He paused, and not one child made a peep; he cleared his throat and continued. “One of those stories was about children who were sent to live with a professor in an old musty home in the country. I wanted to make them into kings and queens, far different from the frightened children they were. And that is how Narnia began. But”—he let out a long sigh, as if remembering the wasted time—“it wasn’t until years later that I sat down to write it.”
He stared at the silent, wide-eyed children and kept on talking, enthralling them with stories. Eventually he reached the subject most of them had been waiting for.
“Aslan,” he told them, “just bounded onto the page. I hadn’t planned on him at all. But for many nights I dreamt of lions, and then I knew I had to put him in the story.”
A young girl let out a mewling sound and blurted out, “Not planned on Aslan?” Her sweet English accent made Aslan’s name a symphony of sound.
Jack laughed with such joy that the children joined in. He then chattered on about Edmund and Lucy, about Mr. Beaver and all the rest of his Narnian books, which were set to be published year after year. “I’m just finishing the last one now.”
A small boy in a tweed cap raised his hand.
“Yes, son?” Jack asked.
“How do you make a book? I want to make a book.”
“First I try to write the very books that I want to read. I see my books in pictures. I watch them unfold, and then I write about it. I tell what I see, and then I fill in the gaps.”
“Who shows it to you? Who shows you the pictures?” the boy asked quietly. “I want to know him.”
Jack leaned forward on the lectern, that twinkle in his eye. “The Great Storyteller, I believe.”
The boy stared at Jack for some time and then seemed to dismiss him as a silly old balding man.
Jack continued. “When I was just your age I started making stories with my brother, Warren. We imagined a small country full of walking, talking animals. We called the place Boxen. Many of those creatures, the very ones I imagined when I was just the age of all of you, found their way into Narnia. There is no limit or age for making stories. Begin whenever you want, and stop whenever you please.” Jack’s charm—an indescribable quality that emanated from him like light—brought the children under his spell. It was the cadence of his voice, the manner in which he leaned forward as if he were telling them a secret, the twinkle of his eyes, and the hint that he might just burst into laughter at any moment.
When it was all over and we’d left the library, Jack and I met Warnie, who’d been lingering in an old pub, hunkered in a corner booth. Jack let out a long whistle.
“Well, that was a blooming disaster. I should best stick to writing for the little ones and not speaking to them.”
I watched Jack with wonder. How could this man, the most revered, have such little personal pride?
“Jack, you held those children completely in your thrall. They sat motionless, mouths open, eyes unblinking. When children are bored, they fidget and move about like little worms in a bucket. You captured them in your net of stories.”
“You believe so?” he asked.
“I know,” I said. “You are very good with children. You enchanted them.”
“I actually feel rather shy around children.” Jack squinted at me in the low light. “I do believe I forgot to tell you—I wrote back to Davy. He sent me the most accomplished letter. He told me all about his new snake.”
“What?”
“You didn’t know about the snake? Have I gotten him into trouble?”
I laughed and rested my hand on his sleeve. “I know about Mr. Nichols. I meant I didn’t know that Davy wrote to you. Bill told me that he wanted to, but . . . What did you write in return?”
“I told him that I was working on the last Narnian adventure and I hoped he’d love it just as well.”
Jack wrote to my son.
A peculiar warm happiness fell over me as if I’d awoken to discover it was spring and my garden, which I’d planted in the desolate winter, was in bloom.
Warnie broke into the conversation. “How are those science fiction boys doing? Do you still go to Fleet Street?”
“It’s my only real social hour, at least until I see you two or meet Michal for a show. But even with the writers, it seems I can’t escape you Lewis brothers. They are quite enthralled with Perelandra. And they can’t believe I’m friends with the two of you.”
Jack lit a cigarette and paused before his next inhale. “Oh, I know there are those in that crowd who don’t like my stories. I’ve received their letters. I believe there are probably some there who would like your husband’s stories more.”
“I met a woman the other night who nearly fainted when she discovered I was married to the man who wrote Nightmare Alley.” I stared off for a minute. “It’s odd. For all the pain, when I think of the man who wrote that book, I’m quite fond of him.”
“But he’s not the same man now?” Warnie asked.
“No, he’s not.” I shook my head and changed the subject.
Eventually, as with every gathering, we said our farewells. I wandered away from them as they hailed a cab to the train station. In a cocoon of contentment I spent that late afternoon on Regent Street, where I bought a cheap wool jersey for a mere five guineas that fit me for the weight I’d lost during the flu. In a great fit of missing my littlest poogles, I also wandered the aisles of the huge two-story toy store and with the last of my shillings bought Douglas a globe and Davy a long plastic snake that slithered when shaken.
The afternoon dwindled to evening, and by the time Jack and Warnie would have been at the Kilns, I’d wandered back to the bus station to ride to Claire’s cold house and boiled parsnips.
The dismal month behind me faded away, for there were more days to come with Michal, with London, with my White Horse boys, and with Jack and Warnie. Those times seemed to hold secret and as yet hidden rewards, waiting patiently for me to arrive.
Happiness was the greatest gift of expectancy.
CHAPTER 21
Here I am, and what have I deserved?
Here I hunger, waiting; I am cold
“SONNET V,” JOY DAVIDMAN
I awoke slowly one morning, my bones creaking with the cold but my heart eager with the realization that I was headed to Oxford again. That day I would travel by train to hear Jack lecture on Richard Hooker. This was his first of the semester and would be my only chance to see him properly in his element.
I’d moved away from Claire and her vegetarian diet and cold house. My new room in the Nottingham Hotel was a dingy fourth-floor walk-up, but I’d spruced it up to keep my spirits from flagging—red and gold flowers from the market, a cheap India-print bedspread, a glazed and chipped pot, and a floral tablecloth with a small stain on the lower corner. I hung the three little pictures I’d bought that first month in Hampstead Heath when I’d thought the money and the good cheer would last. As shabby as the room was, at least the location was good—in the middle of the West End with lovely shops and easy walking.
Meanwhile, I worked diligently on anything that could make us some more money—I finished Smoke on the Mountain and continued to outline my novel. In the lulls, I read and edited the work Jack gave to me. Bill sent a few dollars now and again, and I scrimped the best I could.
Socially, I was making the most of things. Just a few days before, I’d had lunch with Dorothy Heyward, who was staying at the most decadently gorgeous hotel—the Cavendish. She was a dear friend from MacDowell, fragile and in a steel brace from a car wreck, but still thrilled with how the opera Porgy and Bess (based on her husband’s novel and produced by the Gershwins) had done in its London premiere.
She leaned forward with that shake of her curls and said, “No one wants to tell you how it was my idea, how I helped DuBose adapt the book to theater.”
Of course I was able to sympathize. “Why is it we are often left at the wayside of their creative lives?”
Toget
her we lifted a glass to our own imaginations and creations.
If the old anxieties laid claim to my heart, which sometimes they did, I walked through London to absorb the medicine of the roses and chrysanthemums, the iris in full bloom, the winter jasmine vines with their yellow flowers hanging from wrought iron flower boxes along the sidewalks.
It was time to set out for Oxford. I poured water into the flowerpots and made my bed. I straightened the small piles of work next to the typewriter on the kitchen table and then locked the door behind me.
With my purse clutched to my chest, I waited at the Victoria Coach Station on Buckingham Palace Road, a name that sounded so regal for a place that was just another station, dirty and thick with smoke.
Yet for the gladness of it all, still my belly churned with disturbance. Bill’s letters still weren’t arriving as they once had, and even when they did, he never addressed anything I’d written to him or answered my questions. Had he received the boys’ Narnian book? Could he send some copies of Weeping Bay? His cool tone startled me, and yet what more could I expect? There I was in England, and there he was with four children and Renee, both doing the very best they could.
But soon I’d go home—I’d finally scraped together enough money between a few dollars that Bill had finally sent and a small royalty check to make a stop at the travel agency and book my journey home on the RMS Franconia—a six-day journey departing on January 3. The ship wouldn’t be as lovely, fast, or as well appointed as the SS United States, but she would take me back to America.
Even with the expectation of hearing Jack’s lecture, I couldn’t shake the deep dread of Bill’s lack of communication and cold tone. The bus was delayed, and I found an iron bench where I sat and dug into my bag for stationery. I began, with a surge of pent-up emotion, to write in a furious scribble.
Joy:
Dearest Poogabill,
You have always known how to hurt me by omission, by leaving off what matters so that I must guess at your feelings. Maybe I have done the opposite, been too forthright with my opinions.
In loopy and desperate handwriting I filled six pages. I found myself needing to connect with him, with my family, and to do this I felt I must repent of my own sins and not focus on his. I admitted that I’d wounded his ego by leaving, and that I understood it must be difficult to forgive me. It wasn’t his fault that I had tried to be Superwoman and had failed miserably, and then blamed him. And I missed my sons as if part of my body had been amputated. The healthier I had become, the more I missed them.
Joy:
I will never be without my boys again. That much I know. No power from heaven or earth will keep me from them.
Just as the red double-decker coach pulled to the curb, its somnolent smoke trailing behind, I shoved the letter into an envelope and placed a stamp on it. I needed these sentiments to fly across the ocean to my family.
As if the words had emptied me of energy, I slept on the bus ride and only awoke as it rattled to a stop. Bleary-eyed, I glanced out the window at Oxford with its now familiar scenery: bikers, the lampposts and brick streets, the limestone buildings and bustling walkers. I spied Victoria waiting on a bench, bundled in her coat and scarf, her long brown hair hidden inside a blue wool cap. I knocked on the window but she didn’t look.
I blew out the door of the bus, and she jumped from the bench and hugged me.
“You’re back!”
“Are you not tired of me yet?” I asked.
“Not yet.” She smiled coyly. “You are, after all, taking me to hear the great C. S. Lewis.”
I looped my arm through hers. “Onward,” I said.
The few minutes’ stroll down High Street was familiar enough to make me feel as if I almost belonged.
“Does Mr. Lewis know you’re coming?”
“I told him.” I squeezed her arm tighter. “We’ll see. He might be too busy to even notice us.”
“How many people could possibly come to hear a lecture on Hooker?”
“With Jack as the speaker, I suspect many.”
We strolled down the leaf-strewn pathways to one of the other colleges in Oxford—Christ Church, fondly called “The House.” We only had to ask two students where the Senior Common Room was before we found it—a cozy, dark room where the dons went to smoke. By the time we arrived we realized we wouldn’t be able to see Jack. There wasn’t enough space even to enter. Disappointment swamped me.
Victoria stood on her tiptoes to peek and then nudged at all five feet two of me, who couldn’t see over anything or anyone. “Guess I was wrong about how many people want to hear this,” she said.
It was then that the crowd, like a wave, began to move toward us. “Excuse me,” a short bald man in a black robe said. “We’re moving to the lecture hall.”
Buoyed then, Victoria and I trailed behind the crowd into a larger room with a pulpit at the very front. I felt like a student, and rather liked it. We found seats in the back row and settled in next to each other. Murmurs filled the room, conversation rising and falling until Jack appeared.
It was difficult to see him beyond the group of large, bearded men in front of us, but Jack’s image was with me, everything from his smile to the glimmer in his eyes to the tap-tap-swing of his walking stick to the jacket with the worn elbow patches.
Another man in a robe (they were all beginning to look alike) stepped to the lectern to introduce C. S. Lewis and his subject: Hooker, the great Anglican theologian of the 1500s who had broken away from the theology of predestination.
Jack stood, as I’d now seen him do a few times, with his hands behind his back, where I was certain he would be worrying his thumbs back and forth. His bright eyes behind his rimless spectacles moved across the room as if taking it all in, one face at a time. I watched with fondness, marveling at his warm familiarity, at the sheer wonder of how we’d become friends. Who was he looking for? Then, with a great surge of delight, I knew for whom he searched—because when his sight rested on me, his smile burst into such a sunbeam that I felt its warmth. I gave him a little wave, and he nodded.
In that moment, all sense of rejection crumbled like ancient armor. Certain emotions can be hidden, but a smile like that can’t disguise a heart—he was as connected to me as I was to him—friendship of the highest order.
Victoria leaned over to me and whispered, “He was looking for you, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, I believe he was.”
She made a soft noise that sounded like a hum and squeezed my hand.
Jack stepped to the podium and cleared his throat. The lecture was informative and witty, and I hadn’t expected anything less. When Jack used his Oxford lecturing voice, I could almost forget he was a Belfast man. But then he turned on that charm, and the Irish in him was unmistakable as he captured the room.
When it was over, Victoria and I sat still, allowing the people to move past us. As the crowd thinned, Jack slowly wound his way to the back of the room to greet us. Our talk was pleasant, quick and interrupted by men who needed his attention. But it didn’t matter what he said; it was his smile I’d carry with me through the rest of the day.
Once back in the hazy, cold air of Oxford’s November, Victoria and I walked to town. It was always in the smallest moments that I understood larger truths, if I paid attention. And as we walked in rhythm side by side, the sunlight falling thin and straight through the naked branches, I burrowed into this happy feeling, asking myself what it really was about.
Acceptance.
The word winged its way toward me. And I realized that I could live a better life without the ill-rooted feelings of dismissal that slithered within me, without the curdled knowledge that I wasn’t or couldn’t ever be enough. Those were lies I believed. It was Jack’s smile that broke me free, if only for that moment, and I would carry the remembrance of it always. I would tack that brightness to my heart as a placard.
“You’re in an awfully good mood,” Victoria said as we ambled the sidewalks of High Street
.
“I am.” I laughed as I pulled her into the Bird and Baby, where we drank whiskey, talked, and laughed until I needed to catch the bus back to London.
All would be well, I believed. As Jack’s favorite mystic Julian of Norwich told us: All will be well. All manner of things shall be well.
CHAPTER 22
I made my words the servants of my lust.
Now let me watch unwinking, as I must
“BLESSED ARE THE BITTER THINGS OF GOD,” JOY DAVIDMAN
December 1952
A rustle outside my Nottingham hotel room stirred me, and I rose from the kitchen table where I’d been working on edits in O.H.E.L. to see that a white envelope had been slipped under the doorway. I wrapped my robe tighter and shivered. The frigid air that felt as if it went bone deep was the only thing that caused me to shudder at England. I bent down to retrieve the paper: finally, a new letter from Bill. I smiled at the expectancy of a witty correspondence with news from home and maybe a little money to eat more than boiled potatoes and canned soup.
I put the kettle on, tipped a tea ball into the china cup, and opened the envelope. I glanced at the pile of other letters I’d received since arriving in England. Chad Walsh. Marian MacDowell. Belle Kauffman. My publisher, Macmillan, and my agency, Brandt and Brandt. My Davy and my Douglas. A life in letters, a stack of them wrapped with twine. Of course there was only one letter from Mother. I had expected nothing more, but hope dies hard. Alongside the letters sat the mound of my work—both my own writing and Jack’s—as if all my life were made of words typed on a page.
I sat to read.
Bill:
Dear Joy,
I admit to my cool tone.
Ah, I wasn’t crazy.
Then he wrote of money troubles, but how much he’d been working through it with Renee’s help in the house. The kids, they missed me but were doing well—neighborhood parties and outdoor activities.
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