The Men in My Life

by Patricia Bosworth

  I found him waiting for me at the back; he looked tired and hungover, but when he saw me he jumped to his feet, drawing me down into the booth. We embraced but didn’t speak. I was thinking, Oh God, maybe we’ll have another chance for something special to happen to us . . . Maybe we’ll have the opportunity for both of us to fully realize ourselves together.

  I was about to tell Gerry what I was thinking, but he murmured, “Shush”; then he kissed me very gently on the forehead. “I’ll get us some drinks.”

  I watched him cross the long smoke-filled room, a big hulking giant of a man with muscular shoulders and curly hair. There were so many couples packing the bar that he was soon engulfed by the crowd and I could no longer see him.

  As I waited, I watched a heavyset, swarthy man with tattoos stagger out of the john and begin threatening a beat-up woman with a scarred face. Some black and Puerto Rican boys frugged near the jukebox. One of them had a knife sticking out of his back pocket.

  A half-hour went by and Gerry never reappeared with our drinks. I grew increasingly nervous. Then I heard a commotion at the far end of the room. I couldn’t see clearly—it was so dark—but heard a thump and a scream and someone called, “Hey, guys!” I knew I had to get out of there. I ran through the bar and out onto the street. It was snowing and then I saw a man pummeling another man lying on the sidewalk. It was Gerry. Aside from feeling sick, I had this fantasy urge to leap over and save him, but of course I couldn’t. People crowded around, a cop car pulled up, then an ambulance, and Gerry was carried away.

  HE WASN’T AT Roosevelt Hospital, where I’d been told he’d been taken. After another couple of hours of fruitless searching I returned to the East Side. It was around eight in the morning and bitterly cold. It was also Christmas Day, so church bells were ringing in the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer. When we’d lived on Sixty-Eighth Street, it had been our family’s parrish; I often went to Mass there with Daddy. It was also down the block from my own apartment, so I still prayed there pretty regularly.

  Now I climbed the steep stone stairs and into the nave. There were nuns in the chapel at the side of the nave; they were lighting candles for the first Mass. I knelt down in one of the ornate carved pews at the back of the church and had the overwhelming realization of how important my faith was. I’d always believed I could talk to God, that I had a personal relationship with Him. My non-Catholic friends kidded me about that. I would tell them, “Look, I know you can’t reach God directly all the time—you have to go through patron saints and all sorts of religious experiences—and every so often I can catch glimpses of God.”

  Memories flooded back. Of my teenage self rushing into the same ornate pew at the back of the church after I eloped with Jason; I’d knelt there pleading with God to help me explain my reckless act to my parents. And then I’d prayed for my brother after his violent death, and lit candles and kept on asking, “Why? Why?” And now I asked God to please save Gerry, and then I burst into tears. Because Daddy always said, “Don’t ask God for favors. You get what God thinks is best for you.”

  Did He want Gerry to die? I couldn’t believe that. Gerry was a good person. Didn’t that count for something? I stayed in the church praying until Mass started, and then I left and returned to my apartment.

  I didn’t even take off my coat; I lay down on my unmade bed, my heart pounding so loudly that I experienced reverberations in my ears. My parents called. I was expected for holiday lunch. I played sick. “Terrible flu. I have been throwing up all night.” Then an actor friend of Gerry’s phoned and told me Gerry had died of a brain concussion and the man who’d hit him had been arrested.

  I SUBSEQUENTLY LEARNED more details about Gerry’s death from a Daily News feature. Apparently a two-hundred-pound laborer named Monroe Gibson admitted to the police that he’d knocked Gerry out with one punch right outside the Broadway bar. Gerry and a friend of his, ex-boxer Tommy Bell, were on the street talking. Gibson wanted to get into the bar, but couldn’t; Gerry told him it was past closing time and he couldn’t go in. That’s when the fight began. Gibson was ultimately charged with homicide.

  FOR THE NEXT couple of days I stayed in my apartment. Friends kept calling and leaving messages. I didn’t answer most calls, but I did listen to Elaine’s. “Where are ya, babe? Don’t fall too far down into a hole. The hurt may always be there, but you will get used to it.” I did.

  Then Mama appeared bearing hot soup in a thermos. I was so glad to see her I felt like hugging her, but I didn’t. She was all bundled up in her mink, blond hair swept off her proud little face, bright red lipstick on her mouth. She looked amazing.

  After bustling around and pouring the soup into a mug, she insisted on washing my face and hands with a warm towel. Then she plumped up the pillows on my bed and made me lie back and drink the soup.

  “Feel better now, lamb-pie?”

  I remembered the times she’d nursed my brother and me through colds and flu and chicken pox. I had flashes of our nursery in Berkeley with its view of the San Francisco Bay and Bart and me being served lovely suppers on trays.

  “So.” Mama shrugged off her mink. “You really did love him, didn’t you?” Her voice was surprisingly compassionate.

  I couldn’t speak.

  She shook her head. “Terrible ending. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.”

  “But you didn’t even like him.”

  “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “What’s going to happen to me, Mama? Why do I always choose the wrong man?”

  She didn’t answer; she just took me in her arms and held me so I could cry and cry and cry.

  “I wish I could cry,” she said after I had cried all I could and blown my nose. She wiped my cheeks with the towel.

  “I have rarely cried,” she announced. “My father said it was weak to cry and I wanted to be strong for him, so I have always held back. So I didn’t cry when he died, although I loved him more than anyone in the world, and I didn’t cry when Bart . . .” Her mouth tightened. “Saul said it was good to cry. I cried when we said good-bye, but that was long ago.”

  “You still think about Saul, don’t you?” I’d almost forgotten about Dr. Saul, Mama’s longtime lover in California.

  “Oh, yes.” Although they hadn’t seen each other in five years, Mama and Saul communicated by phone and letter, and she thought about him every day. She said she loved him passionately, but it was a different kind of love from that which she felt for Daddy. She smiled very sadly when she said that and added that I wouldn’t understand what she meant now, “but someday you will.” (She was right. I did.) “Saul made it possible for me to go on and continue as your father’s wife,” Mama continued. “You won’t understand that now either, but someday you will.” (As I do decades later, remembering my own infidelities and secrets, the longings I had for men other than my three husbands.)

  “Oh Mama, I care so, I feel so, about the men I love.”

  “You should care. You are a beautiful, sensitive spirit. But,” she added, “you have to face reality in these romances. This Gerry fellow was a big drinker and a brawler. There were bound to be problems. That other man, Pepi, was married. That was the reality of that situation.” She laughed. “I like to think I am both realistic and romantic. Otherwise I couldn’t survive. You have got to start assessing the situations you’re in with a man—figuring out what the hell you are doing. When I was a crime reporter, I got involved with some real bastards. They were very seductive. I knew they were; I was very aware of what I was doing, so they could not take advantage of me.”

  She paused again. “In the end—you have to pay a price for being in love. It never comes easy.”

  We continued to talk late into the evening. When she left I thanked her for coming. She told me I shouldn’t be such a stranger and that she was here for me whenever I needed her. I loved her very much in that moment and ever after, although we continued to have brutal arguments and never-ending disagreements, mostly about men.

/>   Chapter Eighteen

  IT TOOK ME a while to get over Gerry. For months after he died, I moped around; I was very lonely. Then I started dating a French photographer named Michel. We both agreed we weren’t going to be serious, we were just friends. We were also seeing other people. But then we went to bed and I got pregnant.

  I’d rarely taken precautions when I had sex. Stupid, but there you are. I was twenty-four and had been sleeping around pretty indiscriminately ever since my divorce. I’d gone to a gynecologist once to find out about contraceptives and I’d used a diaphragm for a while, but the diaphragm kept slipping. It wasn’t comfortable and I stopped using it. I’d been very lucky. Now I wasn’t so lucky anymore.

  The day I found out I was pregnant, my agent phoned excitedly to say I’d been cast in a movie called The Nun’s Story starring Audrey Hepburn. I would be playing Audrey’s best friend at the convent. It was difficult under the circumstances to share my agent’s giddiness, but I forced myself to listen to what else she was saying: “It’s a Warner Brothers movie—very big—Fred Zinnemann is directing. The movie will start shooting in Rome next month.”

  That’s when I knew I was going to have to make one of the most important decisions of my life. Only if I terminated my pregnancy would I be able to play Audrey Hepburn’s best friend. I couldn’t ignore what was going on in my body. Already my belly seemed a bit distended.

  I didn’t tell my mother—that was out of the question. Of course I told Michel; he was properly sympathetic. We discussed the situation at length. We both knew we weren’t in love—we couldn’t commit to each other and neither one of us wanted to take responsibility for raising a child. I never considered being a single mom (that was almost unheard of in those days). The only other alternative was abortion.

  I’d never thought about abortion until I had to have one. I’d never thought about going to hell either. The Church considered abortion a sin, so if I had an abortion, I would have a mortal sin on my soul and I wouldn’t be forgiven unless I went to Confession.

  It’s hard to describe what the atmosphere was like back in 1958 vis-à-vis abortion. Nobody, but nobody, talked about it. There was so much stigma attached to the subject that women who had abortions believed they were “bad,” as did I. After I got pregnant, I’d stare at my reflection in the mirror and a terrified, confused young woman stared back at me. I couldn’t sleep and started biting my nails to the quick, something I hadn’t done since I was married to Jason.

  I was scared. In 1958 abortion was illegal; you took a big medical risk if you had one. There was so much misinformation and there were so many dangerous “abortion mills.” I heard a ghastly story from a former high school classmate who’d gotten a punctured uterus from some amateur in Chinatown. He had poked at her insides with a catheter. Luckily she survived.

  I HONESTLY CAN’T remember all that I did in the next weeks as Michel and I sought out abortionists. But somehow I tried to go on living my life, having dinner with my parents and attending sessions at the Actors Studio.

  My agent kept filling me in with more details about The Nun’s Story. Peter Finch would be costarring with Audrey, and almost every major character actress I could think of was playing a nun: Dame Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, Mildred Dunnock, Beatrice Straight, Patricia Collinge, Margaret Phillips. These women were all remarkable artists; I was thrilled to be joining their ranks.

  Then I received my script and I read and reread it. It took my mind off my troubles for a while. The screenplay by Robert Anderson was based on the bestselling novel The Nun’s Story by Kathryn C. Hulme. It told the story of Sister Luke (Audrey), a strong-willed young woman who joins a celebrated nursing order of nuns. As World War II approaches, she is sent to a hospital in the Belgian Congo, where she passes many trials—spiritual, medical, political—especially when she assists a charismatic doctor (Peter Finch) who shakes her faith, a faith that is enmeshed in the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

  I would be playing Sister Simone, who befriends Sister Luke while they are both young postulants. Their devotion to God keeps warring with their rebellious natures. Sister Simone leaves the convent years before Sister Luke finally does. It is virtually impossible for either of them to hold to the vows of obedience.

  I thought Bob had done a compelling job dramatizing the ordeals of self-sacrifice that nuns must endure, and I was personally grateful to him. After seeing me in Pat Muldoon, he’d told Fred Zinnemann I should audition for the part of Simone.

  But I wasn’t screen-tested. Instead I’d been photographed in a nun’s flowing black habit and white wimple by Vandamm, then Broadway’s greatest portraitist. Fred said he’d chosen me because I resembled a Burne-Jones painting. Apparently Burne-Jones painted young women who were “ethereal, wistful, angelic, and otherworldly.” I may have appeared that way in the photograph, but I sure as hell didn’t feel like it in real life as Michel and I continued going over lists of abortionists.

  EVERYBODY RECOMMENDED A legendary abortionist in Pennsylvania because his operating room was clean and safe and he charged only $100, but for some reason he was unavailable. Some women we spoke to had traveled out of the country to places like San Juan, Havana, even Tokyo. I ended up choosing a doctor in Manhattan suggested by a college friend. He was “really good,” she said, and he was trustworthy. The cost: $500 in cash. Michel agreed to pay.

  I spoke to the doctor on the phone. When he learned I was in the first trimester, he said it would be no problem. I was to fast the night before; the operation was called a D&C. I would be in the office for about four hours and the operation would require heavy sedation. He assured me it wouldn’t hurt too much, “maybe a little cramping.” He did not tell me that the operation would include an electric suction machine and some very sharp instruments. When I explained I had to fly to Rome in less than two weeks for a job, he said I should come right away.

  I went by myself; Michel had an assignment, but he said he’d check up on me later and wished me luck. It was all very impersonal.

  The doctor’s office was in a brownstone on East Seventy-Second Street between Lexington and Park. I rang the buzzer. A voice on the intercom asked, “Who’s there?” I gave my name, and after much clicking of locks and the unbolting of a door, a nurse let me in and sat me down in the nondescript waiting room. I was surprised to see another woman waiting too. Middle-aged, with sad pouchy eyes. She felt it necessary to whisper that she wasn’t going to have an abortion; she was picking up a friend.

  As if on cue the friend appeared from an inner room. She was young and freckled and sobbing uncontrollably. The middle-aged woman ran to her.

  I was hustled away by the nurse, who murmured, “Sorry about that,” and then she asked for the money. I gave it to her in an envelope, five hundred-dollar bills. She counted them, thanked me, and then led me into another room, telling me to take off my clothes and put on a hospital gown.

  I remember little after that, but I do remember Frank Sinatra records were playing the entire time as I lay on the white-sheeted operating table, legs splayed apart. Very bright lights. Before I went under, I noticed the doctor needed a shave. He was cheerful but businesslike. He assured me, as he washed his hands and put on rubber gloves, “Won’t take too long, blondie.”

  I closed my eyes. Even though I was pretty much knocked out by the anesthesia, the scraping and sucking was excruciating. When I woke up, I initially felt relieved, but then sadness enveloped me, as well as a feeling of loss so powerful and painful I couldn’t believe it. And then I thought, I may never be able to have a baby. I have probably ruined my chances of ever becoming a mother. I began to cry.

  I was now lying in an alcove in what I supposed was the recovery room. I was surprised to see another girl next to me on a cot. She was being minded by a black man feeding her ice chips. I couldn’t stop crying and the nurse came in to chide me. “Please stop. You are upsetting the patients in the waiting room.”

  “I’m hurting,” I sobbed. My wom
b seemed to be on fire; it was throbbing and cramping. I kept on crying until the doctor came in and, in businesslike fashion, stuck his hand up me and began massaging my womb.

  “It will stop cramping soon, I promise,” he said. And thank God it did.

  Before I left, he gave me pills to take to keep me from hemorrhaging. He warned me that the high altitudes on the transatlantic flight to Rome could be harmful. “The stitches in your vagina might burst. You must take the pills.” I said I would.

  I’d arranged to have Lily Lodge pick me up. She was the only one I’d told aside from Michel. Lily helped me into a waiting cab and then took me back to my apartment and stayed with me. I slept on and off; every so often I’d wake up feeling crampy and nauseous from the anesthesia. Lils nursed me with ginger ale and cracked ice. After twenty-four hours I felt much better, and Lils left. I made a pot of coffee for myself and then washed my hair and started packing for Rome.

  Mama came over to help. As soon as we hugged I longed to tell her everything; then she would take care of me and put a hot water bottle on my stomach, as she had when I was a little girl. But I kept quiet and pretended I felt fine, even though I was still cramping and I looked very pale. Mama didn’t seem to notice; she kept insisting that I pack unnecessary items like monogrammed hankies and white gloves.

  She didn’t want me to travel alone to Europe, so she phoned Mildred Dunnock (whom she had never met) and asked if I could sit next to her on the plane and would she watch out for me? Dear, elegant Millie, who’d created the role of Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman and was playing Sister Margharita, mistress of the postulants in The Nun’s Story, was a truly unique lady. She said absolutely, of course.