One Eye Open

Sometimes I see more than I should and I guess you could say that I've made quite a good living because of it. When I was a young man I used to say that I always had at least one eye open, which I thought was very humorous, at the time. Now I can safely say that I've seen enough for this lifetime and probably a few more.
The first time I saw the Walters sisters was in 1953. Well, I saw them onscreen, in Victor Desormeaux's "Conquest of Heaven", and I didn't realize at the time that they were twins. They were champion swimmers, both of them, and Victor used them in his 'Aqaurian dream sequence'. I'm still not sure whether Victor understood that phrase, entirely, but he knew what he wanted and he always got what he wanted.
The sisters tested for the scene without really knowing what they were getting into, I'm sure. They were small town girls living in a bad old city and they auditioned on a dare to each other. Victor told me later that he was smitten instantly but could never tell which one he was more in love with. The film did modestly and brought him some acclaim but Victor was to make only one more before the accident.
That's what this is about. I'm putting together a little book for the fiftieth anniversary of his death and when I tracked down Miriam I was saddened to discovered that Margaret had died. She had suffered complications while in hospital two years previously and Miriam, who had been devastated, had nearly followed a short while later.
They had disappeared after the trial, during which both women were found innocent of any involvement in Victor's death, but the trauma and the sorrow inflicted on them by the scrutiny of the press and society had driven them from their home and into obscurity. They shunned any publicity for years and begged for privacy and the world, myself included, obliged them.
I met Victor during the pre-production of what would be his last piece, called, predictably, Neptune's Revenge. His solicitous manufacturing of a career for Miriam and Margaret was anything but, as the whole town knew, but he had an innocence about him which allowed him to maintain the fantasy that what he was doing he was doing for the good of the sisters. He was a roaring and outrageous drunk by then and in the habit of throwing lavish parties that could last for days and, of course, the sisters were right in the middle of it all. In those days they were never far from Victor's side.
The nursing home that Miriam had lived in for the last two years was a frightening place, at least for me. I'm happy to say that I've managed to keep my health and if I'm lucky I'll go the way Victor did. Miriam, I was shocked to find, was a shadow of the woman she once was. Mostly deaf and lucid for only moments at a time, she didn't seem to understand where she was on the day that I arrived. She had forgotten that she had agreed to let me shoot her and claimed that she didn't remember me at all. I explained to her, again, what I was doing and she finally understood and even lit up when she heard Victor's name.
We chatted as I readied myself and I let her tell me stories in which I was actually a participant and a strange sadness came over me, as I began to take her picture, that came from reliving the events of my past from another's perspective. I shrugged it off and continued to shoot.
"I know who killed him." she said in an offhand way, after relating to me a story that predated Victor's murder by only a day or two.
"Really?" I answered, in a distracted way.
"Yes, I do. I was there, you see, hidden behind a curtain. I'd heard loud voices coming from the living room and I remember being frightened, but more from the thought of being discovered than anything else because Victor had forbidden my sister and I to be in the room while he had his meetings. I suppose I was a curious girl then, too much for my own good, as it turned out. I remember that a young man had come to see Victor because Victor had fired him as a result of some indiscretion. Something about a scandal which Victor felt might threaten his relations with the studio. Anyway, they fought, and this young man hit him quite hard and Victor fell over. Poor Victor hit his head on the coffee table as he fell and that was it for him."
I had stopped shooting but was still looking at her through the camera and that was when I saw it in her eyes. She knew exactly who I was. She hadn't forgotten me or anything about that night.
"But it was all so long ago now and my memory isn't what it used to be." she said dismissively. "You'll send me a copy won't you? When it's done? I do like to sit and think about the old days from time to time, although I'd prefer to just forget all that sordidness that Victor was so fond of and to remember him like he was in the beginning, so handsome and sure of himself. At my age there's no use in wallowing in past sorrows. Don't you agree?"
"Yes, I do." I said quietly.
As I packed up my equipment, an orderly wheeled her back down the hall to her room and she gave a slight wave in my direction before she disappeared. It wasn't until I was in the car that I felt I could relax. I don't like nursing homes and I was glad to be done with that place. Like I said, when I go I want to go like Victor.