Early on the morning of April 11, Chris made a telephone call to her doctor in Los Angeles to ask him for a referral to a local psychiatrist for Regan.
“Oh? What’s wrong?”
Chris explained. Beginning on the day after Regan’s birthday—and following Howard’s failure to call—she had noticed a sudden and dramatic change in her daughter’s behavior and disposition. Insomnia. Quarrelsome. Fits of temper. Kicked things. Threw things. Screamed. Wouldn’t eat. In addition, her energy seemed abnormal. She was constantly moving, touching, turning; tapping; running and jumping about. Doing poorly with schoolwork. Fantasy playmate. Eccentric attention-getting tactics.
“Such as what?” the physician inquired.
Chris started with the rappings. Since the night she’d checked the attic, she’d heard them again on two occasions, and in both of these instances, she’d noticed, Regan was present in the room and the rappings would cease at the moment Chris entered. Secondly, she told him, Regan would “lose” things in the room: a dress; her toothbrush; books; her shoes. She complained about “somebody moving” her furniture. Finally, on the morning following the dinner at the White House, Chris saw Karl in Regan’s bedroom pulling a bureau back into place from a spot that was halfway across the room. When Chris had inquired what he was doing, he repeated his former “Someone is funny,” and refused to elaborate any further; but shortly thereafter, Chris had found Regan in the kitchen complaining that someone had moved all her furniture during the night when she was sleeping, and this was the incident, Chris explained, that had finally crystallized her suspicions. It was clearly her daughter who was doing it all.
“You mean somnambulism? She’s doing it in her sleep?”
“No, Marc, she’s doing it when she’s awake. To get attention.”
Chris mentioned the matter of the shaking bed, which had happened twice more, each time followed by Regan’s insistence that she sleep with her mother.
“Well, that could be physical,” the internist ventured.
“No, Marc, I didn’t say that the bed was shaking; what I said was that Regan said it was shaking.”
“Do you know that it wasn’t?”
“No, not really.”
“Well, it might be clonic spasms,” he murmured.
“What was that?”
“Clonic spasm. Any temperature?”
“No. Listen, what do you think?” Chris asked him. “Should I take her to a shrink or what?”
“Chris, you mentioned her schoolwork. How is she doing with her math?”
“Why?”
“How’s she doing?” he persisted.
“Just rotten. I mean, suddenly rotten.”
“I see.”
“Why’d you ask?” Chris repeated.
“Well, it’s part of the syndrome.”
“Syndrome? Syndrome of what?”
“Nothing serious. I’d rather not guess about it over the phone. Got a pencil?”
He wanted to give her the name of a Washington internist.
“Marc, can’t you come out here and check her yourself?” She was remembering Jamie and his lingering infection. Chris’s doctor at that time had prescribed a new, broad-spectrum antibiotic. Refilling a prescription at a local drugstore, the pharmacist was wary. “I don’t want to alarm you, ma’am, but this … well, it’s quite new on the market, and they’ve found that in Georgia it’s been causing aplastic anemia in young boys.” Jamie. Gone. Dead. Ever since, Chris had never trusted doctors. Only Marc, and even that had taken years. “Marc, can’t you?”
“No, I can’t, but don’t worry. This guy I’m recommending is brilliant. He’s the best. Now get a pencil.”
Hesitation. Then “I’ve got one. What’s the name?”
She wrote it down and then the telephone number.
“Call and have him look her over and then tell him to call me,” the internist advised. “And forget the psychiatrist for now.”
“Are you sure?”
He delivered a blistering statement regarding the readiness of the general public to recognize psychosomatic illness, while failing to recognize the reverse: that illness of the body was often the cause of seeming illness of the mind. “Now what would you say,” he proposed as an instance, “if you were my internist, God forbid, and I told you I had headaches, recurring nightmares, nausea, insomnia and blurring of the vision; and also that I generally felt unglued and was worried to death about my job? Would you say I was neurotic?”
“I’m a bad one to ask, Marc; I know you’re neurotic.”
“Those symptoms I gave you are the same as for brain tumor, Chris. Check the body. That’s first. Then we’ll see.”
Chris telephoned the internist and made an appointment for that afternoon. Her time was her own now. The filming was over, at least for her. Burke Dennings continued, loosely supervising the work of the “second unit,” a special crew filming scenes that were of lesser importance, mostly helicopter shots of various exteriors around the city, as well as stunt work and scenes without any of the principal actors. But Dennings wanted every foot of it to be perfect.
The doctor was in Arlington. Samuel Klein. While Regan sat crossly in an examining room, Klein seated her mother in his office and took a brief case history. She told him the trouble. He listened; nodded; made copious notes. When she mentioned the shaking of the bed, he appeared to frown dubiously, but Chris continued:
“Marc seemed to think it was kind of significant that Regan’s doing poorly with her math. Now why was that?”
“You mean schoolwork?”
“Yeah, schoolwork, but math in particular. What’s it mean?”
“Well, let’s wait until I’ve looked at her, Mrs. MacNeil.”
He then excused himself and gave Regan a complete examination that included taking samples of her urine and her blood. The urine was for testing of her liver and kidney functions; the blood for a number of checks: diabetes; thyroid function; red-cell blood count looking for possible anemia and white-cell blood count for exotic diseases of the blood.
When he’d finished, Klein sat and talked to Regan, observing her demeanor, and then returned to his office and started to write a prescription. “She appears to have a hyperkinetic behavior disorder,” he said to Chris as he wrote.
“A what?”
“A disorder of the nerves. At least we think it is. We don’t know yet exactly how it works, but it’s often seen in early adolescence. She shows all the symptoms: the hyperactivity; the temper; her performance in math.”
“Yeah, the math. Why the math?”
“It affects concentration.” He ripped the prescription from the small blue pad and handed it over to Chris. He said, “This is for Ritalin.”
“What?”
“Methylphenidate.”
“Oh, yeah, that.”
“Ten milligrams, twice a day. I’d recommend one at eight A.M., and the other at two in the afternoon.”
Chris was eyeing the prescription.
“What is it? A tranquilizer?”
“A stimulant.”
“A stimulant? She’s higher’n a kite right now!”
“Her condition isn’t quite what it seems,” explained Klein. “It’s a form of overcompensation, an overreaction to depression.”
“Depression?”
Klein nodded.
“Depression,” Chris repeated, looking aside and at the floor in thought.
“Well, you mentioned her father.”
Chris looked up. “Do you think I should take her to see a psychiatrist, Doc?”
“Oh, no. I’d wait and see what happens with the Ritalin. I really think that’s the answer. Let’s wait two or three weeks.”
“So you think it’s all nerves.”
“I suspect so.”
“And those lies she’s been telling? This’ll stop it?”
His answer puzzled her. He asked her if she’d ever known Regan to swear or use obscenities.
“Funny question. No, never.”
“Well, you see, that’s quite similar to things like her lying—uncharacteristic, from what you tell me, but in certain disorders of the nerves it can—”
“Wait a minute, hold it,” Chris interrupted. “Where’d you ever get the notion that she uses obscenities? I mean, is that what you were saying or did I misunderstand?”
Klein eyed her curiously for a moment before cautiously venturing, “Yes, I’d say that she uses obscenities. Weren’t you aware of it?”
“I’m still not aware of it! What are you talking about?”
“Well, she let loose quite a string while I was examining her, Mrs. MacNeil.”
“Are you kidding me, Doc? Such as what?”
Klein looked evasive. “Well, let’s just say that her vocabulary’s rather extensive.”
“Well, like what? I mean, give me an example!”
Klein shrugged.
“You mean ‘shit’? Or ‘fuck’?”
Klein relaxed. “Yes, she used those words,” he said.
“And what else did she say? I mean, specifically.”
“Well, specifically, Mrs. MacNeil, she advised me to keep my goddamn fingers away from her cunt.”
Chris gasped with shock. “She used those words?”
“Well, it isn’t unusual, Mrs. MacNeil, and I really wouldn’t worry about it at all. As I said, it’s just a part of the syndrome.”
Looking down at her shoes, Chris was shaking her head. “It’s just so hard to believe,” she said softly.
“Look, I doubt that she even understood what she was saying.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Chris murmured. “That could be.”
“Try the Ritalin,” Klein advised her, “and we’ll see what develops. And I’d like to take a look at her again in two weeks.”
He consulted a calendar pad on his desk. “Let’s see; let’s make it Wednesday the twenty-seventh. Would that be convenient?”
“Yeah, okay.” Subdued and morose, Chris got up from her chair, took the prescription and crumpled it into a pocket of her coat. “Yeah, sure. The twenty-seventh would be fine.”
“I’m quite a big fan of yours,” Klein told her as he opened the door leading into the hall.
An index fingertip pressed to her lip, head lowered, Chris paused in the doorway, preoccupied. She glanced up at the doctor. “You don’t think a psychiatrist, Doc?”
“I don’t know. But the best explanation is always the simplest one. Let’s wait. Let’s wait and see.” Klein smiled encouragingly. He said, “Try not to worry.”
“How?”
As Chris was driving her home, Regan asked what the doctor had told her.
“He just said you’re nervous.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
Chris had decided not to talk about her language.
Burke. She must have picked it up from Burke.
But later Chris spoke to Sharon about it, asking if she’d ever heard Regan use that kind of obscenity.
“Oh, my God, no,” said Sharon, slightly taken aback. “No, never. I mean, not even lately. But you know, I think her art teacher made some remark about it.”
“You mean recently, Sharon?”
“Last week. But that woman’s so prissy. I just figured maybe Regan said ‘damn’ or ‘crap.’ You know, something like that.”
“Oh, by the way, have you been talking to Rags about religion, Shar?”
Sharon flushed.
“Well, a little; that’s all. I mean, it’s hard to avoid. Chris, she asks so many questions, and—well…” She gave a helpless little shrug. “It’s just hard. I mean, how do I answer without telling what I think is a great big lie?”
“Give her multiple choice.”
In the days that preceded her scheduled dinner party, Chris was extremely diligent in seeing that Regan took her dosage of Ritalin. By the night of the party, however, she had failed to observe any noticeable improvement. There were subtle signs, in fact, of a gradual deterioration: increased forgetfulness; untidiness; and one complaint of nausea. As for attention-getting tactics, although the familiar ones failed to recur, there appeared to be a new one: reports of a foul, unpleasant “smell” in Regan’s bedroom. At Regan’s insistence, Chris took a whiff one day and smelled nothing.
“You don’t smell it?” Regan asked, looking puzzled.
“You mean, you smell it right now?”
“Oh, well, sure!”
“What’s it smell like, baby?”
Regan had wrinkled her nose. “Well, like something burny.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Chris had sniffed yet again, this time more deeply.
“Don’t you smell it?”
“Oh, yeah, now I do. Why don’t we open up the window for a while, get some air in.”
In fact, Chris had smelled nothing, but had made up her mind that she would temporize, at least until the appointment with the doctor. She was also preoccupied with a number of other concerns. One was arrangements for the dinner party. Another had to do with the script. Although she was still enthusiastic about the prospect of directing, a natural caution had prevented her from making a prompt decision. In the meantime, her agent was calling her daily. She told him that she’d given the script to Dennings for his opinion, and said she hoped he was reading and not consuming it.
The third, and the most important, of Chris’s concerns was the failure of two financial ventures: a purchase of convertible debentures through the use of prepaid interest; and an investment in an oil-drilling project in southern Libya. Both had been entered upon for the sheltering of income that would have been subject to enormous taxation. But something even worse had developed: the wells had come up dry and rocketing interest rates had prompted a sell-off in bonds. These were the problems that her gloomy business manager flew into town to discuss. He arrived on Thursday. Chris had him charting and explaining through Friday, when at last she decided on a course of action that the manager thought wise, though he frowned when she then brought up the subject of buying a Ferrari.
“You mean, a new one?”
“Why not? You know, I drove one in a picture once. If we write to the factory, maybe, and remind them, it could be they might give us a deal. Don’t you think?”
The manager didn’t. And cautioned that he thought such a purchase improvident.
“Ben, I made over eight hundred thou last year and you’re telling me I can’t buy a freaking car! Don’t you think that’s ridiculous? Where’d the money all go?”
He reminded her that most of her money was in shelters. Then he listed the various drains on her income: federal income tax; her state tax; estimated tax on future income; property taxes; commissions to her agent and to him and to her publicist that added up to twenty percent of her income; another one and a quarter percent to the Motion Picture Welfare Fund; an outlay for wardrobe in tune with the fashion; salaries to Willie and Karl and Sharon and the caretaker of the Los Angeles home; various travel costs; and, finally, her monthly expenses.
“Will you do another picture this year?” he asked her.
Chris shrugged. “I dunno. Do I have to?”
“Yes, I think perhaps you should.”
Elbows propped on her knees, Chris held her wistful face cupped in both hands as, eyeing the business manager moodily, she asked him, “What about a Honda?”
He made no reply.
Later that evening, Chris tried to put all of her worries aside; tried to keep herself busy with making preparations for the next night’s party.
“Let’s serve the curry buffet instead of sit-down,” she told Willie and Karl. “We can set up a table at the end of the living room. Right?”
“Very good, Madam,” Karl answered quickly.
“So what do you think, Willie? A fresh fruit salad for dessert?”
“Yes, excellent, Madam!” Karl answered.
“Thanks, Willie.”
She’d invited an interesting mixture. In addition to Burke (“Show up sober, goddammit!”) and the youngish director of the second unit, she expected a senator (and wife); an Apollo astronaut (and wife); two Jesuits from Georgetown; her next-door neighbors; and Mary Jo Perrin and Ellen Cleary.
Mary Jo Perrin was a plump and gray-headed Washington psychic. Chris had met her at the White House dinner and liked her immensely. She’d expected to find her austere and forbidding, but “You’re not like that at all!” she’d been able to tell her; instead, she was bubbly-warm and unpretentious. Ellen Cleary was a middle-aged State Department secretary who’d worked in the U. S. Embassy in Moscow when Chris toured Russia. She had gone to considerable effort and trouble to rescue Chris from a number of difficulties and encumbrances encountered in the course of her travels, not the least of which had been caused by the redheaded actress’s outspokenness. Chris had remembered her with affection over the years, and had looked her up on coming to Washington.
“Hey, Shar, which priests are coming?”
“I’m not sure yet. I invited the president and the dean of the college, but I think that the president’s sending an alternate. His secretary called me late this morning and said that he might have to go out of town.”
“Who’s he sending?” Chris asked with guarded interest.
“Let me see.” Sharon rummaged through scraps of notes. “Yes, here it is. It’s his assistant, Father Joseph Dyer.”
“Oh.”
Chris seemed disappointed.
“Where’s Rags?” she asked.
“Downstairs.”
“You know, maybe you should start to keep your typewriter there; don’t you think? I mean, that way you can watch her when you’re typing. Okay? I don’t like her being alone so much.”
“Good idea.”
“Okay, later. Go on home, Shar. Meditate. Play with horses.”
The planning and preparations at an end, Chris again found herself turning worried thoughts toward Regan. She tried to watch television. Could not concentrate. Felt uneasy. There was a strangeness in the house. Like settling stillness. Weighted dust.
By midnight, all in the house were asleep.
There were no disturbances. That night.