Jack and the Wardrobe

by Nicola Jemphrey

  The door of the church was locked, but in the wall facing the old rectory, with the help of a diagram, I was able to find the stained-glass window Jack and his elder brother, Warnie, gave to the church in memory of their parents. It was meant to be a picture of three saints, with a tower in the background like the tower of St Mark’s, but you couldn’t really see much from the outside. Jack was baptised in the church by his grandfather in 1899 and became a proper church member when he was 16, by going through something called “confirmation”. When he did this, he didn’t believe in God but just pretended he did to please his father. I wondered what age he was when he did start to believe in God and what made him change his mind.

  I’d have liked to visit some of the other places on the map, but it was nearly lunchtime and I’d arranged to meet Kate outside the cinema just before two. I put the booklet in my backpack and cycled home.

  The weather turned windy and very wet again next morning and it was Wednesday afternoon before I had a chance to get back to The CS Lewis Trail. I was out of school as soon as the bell rang. I hopped on my bike and rode up Circular Road. Little Lea was the house on the right, just before the junction with Cairnburn Road. I mounted the pavement and stared up the driveway. It looked like the picture in the booklet all right, but it definitely wasn’t little. It was a huge red-brick house with masses of windows (the kind with small square panes), high chimneys and a roof divided into lots of peaks. The booklet said that the attics in the house had given CS Lewis the idea for the attic tunnels in The Magician’s Nephew. I was halfway through this by now and could just imagine Digory and Polly exploring the twists and turns under the different bits of roof. I thought about leaving my bike propped up against the hedge and sneaking up the driveway to get a closer look, but then I noticed the warning on the gatepost: PRIVATE. There was a car parked at the side of the house and I didn’t fancy someone coming out and asking if I didn’t know how to read.

  At that moment there was the loud shudder of an engine behind me. A bus pulled up on the pavement, nearly knocking me off my feet.

  “Sorry, mate,” the driver called, over the slow hiss of the doors opening. “I’m not really supposed to stop here, but they wanted to get a good look at the house.”

  He pointed upwards and for the first time I noticed it wasn’t an ordinary bus, but an open-topped one. The top deck was full of people talking excitedly in different languages and accents.

  “It’s the CS Lewis Tour,” the driver explained, “the bloke who made that movie about the witch and the wardrobe. He was born here or something.”

  “Hey look, John!” Awoman with too-blonde hair and a twangy accent was pointing me out to the man beside her. “Isn’t he just a typical Irish boy, with that cute freckled face? Hey honey, could I possibly take a photo of you in front of the house? It would just make the picture.”

  I looked at the bus driver, who just shrugged. The lady clattered down the stairs of the bus.

  “Say Lewis,” she ordered, holding the camera out in front of her.

  Seeing no escape, I flattened my back against the hedge and gave my cheesiest grin.

  “Perfect,” she smiled, pressing the shutter several times. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like my husband to take one of the two of us, from a different angle. John!”

  John vanished from the top of the bus and joined us on the pavement. His wife handed him the camera and he took some shots of the two of us with the left side of the house in the background. At last she took her arm off my shoulders. I was about to grab my bike and make a quick getaway when the whole busload of people poured out of the doors, begging to take my picture or have one taken with me. This went on for about ten minutes until the driver, looking in panic at his watch, shouted he couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice to finish up with one of all of us,” the first woman said, waving her arms around to try to explain to the people who didn’t speak English. “Would you mind, driver? You’d need to stand across the road to get everybody in. Oh, and the bus as well, of course.”

  She handed her camera to the driver, who looked as if he wished he’d chosen a different job.

  “All right, missus,” he sighed, “but then we really must be going, or we won’t have time to drive to Crawfordsburn before it gets dark.”

  He crossed to the opposite pavement and all the tourists crowded round me in front of the driveway. As soon as he clicked the shutter, everyone else started to dodge the traffic to give him their cameras and he was forced to take more pictures until a horn blared in the driveway behind us. It was the owner of the house, wanting out.

  “All right you lot, back on the bus. Enough’s enough.” The passengers at last did as they were told and the bus driver, with a red face, crossed back over and went to say sorry to the woman in the car.

  I’d had more than enough and sped off down the road, with my new friends shouting “so long” and “au revoir” as I went.

  Chapter 5

  The first Tuesday in February, I was heading out to school when Mrs King’s face suddenly popped up on the other side of the fence.

  “Jack,” she said in a voice so low I could hardly hear it. “Has your dad left for work yet?”

  That was a joke. Dad was never usually even awake by the time I left for school. He’d taken to staying later and later at the pub at night and I’d given up waiting up for him. I think he still did some work in the afternoons and early evenings, but as I hardly ever saw him, I couldn’t be sure.

  “No,” I replied. “He’s still in bed.”

  Mrs King glanced at our upstairs front room to make sure the curtains were still closed. “Then would you have time to come inside for a moment? I’ve something to give you.”

  Another casserole, I thought, turning out of our gate and into hers. Wonder why it can’t wait till later? And why all the whispering?

  Mrs King closed her front door softly and showed me into the lounge, not the kitchen. It wasn’t a casserole then.

  “This arrived yesterday morning,” Mrs King said in her normal voice, taking an envelope out of a bigger one on the sideboard. “I couldn’t bring it over in case your dad was there. Your mum was quite clear she didn’t want him to know she’d written to you.”

  With shaking hands, I took the envelope from her. Mum had sent a letter at last! When I’d got home yesterday afternoon, I’d checked the post like I always did, hoping there’d be something from her but psyching myself up to be disappointed as usual. I’d never expected her to send it to Mrs King’s house instead of ours!

  Mrs King left me alone in the lounge while I read the letter. In it, Mum explained why she hadn’t sent it to our house. She was giving me her address so I could write back to her, but she didn’t want Dad knowing where she lived in case he came over to London and tried to get her to come home. She said she was missing me a lot, but was still thinking things through and trying to work out what was best for all of us. She’d made some friends at work and had gone out with them to see a couple of shows. She asked me to write and let her know what I was doing, but said she wouldn’t be able to reply. She didn’t want Dad to get angry with Mrs King if he found out she was passing letters on to me in secret.

  “Are you OK, Jack?” Mrs King asked, coming back into the room. When I nodded, she went on, “I’m so glad you’ve heard from her at last. At least now you’ll be able to write back and tell her how you are. Well, I suppose you’d better dash, or you’ll be late for school.”

  Being late didn’t bother me, but I didn’t want to sit around and discuss the letter with Mrs King. Stuffing it into my blazer pocket, I thanked her, picked up my bike from where I’d left it in our driveway and set off down the road.

  Praying really was just like magic! I thought, as I pedalled into the cold wind towards school. I remembered what Kate had said about asking and receiving, seeking and finding, knocking and the door opening. Well, I hadn’t had to wait too long until I’d received one of the things
I’d asked for. With a bit of luck, God would soon answer my other prayers, about Mum coming home soon and Dad giving up drinking. I’d start praying three times a day, no, four times. I could go into the loos at break and lunchtime so no one would see what I was up to.

  “Don’t you want to play footie with us?” Rick asked, as I tried to slip away from my mates after we’d finished eating lunch in the canteen.

  “Uh, no, sorry. Got something to do. See you in Maths,” I felt kind of awkward making excuses, but getting Mum back was more important than keeping in with mates.

  “What about after school, then?” The afternoons were getting brighter and we usually had a kick-around before going home.

  “Sorry, can’t.” I’d decided to go straight to the library and write my letter to Mum. I didn’t want Dad catching me doing it at home. Part of me wanted to let Dad know where Mum was living so he would go over and try to bring her back, but I knew if she wasn’t ready to come home, it might only make things worse. Maybe if I wrote and told her about the drinking and how miserable Dad had been since she’d left, she herself would realise she needed to come back.

  After school I bought some writing paper, envelopes and stamps in the shop across the road and took them to the library. The computers weren’t as busy now that it was light enough to hang around outside for a bit longer. The only person I recognised was Tommy’s older brother, Andy, sitting in front of an orange and white screen.

  “Hey, Jack,” he said, giving me five as I went past. “I’m trying to find a cheap flight to London next weekend to see Sheryl, the babe I met on holiday last year. Take my advice, mate, don’t start going out with an English girl – it’s costing me a fortune!”

  Smiling to myself, I sat down at a table with my pencil case and paper. Tommy had told us all how sloppy Andy had got since he’d met this girl in the summer. We’d all had a good laugh about it.

  It took me ages to write the letter to Mum, and I used up nearly half the pad of writing paper. Well, I hadn’t seen her for over five months and I wanted her to know exactly how things were at home so she’d see that she needed to come back as soon as possible. Too bad she wouldn’t be able to write back and tell me how she felt about what I’d said. Then my brain clicked into gear. There was bound to be a computer at the office where she worked. Why not send my email address? That way she could write to me and Dad wouldn’t find out.

  I added my address and a note to the bottom of the letter, sealed the envelope and stuck on a stamp, so it was ready to post on my way home. After all this effort, I felt a bit flat. What should I do now? I didn’t feel like going back to an empty house just yet. I might as well stay here until the library closed and do a bit of work on my project.

  Glancing over at the computers, I saw Andy getting up and leaving. There wasn’t anyone waiting to take his place so I picked up my school bag and walked over to the empty seat. As I set down my file block beside the computer, I noticed a small blue card. The name MR ANDREW JOHNSTON stood out in silver capitals. I ran out into the street and called after Andy, “Hey you forgot your credit card!”

  He swung round and ran back towards the library.

  “Thanks, mate. I owe you. I wouldn’t want to lose this!”

  Back inside, I stuck my memory stick into the computer and started to type up the notes I’d made over the past couple of weeks.

  Chapter 1 – CS Lewis’ Early Life

  Clive Staples Lewis (or Jack as he preferred to be called) was born on 29th November 1898 at Dundela Villas in East Belfast. His father, Albert, was a solicitor and his mother, Flora, a clever lady who had studied Mathematics at Queen’s University, something that was quite unusual for a woman in those days. His brother, Warren (known as Warnie), was three and a half years older than Jack, but the two were good friends. One of Jack’s grandfathers (Flora’s father) was the Rector of St Mark’s Church. His other grandfather (Albert’s father) was Welsh and was one of the owners of a firm called McIlwaine and Lewis: Boiler Makers, Engineers, and Iron Ship Builders. He and his family went to St Mark’s Church and that is how Albert and Flora met. At first Flora didn’t want to marry Albert, but he kept on asking and in the end she agreed and they were very happy together.

  In April 1905, the Lewis family moved to a bigger house called Little Lea. At first Jack loved living there, even when Warnie was away at boarding school in England. His mother taught him French and Latin and he had a governess for his other lessons. He also had lots of free time for reading, which was what he liked doing best. The house was full of books and he was allowed to read them all, even the grown-up ones. During the holidays, he and Warnie spent hours playing in one of the attics they called “The Little End Room”. They made up stories about a land called Boxen, which was full of animals dressed as knights that Jack liked to draw, and the trains and steamships Warnie loved playing with. Flora’s cousin, Lady Ewart, and her family lived nearby in a big house called Glenmachan. The Ewarts were always asking the boys to come for lunch or go on picnics, or, what was really exciting in those days, to ride in their motor car.

  But when Jack was 9, everything changed. One night he was feeling sick and wondered why his mother didn’t come when he called. Then his father came in and told him she had cancer. After she died, Albert was heartbroken and wasn’t able to comfort Jack and Warnie. He still loved them but became quite hard to get on with. Two weeks after Flora died, Jack was also sent away to boarding school.

  “Jack, the computers will be shutting down soon, so remember to save your work,” Mrs Armstrong called from the desk.

  I clicked on the SAVE button and then reread what I’d just typed on the screen. I hadn’t got very far with my project. It had taken me ages to pick out bits from the books and leaflets Mrs Armstrong had given me, and from some of the websites I’d found, and to put what I’d learnt into my own words. Most of my mates did what the teacher told us not to and just cut and pasted stuff straight from the Internet. But I didn’t want to do that. I couldn’t be bothered with most of my other subjects any more but I’d started to get really into my CS Lewis project. Maybe it was because he was from the same area as me, though he was a lot posher. There were other things we had in common – we were both called Jack, we both had one grandfather who was a minister and another who’d worked in shipbuilding, we’d both lost our mums (though, thankfully, mine hadn’t died) and we both had problems with our dads.

  But as well as all this, there was something else, to do with the Narnia books, that I just couldn’t get out of my head. It was what Mr Beaver said to Lucy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, about Aslan not being safe, but good, as if good was better than safe. All I wanted was to have my mum back so I could feel safe again. I couldn’t imagine anything better than safe, but CS Lewis must have believed there was something and I wanted to find out why. And today, after one of my prayers had been magically answered, I didn’t feel quite as prickly about the idea of Aslan being Jesus in another form. It was time I read some of the other Narnia books. I asked Mrs Armstrong if any had come in for me.

  “Not yet,” she told me, checking the shelves behind her and taking down a different book, “but I requested this for you. It’s a teen biography of CS Lewis. Oh, and I thought you might like to watch the film Shadowlands, about his unusual marriage, so I’ve put in a request for that too.”

  Over the next couple of weeks I got into the habit of going off to pray on my own at break and lunchtime, and cycling to the library straight after school to check if there had been an email from Mum. So far there hadn’t, but then the miracle happened that stopped me from worrying too much about that. Dad started cleaning the house and doing some shopping! Not only that, but he began to come home every night before I went to bed and, even better, his breath didn’t stink of beer when he gave me a goodnight hug. The magic had worked again! I’d asked God to make Dad stop drinking and now he had.

  “Praying is better than football – you should all try it!” I wanted to tell m
y mates, when they sulked about me not wanting to hang around with them. But I didn’t have the nerve. Kate was the only one I could talk to about it and she was really chuffed for me. I felt bad that my prayers had been answered and hers hadn’t, but I couldn’t help feeling she must be doing something wrong.

  “How many times a day do you pray for your dad?” I asked her.

  “I’m not sure that matters as much as whether I really mean it when I do,” she answered, looking a bit confused.

  I didn’t want to upset her by going on about it. Instead, I added Grandpa Billy to my own prayer list, sure he’d soon be up and about telling us stories at Mum’s “welcome home” party.

  A few days later I arrived home from the library with a couple of ready meals I’d picked up at the mini market and was met by the delicious smell of roast chicken drifting down the hall. This was too good to be true. I hurried into the kitchen where Dad was sloshing olive oil over potatoes in a roasting tin and looking stressed out.

  “Oh, Jack, I didn’t hear you come in.” He slid the tin into the oven and slammed the door shut. “I should have had these spuds in half an hour ago. The chicken’s nearly done and so are the vegetables.”

  I looked at the table and saw it was set for three. I was just beginning to wonder if Mum had suddenly come back and we were about to hold her “welcome home” party there and then, when Dad coughed a couple of times and said,

  “I suppose I should have told you this morning, son, but I thought if I did, you might not turn up. I’ve invited someone for dinner, a friend I’d really like you to meet. Her name’s Susie and she’s a nurse. I got to know her when I went round to see about rewiring her flat. I was a bit of a mess at the time, but we got talking and, well, she’s helped me a lot.”