Becoming Mrs. Lewis

by Patti Callahan

  “I do remember,” Belle laughed. “Of course I do.”

  “And you were there to help me celebrate when I came home from the inferno and infestation of Hollywood. You remained friends with me during the days of Communism, inviting me to your parties and your house. Remember when I got in a screaming match with your pal Kazin? You’ve seen the worst of me, Belle. And I’m trying to tell you that I’m the best of me when I’m with Jack.”

  A waitress with bright-red hair arrived, and after we’d both ordered the salmon, Belle rubbed her hands together and then folded them as if in prayer. “I want you to find peace without running away.”

  Fortitude rose in me. I glanced around the dining room and lowered my voice. “I’m not running away. I’m running toward. It’s a quiet and intellectually stimulating life I want to make there. I know I sound irrational. But there is a life to be had in England, in London, and it’s a life I want.”

  “Your sons?”

  “They will be better off for it.” I gave it one more try. “Belle, for some reason I’ve believed that I needed to withstand the infidelities and furies, that it was my job and duty as a wife. But that’s not true. I have my faults, no doubt about that. But my faults do not mean I must stay and endure his.”

  “That’s as solid a truth as I’ve ever heard you utter.” Belle’s curls bounced with her acquiescence.

  I steered away from the subject and turned my attention to her life. “How is your writing?” I asked. “And how are Jonathan and Thea?”

  “Oh, like yours, the kids take buckets of my time. But I’m still writing articles for Esquire and working on a novel about an English teacher in New York City. I’ve titled it Up the Down Staircase. Sounds exciting, right?” She rolled those beautiful eyes and laughed that beautiful laugh. “It will probably never see the light outside my writing room.”

  “Anything you write is enthralling. I still remember the pangs of envy when I read your poems in our dorm room.”

  She smiled and reached across the table for my hand. “I don’t believe I’m the one who won the Yale Younger Poets prize or had my first book of poetry published at the age of twenty-two. I believe your envy is misplaced, my friend.”

  “None of that seems to matter now,” I said. “Those things I thought would bring eternal happiness are dirt in my mouth.” I looked away to see the waitress approaching and then placed my attention back to Belle. “How is your marriage, Belle? Tell me it is wonderful, so I can believe in real love.”

  “It is a good marriage.” She picked up her fork and we began our lunch, filling the remainder of it with literary gossip, which she still heard in New York. The Crucible by Arthur Miller had opened on Broadway; Saul Bellow and Ray Bradbury had new books coming in the next months, and they were whispered to be the best they’d written. And Belle had become enamored with Halley’s Seven Years in Tibet, reading it twice already.

  When we polished off dessert—crème brûlée we split—we walked the streets of Manhattan, window shopping and pretending we could have whatever we put our gazes upon.

  “I remember when I believed I’d be rich enough to buy anything I wanted,” I said as we passed Bonwit Teller. “That our literary success would bring the world to our feet.”

  “Honestly, Joy, I don’t even like writing nearly as much as you do.”

  I stopped and stared at her, bundling my coat closer. “I couldn’t live without it.”

  “I don’t believe I could either, but I also don’t love it as you do. I live for the one moment when it works. It’s like a high I search for again and again, and rarely find.”

  “Better than the kinds of highs my husband is after.”

  Belle squeezed my arm. “You always cover your hurt with jokes.”

  “I know,” I said. “But it’s better than dragging you into the lousy gutter with me.”

  On the corner of Fifty-Second and Park we sat on a bench, the icy wind whipping past us with the aroma of burned chestnuts and the cabs along Park Avenue honking incessantly.

  “Has Mr. Lewis ever been in love?” Belle asked quietly, as if the question itself might hurt me.

  “I don’t know.” I twisted to face her on the bench, lifting my hand to shield my eyes from the wind. “I haven’t asked. He’s never married. And I’ve read his views on sex, and they are not provincial. He’s not a man who has been celibate all his life.” I suppressed a smile. “And he hasn’t always been a Christian, a man so devoted to his virtues.”

  “So why has he never married?”

  In quiet tones I told Belle all about Mrs. Moore and Maureen.

  “Do you think . . . ?” she asked, her question trailing off.

  “I don’t know. I do wonder.” I sat back and tried not to imagine what Belle was intuiting. “Remember all those years we were obsessed with Freud’s work and believed everything had to do with either our mother, our father, or sex?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, if I had to guess, Mrs. Moore was a mother substitute for him as well as a promise he fulfilled. I haven’t asked . . .” I cringed with the thought of it.

  “You must ask!” she said with a laugh, and then she jumped up. “There’s an empty taxi.” She lifted her arm, waved, and whistled, and the yellow cab squealed to the curb. It was time for me to catch a cab to the Columbia Club for the MacDowell Colony party.

  I hugged her, holding her tightly “I love you, Belle.”

  “I love you too, Joy. Be safe.”

  I climbed into the dingy back seat and waved good-bye to my best friend. I didn’t know when I would see her again, but even her words would not keep me with Bill or in New York for very much longer.

  CHAPTER 30

  Sir, you may correct me with your rod.

  I have loved you better than I loved my God

  “SONNET X,” JOY DAVIDMAN

  In the following months in New York, I wrote as if sentences were blood, as if they would save me. I pressed out articles and short stories, anything to find enough money to leave. Yet none of my work sold. I poured out my life’s hours for nothing.

  In private, I emptied sonnets from my heart, missing England and Oxford and yes, Jack. Sometimes I wrote these poems to God, sometimes to myself, and sometimes to lost love. The old Underwood clacked so long and harsh I heard it in my dreams, as if even my sleeping self typed in vain.

  If I had known all my life that some place like the Kilns and some men like Warnie and Jack existed, I would have been able to bear burdens with more ease. Surrounded by the ragged warmth of old furniture, stained rugs, and walls made of books, it was like living in a land of stories. I couldn’t help but believe that I should have been there all along, that I was meant for it.

  I gathered the memories like wool to keep me warm: Walking Shotover with Jack and Warnie. Listening to their childhood stories. Awaking to the English countryside beyond my window, the sunlight luxuriant even in the icy cold of winter. The miniature whitecaps on the lake during a wind, and the stark hibernating gardens of the Kilns.

  The pubs. Eastgate, where we’d met and then gone numerous times for a pint and a grouse. Ampleforth and Headington. The Bird and Baby. The quiet evenings and the songbird mornings. The smoke-filled common room and the chatter of men’s low voices wandering down the hallways of the rickety house.

  In the first weeks after arriving home I checked the mailbox even when I knew the mail had not yet been delivered, afraid that Jack would never write me again, frightened that I’d delivered the final blow to our friendship with my abject need when I left. Then a letter arrived, and with it the ache of our misunderstanding at my departure slowly dissolved.

  Joy:

  Dear Jack,

  Maybe this pain is punishment for the things I’ve done in my life.

  Jack:

  It is dangerous to assume that pain is penal. I do believe that all pain is contrary to God’s will. You must leave Bill, Joy. There is no reason to stay with such misery.

  Warnie:
>
  We’ve had the flu here, but we are both working jolly hard on our new books. How is your work on our little project? Is our Queen Cinderella coming alive?

  One night I stood in front of the mirror and attempted to see what Jack must see: my brown (not blonde!) hair was beginning to thread with gray; the lines on my face were etched deeper by the day. I leaned closer and looked at the downward turn of my lips, the thin lines resistant to all moisture creams, the extra fold on my eyelids, the half spider web that seemed to be sewn overnight from the far corners of my eyes. There was nothing to be done about any of this, what time took from me, and despair again grasped my hope in its hand and squeezed it dry of life.

  I sank to my desk, and in handwriting tight with heartbreak, poured out my sorrow into yet another sonnet.

  You have such reasons for not loving me.

  A knock came to my door; I closed my eyes, girding my heart to deal with another blow dealt by Bill’s hammered words. But it was Renee who entered.

  “Joy,” she said, “I can’t live this way anymore.” She took one hesitant step forward. “My heart is breaking, and our shattered friendship has destroyed me.”

  “Can we stop this then?” I asked. “I want a divorce as badly as you do, Renee. Can we work together to bring this hell to an end? In the name of family and peace?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes were swollen with grief, and her pretty face contorted. “You don’t love Bill anyway. You love someone else—I can tell. How can you be feeling hurt?”

  I stood from my desk, and the pen clattered to the floor as an exclamation point. “How? My dear cookie, how could I not? First my mother loved you best, and pointed out to me all the ways you are dearer and sweeter and more beautiful and thinner and kinder. And then you come into my house so my husband can say the same in a kind of repeated nightmare? So I can hear what I already knew?”

  “It’s not like that, Joy.”

  “Yes, it is. I won’t delude myself so that I can stay safe and be loved in inferior ways. Mother loved you best. Bill loves you best.” I choked on the truth, feeling the burn of it in my throat. “You can have him, Renee. But I don’t understand why you want him.”

  “Why are you grieving? If this is okay with you, and you can help me, I don’t understand.”

  “My life is falling apart, Renee. There is no sorrow in that? Are there rules about what I can and cannot be sad about?” I removed my glasses and rubbed at my face. “Do you know what Bill told me?”

  She stood silent, bit her bottom lip, waiting.

  “Along with all the hurtful words you saw in his letters, and the verbal assaults on my character, he’s now lectured me and told me that if I was really a Christian, a true one at that, that my charity and grace would be happy for both of you. He told me that I was preventing you two from enjoying this wonderful new love.”

  “I’m sorry, Joy. I’m sorry he said those terrible things to you, but you’ve said horrible things to him too.”

  “You defend him.” I placed my glasses back. “Of course you do. You’re in love. What about his asking me to be part of a threesome with you? To live here in a bizarre situation so he can keep his money? What do you think of that?”

  A prick of blood appeared on her lip where she bit too hard. “I think it’s Jack you mourn, not this life.”

  “It’s more than that.” I stepped closer to her. “Look at me, Renee. I am not Helen of Troy. I am just Helen Joy Gresham. I’ve never been celebrated for my beauty. If I’m pretty, it’s a common kind, and now age creeps up on me, stealing what little I have left. What is there for a man to want or love? If there was anything at all in the beginning.”

  “Stop that nonsense, Joy. You are beautiful, and smart, and in your best moments kind and giving and funny. You drink from the cup of life with words and laughter wilder than that of anyone I know. Remember when you would drag me to the zoo and the lion would come to you? The lion—he came to you! That’s how you are. Life comes for you, fast and roaring, and you take it all in. I’m not like that, Joy. I must take what little I can find and make the most of it.”

  “It’s not about finding another man, Renee. It’s not about anything at all but saving my sons and myself. In the long hours alone in London I saw the truth.” I leaned forward. “Bill uses his authority to soothe his anxiety; he offloads his pain to feel better. And I took it all in because I desperately wanted to be the good wife and then, in the last years, a good Christian.” I laughed, but the sound held no mirth. “As if I understand what that even means—but I know now what it doesn’t mean: subjugating myself to abuse.”

  “I don’t understand.” Her face was a blank slate.

  “He passes on his pain so he won’t have to feel it or deal with it. It’s his way, Renee. Be careful.” I sank back into my chair and glanced at her trim beauty. “I’ll find a way to get this divorce, and you’ll both have the life you ask for. But I am taking my sons. I will never leave them with you again.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Back to England,” I said.

  “You can’t take Bill’s boys away . . .” Her voice trailed off, already knowing that this wasn’t true. I could and would take them away from him.

  “Yes, I can.”

  Jack:

  Dear Joy,

  We miss you here. If you could have seen Warnie negate Tollers at our meeting yesterday you would have roared with the laughter of approval. And you must see the garden where you advised Paxford on the flower bed—it is arriving in full fanfare. I am sorry for your troubles there. I hope you can find some peace soon. Please let us know if you plan to return—we’d like that very much. I am praying for you and I hope you are doing the same for us.

  Joy:

  I dream of long walks on the moors, of warm fires in the common room, and thick beers at the pub. I reminisce about the golden air and long walks, about Shotover Hill and its view of Oxfordshire. Here spring has brought the sloggy earth to life, and there is delight in that. My pears and apples, my vegetables and flowers have been born again. I’ve made jam and canned the beans. I miss everything there—including you and Warnie.

  All my love,

  Joy

  On an early-spring morning in late March, I started for the garden to take note of the daffodil buds that were beginning to poke their shy faces from below the earth. If they had survived the winter, I could also, even thrive the same as their yellow-gold goodness.

  “Joy.” Renee’s voice called to me as I reached the edge of the garden.

  I turned to her. We’d found ways to avoid seeing each other in the house, but now she was calling for me. I stood still, waited for her to reach me.

  “I came to tell you that I’m leaving.” Her eyes and lips were set with determination. “A friend has given me a place to live in Miami. Bill will put Rosemary and Bobby in a boarding school near here, and then when I’m settled he will send the kids to me.” She took in a long, deep breath. “I’ve told Bill I want him to join me.”

  “Okay, Renee.” I nodded.

  She waited, but I didn’t know for what. I had nothing left to say to her, or to Bill. I saved all my best words for my work, for my children, for Jack and for Warnie, and for my prayers.

  CHAPTER 31

  My mirror says. A woman gets destroyed

  In little ways, by the slow little years

  “SONNET XII,” JOY DAVIDMAN

  “Joy!” Bill’s voice called out from the top of the stairs only two weeks after Renee moved out. I came from the kitchen, wiping my hands on a dish towel, and glanced up. There he stood in a ridiculous get-up meant for a carnival—a pair of wide-leg pants and a shirt with flames of red paint leaping from his waist.

  I shuddered. Renee was gone, and now he needed me.

  But this is what it had come to: repulsion.

  He descended the stairs and stood before me with a huge smile. “Poogle, I’ve had a revelation.” He paused for effect. “We can fix this. Make a go of it. We can st
art over, now that it’s just the four of us again. I’ve found a little work, and you’re writing. Let’s give it a try.” He reached his arms out for me.

  I stepped backward with such speed that I tripped over a basket, righting myself and looking at him with confusion. “No.”

  “We can do it. I know we can.”

  He tilted his head for me to follow him into the living room, where we sat facing each other on the threadbare couch. Topsy saw a chance to join us and get warm; he bounded up between us. I buried my hand in his dirty fur, the stench of skunk on my hands preferable to Bill’s touch.

  “Please, Joy. I can’t stand for you to leave here and take our sons. I’ll do anything you want as long as you stay here and don’t take them from me.”

  “Love cannot be had or felt with willpower,” I said. “Remember what you wrote to me?” I shook my head, feeling the low-grade ache in my temples that hadn’t left in weeks. “If we had any money at all, you’d have been gone to Miami with your lover by now. I know that. And the boys are terrified of your rages anyway. No, Bill. I won’t stay.”

  “They aren’t scared of me.” His face blanched, and for one moment I felt sad for him.

  “Yes, they are, Bill. Maybe by taking them away they’ll remember only the good things about you.”

  “Listen to me, Poogle. I’ve written to Renee. I’ve told her that I want to make a go of it here. We have a family. There is still enough love between us to make it work. I believe that.”

  “Love?” I scoffed. “No, Bill. There isn’t any love left between us. And what about Renee? You made her a promise. Are you going to break that too?”

  He shrugged. “Things change. That was back when I was neurotic and you were gone. How can you expect a dynamic personality like mine not to change his mind now and again?” He attempted a flirty look, a wink.