Becoming Mrs. Lewis(37)

Crossing the street, I opened the door and stood, letting my eyes adjust to the dim. The pub was divided into smaller rooms, the ceiling hovering close. I entered the “Rabbit Room,” with its arched opening like a church window. Jack stood before the fire there, poking it back to life. There was a scarred wooden table set with worn stools. But it was the corner banquette, clothed in burgundy, where the Inklings usually sat.

If that august group had been there, I wouldn’t have entered the room, no matter how brave I was feeling. But it was a Friday night, not a Tuesday, and I’d been invited. Just two men sat in the corner, one being Warnie.

The bar glittered in the lamplight and the space was warm. I shed my coat and flopped it over my bent arm, then smoothed the front of my best dress—the one I’d worn the day I met Jack.

He didn’t see me at first, his attention intent on the fire, but Warnie called out my name. The other man looked up; his white hair sprouted in many directions, and a pipe dangled from the edge of his mouth. There was no mistaking him: J. R. R. Tolkien.

I wasn’t ready.

I wanted more time with Jack before someone he dearly valued arrived to judge me. A near panic fluttered under my chest. I walked toward them, hoping that the soft glow of the room might make me look pleasing to Tolkien.

“Good evening, Joy, there you are!” Jack hung the fire poker on a hook and hurried toward me, gesturing to Tolkien. “I’d like you to finally meet Tollers.”

Tolkien stood, but when I held out my hand to shake his, he merely nodded. “Good evening, Mrs. Gresham.” He lifted his hat an inch as bushy eyebrows towered to meet a deep line between his eyes. Freckles scattered and blended across his face, and there were deep furrows on either side of his mouth, rendering a look of disapproval or judgment.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.” Nerves flared under my ribs; I felt young and unsure. I grasped for surety and flashed a smile. “You’ve had a profound effect on my friend here.”

I sat and Jack joined me. This was the bench where the Inklings sat on Tuesday nights. I didn’t believe their genius could rub off on a slab of wood, but I nestled in farther just in case.

“As he does me,” Tolkien replied and sat with his attention firmly set on Jack, as if I were a specter.

“Is your wife here?” I asked, wanting a woman’s companionship, another buffer. “I should like to meet her.”

“My wife is home with the children. She does not frequent pubs.”

Suddenly I was ten and Father was telling me my grades were disastrous. I was twelve and my mother was telling me Renee was more beautiful. I was thirty and Bill was telling me I was a horrible wife and he needed to recharge his batteries with another woman.

It was Warnie who spoke up. “Mrs. Gresham here has two sons and a husband in America. She’s a writer doing research on our King Charles II, and she’s also toiling away on a book about the Ten Commandments. A crocking good writer indeed, and an even better poet.”

Jack nodded in agreement. “Her writing is flaming.”

Tolkien nodded at me as if acknowledging the Lewis men’s assessment. “Why are you here in Oxford?” he asked.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Tolkien.” I stiffened. “I’m not here to collapse the walls of your men’s world or beg of you to let me become an Inkling. I’m only here for the fun of it all, and for Jack and Warnie’s friendship.” I paused. “Now where is a whiskey when you need it?”

“On its way,” Warnie said. “Along with a good heaping of pork pie. Sadly, it’s your last night.”

“You’re leaving England then?” Tolkien asked with an air of satisfaction, leaning in with a long puff of his pipe, short bursts of potent tobacco wafting toward me.

It reminded me of when I’d first met Bill. I’d thought him debonair with his pipe and his drawl, his guitar flung across his lap. Look how that had turned out.

“I’m not leaving England, not yet,” I said. “But I’ll be off to Edinburgh and other sites tomorrow. Then back to London. Of course I’d love to return to Oxford before America, but we shall see how the days unfold.”

“Of course you must return here before you leave,” Jack said. “There is no question about that.”

“Yes,” Warnie agreed.

The relief they offered was like a warm bath after the chill of a rainy walk.

“Mr. Tolkien,” I said, “both of my sons have read The Hobbit and were enchanted. I want to hear more about your work. Jack tells me it is brilliant.”

“I never said such a thing.” Jack laughed into these words and banged his hand upon the table. “Don’t let him think I said such daft nonsense.”

“No, then,” I said, “I say your work is brilliant. When Jack tells me of your conversations, I’m envious. There was a time when I believed that religion was not something nice people talked about in public. What a relief to be able to discuss and debate and it not be an argument. Do you believe that I used to think that people who believed in God were mundane and ignorant? And now I can’t get my fill of the bottomless discussions. Isn’t that a thing?” I was talking too fast; I could feel the words bubbling up in nervousness.

“What do you find the most fascinating about what I believe, Mrs. Gresham?” Tolkien asked, his hands wrapped around his nearly empty mug of beer.