“Well, my darling boy, sometimes the simplest answers are the correct answers.”
“There’s more to it. I know it,” he says so forcefully that it brings on a coughing storm. These fits come upon him with such ferocity that Mum and I rush to either side of him and bang on his back until it subsides. He relaxes again, but his fingertips have turned a berry shade of blue and his lips seem to almost disappear without their color.
“Megs,” he says insistently, “did Mr. Lewis say if it was hard to make up the lands? If it was difficult to imagine Boxen? Or Narnia? Because . . . don’t you see? He was my age when he wrote about King Bunny. He was my age when he created an entirely new world built of the bits and pieces of this world, while he was sick too!”
“He didn’t say.” I look to Mum, but she is busy watching George for signs of distress. “He just told me all about Boxen and the house where they lived in Ireland, which sounds glorious.” I pause and lean closer. “Boxen isn’t as famous as Narnia, that’s for certain. Hardly anyone knows about it now. But he told me that when a story bubbles up, it’s ‘like a lion pawing to get out.’”
George nods. “I know. That lion is everywhere.”
While I don’t know what he means, I try to explain what I mean. “Here is all I can tell you: From the very beginning, Mr. Lewis wrote of other lands from his imagination. Maybe all of these kingdoms came from the same place—wherever that place is—Boxen and Animal-Land and Narnia. I don’t know, but I do know that Mr. Lewis said something like this about imagination.” I stop and think back; I don’t want to misquote him. “‘Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills.’”
“Oh,” George says with a short breath. “Wouldn’t it be grand if ink could cure me?”
Mum draws a sharp breath. “I don’t think that is what he meant, son. I believe—”
“I know what he meant, Mum. He meant the ills of the soul, and he is right.” George looks to me. “Megs, when you go back to university, will you get me some paper and colored pencils like Jack’s? When you come back, will you bring me notebooks? If Mr. Lewis can write at that same age, surely I can too.” He smiles and I nod, because words will bring tears, and that won’t help either of us. “Is there anything else to tell me, Megs? Just one more thing before the next story?”
I think hard, going back to that warm common room at the Kilns and what Mr. Lewis told me about making things up. I open my notebook and read a note I’d made. “He did tell me this: ‘Reason is how we get to the truth, but imagination is how we find meaning.’” I look to George. “I think he said it better than that, but that is what I was left with. I remember that sentence as clear as if he rang a bell. ‘Imagination is the way to find meaning . . .’”
George nods and closes his eyes with a satisfied smile, as if I have told him something he already knew but forgot.
I look to Mum, and she motions for me to walk into the kitchen with her.
Dad is still at work in town, running the local market, most likely busy as can be with the Royal Worcester Porcelain factory just letting out its evening shift, but he’ll be home soon. This is the routine; they follow it without fail. My parents have formed the grooves of their life over the seventeen years since I was born, and they are as sturdy as the tracks that carry my train to and from Oxford.
Horrible questions speed through my head: What will Mum and Dad do when George is gone? How will their daily lives and schedules change? Sorrow floods me, and a sound rises from my throat as we reach the brick-floored kitchen and the warm, green AGA stove.
“Darling?” Mum turns to me with a question on her face. “Are you all right?” She sets the tea tray on the thick oak worktable. Something bubbles an iron pot on the stove, a stew, most likely lamb from its rich aroma.
“No, I am not all right. There must be something I can do besides tell my brother stories. There must be. What do the doctors say now?”
“The same as they’ve always said, Megs. There is nothing to be done but what we’re doing. The trip to London didn’t give us any new information, and the journey and the tests only wore him out further. It’s too much to understand, I know. But we must.”
“Mum, there is science. It is 1950, and there are huge advances. There must be an answer.”
“Yes, you’d think there would be, wouldn’t you? The antibiotics have helped us until now, but . . .” Her voice carries the weariness of years. The burden rounds her shoulders and grays her hair. Why am I making it worse by prodding at her?
The crunch of gravel causes us both to look up and out the kitchen window. Dad rides up the walkway on his bike. His dark hair is askew and his cheeks are ruddy with the wind of winter. “Why doesn’t he just take the car?” I ask.
“He’s afraid we’ll need it while he’s gone.” Mum’s voice fades with all she won’t say about emergencies and a quick getaway to hospital. “Now put on a smile and greet your dad. No talk of stories and wardrobes and mythical creatures. Do you hear me?”
I nod and yet I know, deeply know, that there will still be talk of such things, because it is the talk George desires most.
Six
The Ruined Castle
We knew George was sick the day he was born. I was nine years old, and Mum and Dad had been trying to have another baby for many years. Mum went into labor so quickly that cold November day of 1943, while the war raged through Europe and the Vatican was bombed. George was born in Mum and Dad’s bed—not nearly enough time to rush to hospital.
And then a boy! A beautiful boy with eyes so blue they radiated like small round oceans from his face.
But he was too soft, too . . . floppy. Weren’t babies supposed to be squirmy and round-about in your arms? Not George. Yet the sweetest spirit emanated from that body.
His weak lungs and pale complexion, his limp arms and legs, had specialists rolling in and out of our warm cottage, all uttering the same doomed answers. It was George’s heart. There was nothing to be done. Blood didn’t go to the right place. It was weak. After doctors poked and prodded and tested and x-rayed, the doctors warned Mum and Dad George would most likely not see his fifth birthday.
But he had, and three more after it.
His life was contained by the spaces in and around our house—the kitchen and keeping room, the garden, and once in a while, at his best, a trip to the village for church and picnics. Activities were planned based on how he felt. On a strong day we went on long walks while I pulled him in a wagon. On weak days he stayed in bed and slept and read and was read to. We never knew what kind of day it would be, but winter days were the worst. The frigid cold seized his lungs, so he didn’t much go outside. I was grateful for Narnia, for it took him outside in his mind, as did all the stories he loved. Winter was the time for stories of journeys and quests, of adventure and travel. The Enchanted Wood. Jack and the Beanstalk. Winnie-the-Pooh. Little People of the Woods. The Wind on the Moon.
Stacks of books.
Stacks of adventure.
I’d read none of them, of course. But I was content that they helped George.