Becoming Mrs. Lewis(66)
“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 br?lée 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.