Becoming Mrs. Lewis

by Patti Callahan

  Libraries are sanctuaries, and the one in Edinburgh was a sacred space, with its soaring ceilings and hovering lights dropping circles of gold onto tables and floors. The open center, an aisle of desks and chairs, winged to reveal the second floor, which soared above me with an iron railing like black lace. I stood in the middle, my neck hinged back to stare up. The Corinthian pillars and dark, scarred wooden desks beckoned me to my work. I settled in with books and pad and pen and began to write. I exhaled with relief: now this was a place I could work, not like Staatsburg at all.

  I was only half a day into my notes when again the dark fatigue settled around me, and I realized I hadn’t felt this tired and worn since my last bout with a kidney infection. I craved nothing but sleep.

  The fever came on slowly, and it was with sorrow I realized I was sick with something awfully near the flu. Shortening my trip, I hurried to pack and return to London.

  Joy:

  Dear Unconquerabill,

  I am terribly sorry for all the grief at home. I have been derailed with the most awful flu I’ve ever had—I thought I might die. But it led, as pain often does, to a great spiritual awakening. And I know I must get my emotions in order.

  Bill:

  I’m sorry for your illness. Here we are well. Renee has become dear to all of us, and especially to me. Maybe it really is over between us—you and me, other than our abiding friendship and being parents to these spectacular children.

  Joy:

  I must be happy for you that things are well there; that Renee is as dear to all of you as she has always been to me. The bad time is over on this end, and I can now tell you the truth: October was a Dante’s inferno of a month in low-middle-class London, where I’ve moved in with a woman named Claire I met at my Tuesday night sci-fi boys meeting. No man—no matter how wonderful, as you are—is worth dying for with lovelorn languishing. I’m better now and today I’m going to watch the queen’s procession to open Parliament. We will save all discussions of our future for when I return home.

  Love to all,

  Joy

  CHAPTER 19

  Oxford is cold (and I’m not warm!)

  The blizzards drive upon sea and shore

  “APOLOGETIC BALLADE BY A WHITE WITCH,” JOY DAVIDMAN

  November 1952

  “Joy!” Michal’s bright voice rang out across the foyer of the Mitre Hotel in London. Near Hyde Park, the bar was warm and rich feeling, with damask wallpaper and leather furniture. In an hour Jack and Warnie would join us, but for now it was just us ladies. Michal waited for me at a corner table, and I hurried to her.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said. “This flu has kept you away from me for far too long.” She gave me a warm hug. Her heart-shaped face, long bourbon-colored hair, wide red-lipstick smile, and jaunty accent comforted me.

  “Oh, Michal! It’s so good to see you. I feel on the mend now, and I’d like to forget that October even happened. Can one do that?”

  We sat together, and her laugh fell across the table like nourishment.

  “Yes, like editing a book? Charles used to say that to me when he was editing. ‘Ah, if we could only do this to life.’”

  “Yes.” I banged my hand on the table. “I would delete the pages of this month. Put them in the rubbish and then light them on fire.”

  “But you can’t get here without being there.” Michal slid off her stylish red coat and set it on a hook behind the chair. “Would you like me to take your coat?”

  “I think I’ll keep it on for a bit. I just haven’t been able to get warm for so long now.”

  “Oh, poor Joy. You are so brave and yet so hurt by life.” Michal made a motion for our drinks, and when they arrived we lifted them to each other before taking our first sip.

  “Yes, my friend. I believe I may be both, but let’s not talk about me. Tell me what’s happening with Charles’s manuscripts.” I eagerly placed my hands around the glass and inhaled the deep scent of the sherry.

  I had broached the most sensitive subject—her husband, who’d passed away unexpectedly just six years before, and still his estate was in chaos. I knew the pain lingered.

  I continued. “The last I heard from you, his executor hadn’t given them over.”

  “He doesn’t seem to care that they were left to me.” She glanced around the room as if someone might hear her. “Joy, Charles’s manuscripts are everywhere. He gave them to other women also.”

  I reached my hand across the table. “Oh, Michal.”

  I didn’t have to ask, because I saw the pain in her eyes. I’d felt the same betrayal—the knowledge that your man had been with and given something of value to other women. It was a knowing that wounded the soul.

  “And the entire Oxford set has snubbed me since his death. All except Lewis. So I can’t reach out to them for help. And what would it matter if I did? Maybe I don’t want to know what those women have or know. Perhaps it’s best if I just let it go.”

  “Just let the sleeping women lie,” I said. “Let them keep their papers and their souvenirs.”

  She leaned closer. “I think you’re right, Joy. I don’t know what letters are out there either.”

  “It’s horrid. Men can be absolute animals,” I said. “Others see them as heroes, while we’re the ones who live at home with them and are expected to tolerate their infidelities and peccadillos.”

  “Yes.” Her head bobbed in agreement.

  “Not Jack.” I glanced toward the door as if my voice might hurry him to us.

  “You think he’s different? That once you lived with him he wouldn’t have the same proclivities?”

  “I do think he’s different.”

  “Oh, Joy. You might be right. But how could we ever know? How could any woman but Mrs. Moore—God bless her soul—know? She’s the only one that ever lived with him, or probably ever will.”

  “You might be right.” I took a long sip and felt the warmth of the sherry fill the cold crevices inside. I wanted to ask more about Mrs. Moore, things I wouldn’t ask Jack, but I stilled those inquiries and smiled at Michal.

  “Joy.” Her voice was soft. “Tell me what’s troubling you. I want to help if I can.”

  “Am I that transparent?” I lifted my glass in salute.

  “To me, yes, you are.”

  “It’s hard to pin down, but it’s Bill. Something seems really off. He’s not answering me, and he’s not sending money. I’m busted. I know I could ask Jack for money, as he’s offered, but I’d rather cut off my ear.” I pulled my coat tighter around me. “I’ve asked Bill for my thyroid meds and some food and a few books, and yet he’s sent nothing.”

  “I’m sorry. What can I do?”

  “You don’t need to do anything. Just being here, being my friend is enough. I’ve given Bill so many ideas of what to work on—we have half-finished projects that he could delve into.” I rubbed my fingers against my thumb. “Right now I don’t even have the money to buy a ticket home.”

  Her eyes glazed with tears—for me! The empathy felt as comforting as the blazing fire at the far end of the bar.

  “I sound like I’m complaining,” I said. “I know that. But I’m going to write like crazy. I’m going to finish this project and then I’ll make everything right at home.”

  “Where are you with your Ten Commandments?”

  “I’m almost done—only five more articles to go, and I have them outlined. And I’ve found a title for the book: Smoke on the Mountain.”

  “So your work is chugging along, but you don’t seem yourself, Joy,” Michal said, catching me staring off to the front door.

  “I believe I might be a bit homesick,” I said. “I don’t much want to talk about it. What else has gone on in London while I’ve languished?”

  “You’ve heard about Charlie Chaplin, right? He sailed here for his Limelight premiere and he’s decided to stay.”

  I laughed and felt warm enough to shed my coat, setting it across the back of my chair. “Good for him. If
all Americans came here, I believe they’d stay. And I don’t think you want that.”

  Michal waved her hand. “Well. Do you know what beats all? The tea rationing ended yesterday.”

  “It ended? Well, thanks be to God.” I pretended to cross myself, and she clasped her own hands in false prayer.

  “Oh, the sacrilege,” she said. “We might be struck any moment.”

  Our conversation flowed easily. We caught up on what we’d been reading, and she told me that her son Michael had found a job. I told her that I’d been working on O.H.E.L.—and Jack had sent me edited pages of the Ten Commandments manuscript.

  “Well, you and I will have some grand times with the days you have left, Joy. You must come over for dinner, and we’ll go to a vaudeville show, and of course we’ll enjoy our White Horse boys.”

  I took her hand and held it in mine. “I’m thrilled you’ve come into my life,” I said just as Jack and Warnie entered the lounge. Jack saw us waving at him, and together they joined us, shedding their coats and hats.

  With greetings all around, Jack turned to me first. “How pleased I am to see you. We must hear everything about your travels. We have missed you.”

  “Yes, we have.” Warnie beamed at us all, tipping his hat.

  Jack sat next to me, and I caught the warm aroma of him—tobacco, wet flannel, and rain.

  “I’ve written about everything to you,” I said. “And poor Michal here has had to listen to me for an hour now.”

  Jack slapped his hand lightly on the table. “Then I shall start with this—I want to proclaim here in front of our dearest friends that you have written a divine sestina.”

  “I’m glad you think so.” My smile broke through the words. He loved my sestina. And if he didn’t love it, he certainly liked it.

  “What have you ladies been talking about and drinking?” Jack pointed to our half-empty glasses.

  “You know how it is with Joy,” Michal said. “We’ve been talking about everything.”

  Life flowed back into me. I smiled at Michal in true gratitude. “It is Michal who brings the interest. She’s like water in the desert.”

  We were interrupted as the server, a young girl in an apron and a long braid down her back, brought two beers for the brothers. They took their long sips; Jack patted his coat pocket for his pipe, a habit now familiar.

  “We miss your husband,” he said to Michal. “You know it was at the Mitre in Oxford where we celebrated after his first lecture there.”

  “Ah yes.” Michal nodded. “And wasn’t that the same place you met T. S. Eliot? The good ole days.”

  “Yes, indeed. When Eliot told me I looked older than my pictures.”

  I blurted out, “What? You do no such thing. He was trying to get under your skin, because in real life you are younger, more vibrant than any photograph.” The blush began below my collarbone, and the heat of it rushed to my face. Why didn’t I think before I spoke?

  Jack smiled, his eyes wrinkling. “Well thank you, Joy. I dismissed his insult, and together we worked on a revision of the Book of Common Prayer.” Then his attention turned to Michal. “Charles’s absence in my life and among the Inklings is profound. We miss him every day.”

  “Thank you, Jack.”

  “I wish you could have met him,” Jack said as his attention again turned to me. “Charles was what I called ‘my friend of friends.’”

  “Even though I never met him, there is an odd tie between us,” I said. “My husband wrote the preface for Charles’s book The Greater Trumps.”

  “He did?” Jack paused midway through the sip of his beer. “I didn’t know that.”

  “See?” I lifted my glass. “We’re connected everywhere. Even before we met, we were all of us tied together with these funny little threads. I love those small hints that God brings people together and says, ‘Here you go. This one’s for you.’” I smiled at Jack. “Each chapter in Bill’s novel Nightmare Alley opened with a tarot card. So the publisher must have thought that he knew enough about it to introduce Charles’s work.”

  “Fascinating,” Jack said. He leaned back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and drew out his pipe.

  Warnie chimed in and stared off into space where he might see the long-gone Charles. “His work lives on.”

  “That’s what we hope for, right?” I lifted my sherry in a toast. “That our work will live on.”

  “Indeed,” Warnie said.

  “Indeed,” Jack echoed, and we all lifted our glasses to Charles Williams.

  The afternoon was spent with warm food and even warmer conversation. I was so content to again be near Jack’s friendship that I felt no need to be anywhere else. I had missed him and denied even to myself that very feeling, as if by pretending one doesn’t feel an emotion, it will dissipate.

  Eventually and too quickly for my taste, Jack and Warnie bid us cheerio, as Jack had a lecture with Dorothy Sayers that afternoon. Before he departed, he leaned across the table. “Joy, next week I’ll be speaking to the children at the London library. Children make me nervous. Please be my guest? It would be smashing if you would go with me.”

  I promised to meet him there. I would have promised to meet him anywhere.

  Bill:

  Dear Joy,

  I have reread Weeping Bay and it is very good but depressing. Where you went wrong is in the tone-scale strategy. If tragedy is to be popular at all, it must have that Gotterdammerung quality, which you don’t have. I think when you read through it again, you’ll see I’m right. Meanwhile, I’ve been working on a few carnival pieces and with Renee’s help I haven’t felt this energized and full of creativity in years.

  P.S. I am very impressed with the sestina you sent me!

  CHAPTER 20

  Your pity and your charity; indeed

  If I had courage, I might ask your love

  “WHINE FROM A BEGGAR,” JOY DAVIDMAN

  The London public library loomed over the landscape like a castle, as if London understood better than Americans the regality of story. With its arched windows and gables, its stone façade and rich wood inside, it was a haven. That afternoon the reading room overflowed with young children sitting cross-legged on a thick brown carpet, jittery and bored while their teachers told them to hush and be still.

  In the back conference room, amid books piled for reshelving and chairs stacked against a wall, Jack and I waited together for it to be time for his speech. I wore my new wool-lined boots and a beige tweed dress (with a scalloped collar) cinched at the waist, feeling as lovely as I had in some time. I’d started knitting again, and I wore a scarf I’d made from a fine blue sheep’s wool.

  “Joy, must I face the firing squad out there?” he asked as he paced the room.

  “You write for them,” I said with a smile. He paused in front of me, and I reached out to straighten his tie, pat it to his chest in a familiar movement that seemed to surprise us both.

  He clasped his hands behind his back. “Ah, but that is not the same as speaking to them.”

  “They will love you. They will be gobsmacked.” I teased him with a wink.

  Jack shook his head, his jowls caught in the tight constriction of his pressed white shirt and knotted tie. “I don’t care if they love me, as long as they don’t rebel and mock.” He smiled, though: all that Irish charisma even among nerves.

  “Today is Douglas’s tenth birthday. How I wish he were here with us to hear you, to be with me.”

  Jack drew closer to me and took my hand. “I shall pretend he’s in the audience.”

  I nodded just as the librarian organizing the event, Edith was her name, came to my side with hushed voice. “Do you have children here?”

  This was her insufficient attempt to figure out who exactly I was in relation to C. S. Lewis.

  “No, my children are in America,” I said. And then wished I hadn’t. A flow of excuses burst forth from me. “I’m writing with and helping Mr. Lewis. I’m researching—”

 
Jack came a step closer and addressed Edith. “Mrs. Gresham here is a renowned American author and she’s here for research. Now, are we ready to talk to the children?”

  “Ready.” She tottered off in her pencil skirt and high-heeled shoes, tight-waisted jacket, and hair stiff with spray that smelled like wet paint.

  Jack and I walked into the main room, and I eased into a chair at the side of the lectern as he approached it. The room quieted. Many of the children held copies of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in their lap, opening and shutting the pages as if Aslan might leap out and join us.

  The boys wore caps and little suits, their jackets buttoned and their pants pressed. The little girls wore dresses and polished Mary Janes with little white socks tight about their ankles, their hair in pigtails and ribbons. They all appeared to me as mini-adults, ready for tutoring.

  “Good afternoon,” Jack said with a great bellowing voice, the one that made him the most popular lecturer at Oxford.

  A few children startled, but most just stared at him in awe. He glanced at me and I smiled, waved my hand at him to go on.

  “I’m here today to talk about stories, and most particularly the one most of you seem to hold in your laps, the one full of talking animals and imaginative children and a great Lion.”

  The children were frozen like statues at the White Witch’s castle, and Jack showed not one sign of being nervous save the clasp of his hands behind his back, his thumbs worrying back and forth against each other—a “tell” no one else would know.

  “I had the idea for Narnia long before I wrote the first book,” he continued. “From the time I was a very young boy, I imagined a faun walking through a snowy wood with an umbrella. I kept that picture in my mind, not knowing what to do with it. Then during the horrible bombings of World War II, three children came to stay with me in the countryside of Oxford where I live. They were escaping London, this very place you live now, which was once very dangerous. I don’t have children of my own, so I did the only thing I knew how to do to keep them occupied—I told them stories.”