you talk to the reporters tomorrow, say to them: ‘Yes, Miss Leclair tried to kill herself. But then she changed her mind.’ That’s the important part.”

  “We’ll do that.”

  “Don’t forget, that’s the important part. I feel sleepy.”

  “You are going into a deep sleep,” said Jean-Pierre hypnotically, and the friends parted.

  The two women in New York who had talked to Rose in the lavatory said wonderingly to each other, “She must have run out of patience.”

  Late Saturday night, Horler said to Lenehan, “Wouldn’t you know she’d miss the Sunday editions.”

  2

  When Doctor Sampson said, “Take the summer off,” there was nothing to do but obey. In effect, she decided, she’d been paroled in the custody of Jean-Pierre, which might not be so bad if he was all she hoped. She didn’t know whether the police had any grounds for a charge against her; they had no plans to bring one as far as she knew; she decided not to ask about it. When the doctor came by the room Monday morning to discharge her, she decided that one more day on her back wouldn’t hurt. She had to emerge pretty soon, but another day . . . another day.

  She meant to go straight back to the Cresta Corona Motel to speak to the owner, and maybe give him an extra couple of nights’ rent on the suite because of the trouble she’d caused. Then she’d have to face Mr. and Mrs. Ponsonby and Macha, and the image of the somber and ugly features of the young housemaid hovered in front of her and made her uneasy. She would have disappointed the girl by her action, for Macha evidently thought the world of her employer. That she should try to kill herself might make poor Macha very unhappy: things were not as they appeared, Rose was vulnerable. She would have to apologize to Mr. Aspinall, to the Ponsonbys, to Macha. And there would be men from the papers and magazines, probably not many, wanting to see her, to ask her exactly what she’d intended. Whom had she wished to injure? Had she simply executed a “You’ll be sorry when I’m gone” tactic? Could she really be that young? And anyway, who would care, ah, who would care? Seth with his new love in Paris? Max Mars? Her mother would, she thought, and for quite a while, but hardly anybody else. Surely she hadn’t tried to kill herself to spite her poor mother; she had forgotten how that lonely and foolish woman would feel. They saw each other only twice a year, but checks went up to Providence every month, and she wrote often. She was no more unfilial than most.

  Seth had been brought up by an uncle, a luggage manufacturer, who lived on Eighty-sixth Street between West End Avenue and Riverside, in an apartment building that dated from around 1912. Filiality for Seth had been a semi-annual taxi ride to a superannuated part of town, and for Rose it had been letters and cheques, and the cheques would go on whether she did or not. What was the meaning of what she had done? Her stomach muscles still ached from the pumping, but apart from that inconvenience, the bed rest had made he
r feel like a freshly minted coin. Another day and she’d be wrestling tigers.

  What had she tried to do and why? Had she really desired extinction or had she simply imagined it with insufficient force, and taken it for something else, a sleep, a dream? Why had she gotten over there and knocked the phone off the hook? Who had dictated that action?

  She lay comfortably on the firm, flat, hard bed, knees up, thinking vaguely of smoking a cigarette, remembering Saturday afternoon at the movies. She had felt dirty. And she had been planning the attempt.

  Before she faced the world again, she would have to try to understand what she had done, to dismiss once and for all the idea of making a second attempt. She hated to give trouble, to derange the routines of others. She blushed fiercely at the thought of becoming one of those tiresome celebrities known the world over for suicide attempts, from whom hotel managers draw back in alarm as they check in, whom private detectives marry for two weeks, who are up to their necks in pill bottles. Such a sad story, such fakery, such childlike exhibitionism. Life was unpleasant, bitter most of the time. She had been badly hurt, had run from the pain, and in running had done something wrong. Self-destruction was not an option, not a legitimate means, and not really within her powers. Doctor Sampson said jovially, “You couldn’t kill yourself. Can a cork drown?” He tapped her and prodded her, chuckling now and then and remembering to treat her like a person and not a slab of meat.

  “Haw, haw, haw.” He had a horse laugh which amused and annoyed her,

  “Do you mean I faked it? Why should I fake it?”

  “Naw, you didn’t fake it. You meant it all right, but you’re incapable of it. As soon as your body understood what you were doing, it reacted. You can’t kill yourself. Very few people can. In most of us, our substance insists on life. Those who can have often prepared their bodies to submit by drugs or alcohol or opiates of another kind, violence, radical sexuality; or else they don’t give the body a fair chance, they hurl it suddenly under a train. That’s what I call a cheating suicide; it isn’t fair to your body. I once had a man brought into Emergency who had swum twelve miles straight out into the Sound, trying to drown himself. He’d never swum more than four or five miles before and was certain he’d gone too far to get back. When he tried to let himself sink, he wouldn’t go down. When he submerged he couldn’t force himself to let the air out of his lungs; it just wouldn’t go. So he turned around and swam the twelve miles back. Disgusted? You bet.”