Becoming Mrs. Lewis(84)
“It’s Magdalene College there also. Only one letter difference.”
“Interesting. Would you stay here? Move? What does it all mean?”
“I could not leave Warnie. Or this home.”
I took four more tiles from the pile, placed them on my rack but didn’t look at them. “There must be a way,” I said. “If they want you that much, enough that they created a position just for you, then they will help you find a way to live here and work there.”
“Yes, they will.” He took a puff of his pipe and closed his eyes. “But maybe I’m too old to make a change.”
In this statement I heard his reticence of all things new, of all things that might unsettle his peace and quiet. He had built a safe life, and anything that rippled it as the punt had just done to his pond was to be avoided.
“Jack, forgive me for my impudence, for possibly offending you with my analysis of this, but I love you, you know that. And I can see parts of your heart that others can’t, that sometimes you can’t either. Your fear of change is palpable. You hide all the turmoil and pain of your past life inside of you: the loss of your mother; whatever happened in the war; the boarding schools. And Paddy and Mrs. Moore. And now here you are, at peace in your Garden of Eden with your brother and your acreage and your students and your Inklings and your friends and your quaint town. All these things both inspire and protect you. But a change might be in order. Not a change that disrupts, but one that expands.” I paused. “Let new things touch your soul.”
He stared at me for too long, so long that I believed I had overstepped. But he blinked once before stating, “You’re right. And Tollers said much the same—that I could use a change of air. He believes Oxford has not treated me well. And the new job is three times the pay with half the work. But the problem is that I’ve turned it down twice now with very eloquent letters.” He shook his head. “Or I believed them eloquent. It would seem absurd, would it not, to tell them that I would now reconsider?”
“Jack, they created the position for you! Why would it be absurd to change your mind? Sometimes we have to mull things over, pray about them, talk about them, and then our eyes are opened to the best path.”
“And perhaps they’ll allow me to live there only four days a week so I can be here as much as possible.”
“You know how to work and sleep in trains. This job is made for you.”
“You know what tells me I should go?” He paused and smiled. “I have already begun lectures in my mind.”
“Then let us go from imagination to reality,” I said.
“Yes, I think you’re right.” He nodded at me. “I shall write to the vice chancellor today and tell him I’d like the job, if it’s not too late.” Then he placed his tiles, forming the word mischief.
I shook my head. “How will I ever win again?”
Jack set down his pipe on the edge of the table and leaned forward. “Thank you, Joy. I always feel clearer and invigorated after talking things through with you.”
Joy, that elusive concept that Jack coveted, enough to make it the title of his biography, washed over me for a blessed moment. It was as he’d written in his very first chapter, It is not happiness but momentary joy that glorifies the past.
If ever I would glorify this day, and I knew I would, it would be that moment where he asked me to sit with him to discover what next to do with his life.
CHAPTER 37
The monstrous glaciers of your innocence
Are more than I can climb
“SONNET XXXVI,” JOY DAVIDMAN
Along with my divorce decree that had arrived from Bill’s attorney across the pond, summer arrived with rains so unceasing that London announced 1954 as the wettest summer in almost fifty years. The earth was soaked and spongy beneath my feet, the flowers outrageous in their glory, raindrops settling in the cups of their raised faces. It was cold too. I was still wearing my wool socks and sweater when Jack came to visit me at the Avoco House that June afternoon.
This had been happening for months now, ever since our last visit when we discussed Cambridge—Jack now came to London for no other reason but to see me. Surely he fabricated other reasons, but they were only excuses. We’d pore over the pages of his biography and spread the papers across my little desk, rework and rearrange. We’d walk to the pub for a drink or stroll into Blackwell’s Bookshop to wander aimless and content. Any second I half expected him to reach over and touch me, pull me close. But it never happened, consistently leaving me expectant and yearning, and mostly confused.
What was happening was happening to us both—we missed the other when we were gone from each other. More and more I wanted and sometimes needed to show or tell him what I’d perceived or accomplished in that moment or during that day. I wanted, as did he, to share every moment and thought. Did this describe love? And if so, what kind?
“Do you believe love fits neatly into your categories?” I’d asked during a wild thunderstorm while we huddled in the shared kitchen and I cooked mutton and vegetable soup.
“Fits neatly?” He shook his head and leaned casually against the counter, sloughing off his jacket to toss it over a kitchen chair. “I don’t believe anything fits neatly into anything, but we must at least try, or what else is language for?”