I laugh easily, which is lovely. “I’m meeting him at his home.”
“That sounds a bit untoward.” He draws his chin back in mock disapproval.
I shake my head. His inference, even if joking, makes heat rise in my cheeks. “No, it most definitely is not. It’s Mr. C. S. Lewis and his brother, Warnie, at their place. They’ve invited me to tea. He’s not my tutor; he’s telling me stories. It’s hard to explain.” I wipe my runny nose with the back of my mitten, thinking Padraig surely must see me as a mousy math student.
“If I walk with you, will you try to explain? If it’s so complicated, I want to hear it.”
“I’d love the company,” I tell him honestly. We start to amble across the Magdalen Bridge and then from High Street to Plain. Padraig keeps stride next to me, so close that if he reached out his hand he could take mine. But of course that is not what he is going to do.
“You see,” he says, his breath coming in large puffs. “He’s my tutor for English literature.”
“He’s your tutor? What’s that like?” I pause, and two little boys running full pell-mell up the street bang into us. We stand fast and Padraig holds out his hand to steady me. I am struck mute by his touch. But I want to know—is Mr. Lewis different with Padraig than he is with me? Something like jealousy flares in my heart, but curiosity quickly smothers it.
We are on a corner where we need to cross to St. Clements. Padraig holds out his arm for me as he looks left and right and then nods for us both to cross. I am warmed by this, by his simple courtesy. We hurry and he cheerfully keeps talking as if we’ve done this a thousand times.
“He’s a right genius, he is. And so serious until his wit comes through like a firecracker. Some students say he’s a bully but most love him. He pushes us hard. He suffers no fools and some can’t abide that. But if you really want to learn to read, he’s the right tutor.”
“Well, he’s the grandest kind of storyteller,” I say. “I went to his house to ask him a question and then . . .” I pause but it is quick, because Padraig’s open smile allows me to launch into the story of my brother and his request—a story I haven’t yet told anyone.
It takes a few blocks, but when I finish and we reach Headington Road, Padraig exhales as if he’s done all the talking. “Wow.” His voice is so quiet I only think that’s what he says.
I tell him, “It’s silly, maybe, gathering stories of someone else’s life. But it’s the best I know to do for my brother.”
“Have you read Mr. Lewis’s other works?” he asks. Our words come in puffs of air into the cold afternoon.
“I haven’t.”
“They’re really good. There’s The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce. A scientifiction trilogy, and of course the one that everyone is talking about since he was once an atheist, the lion book.”
I stop in my tracks. “Mr. Lewis was an atheist?”
“Indeed.” Padraig takes off his wool cap and runs his hands through those unruly curls. He grins with satisfaction at telling me something I don’t know.
“Well, I don’t know much about him. I study physics, not stories.” I feel defensive. “I’d only heard his name about university until my brother asked me to do this. I didn’t know his work or his life.”
“Maybe that’s good. Maybe all you need to know about Mr. Lewis is what he tells you.”
I shrug, my shoulders and neck aching from the hours bent over books when I studied in the hush of the Bodleian Library.
Padraig smiles warmly and seems to bounce with anticipation. “Will you tell me what he says? Will you tell me the stories?”
“They aren’t what you think,” I say, meeting his green eyes, which had been the first thing I noticed about him when I met him at the pub. Delia had insisted I go out that night with her, for it was her birthday. I’d ended up taking her home as she leaned on my arm, stumbling and stopping at least twice as she was too worse for drink.
“What do you mean?” he asks. “Not what I think?”
“They aren’t Narnia stories. No matter how many times I ask where Narnia came from, he and his brother tell me stories about their lives and childhood. Did you know his mother died when he was only nine years old? Isn’t that dreadful?”
“Maybe he’s answering your question and you just don’t realize it.”
“I’m sure that’s true. He’s not one to waste time—for goodness’ sake, he barely puts his slippers all the way on his feet.”
“Well, in Narnia, aren’t the children without parents?”
“Separated from them, yes.”
Padraig smiles. “Stories have their own truth.”
I nod, not fully understanding his point, but wanting him to keep his attention on me; it feels nice, even if he does have a girl with long blonde hair and a giggle that sends all the boys running to the bar to get her an extra cider.
“I need to be getting on,” I say. “It was jolly to see you. Thank you for keeping me company.”
Padraig nods and spins around, departing as quickly as he’d appeared. I watch him go. A few steps down the sidewalk, he turns around, catches me watching him. He waves and smiles. I’m blessedly glad he can’t see my blush as I hurry on.
Only half a mile remains, and I reach Kilns Lane just in time. I walk quickly, dodging the icy bits until I approach the green door of the Lewis house again.
I knock and Warnie opens it. A blast of warm air hits my cold cheeks, making them tingle.
“Come in. Come in!” His voice echoes in the house and I step inside, shed my coat and mittens, and place them on the settle bench at the side of the hallway where other coats and hats and mittens are jumbled together in a party.
“Hello, Miss Devonshire. My brother is running a bit late, but let’s sit in the common room and warm you right up.”
From where I stand, coats and hats seeming to be the ghosts of their inhabitants hanging straight on the hooks, I can smell the woodfire and tobacco, and I smile at its comforting aura. I follow Warnie into the common room. “Tea is waiting for us,” he says.
I sit in the shabby but comfortable armchair I occupied on the last visit and cross my legs at the ankles, trying to be a most proper girl in the home of scholarly men. A tray with all the fixings for tea, minus the rationed sugar, sits on a wooden table at the far end of the room. A stout woman stands there, and she turns to me and smiles, her wild white hair pointing in all directions and her left front tooth askew.
“Hello, Miss Devonshire. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Mrs. Rounder.”
I nearly burst into laughter at how her name matches her body, but I don’t. How very rude that would be.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I say. “Thank you for making the tea, ma’am.”
She smiles and looks at Warnie. “A right proper one she is. Enjoy your afternoon.”
And with that, she disappears through the doorway. Pots and pans clang a room or two away and then suddenly, without the sound of a door opening and footsteps, Mr. Lewis appears.
He wears the same clothes I saw him in last time: a tweed jersey that has worn patches on the elbows and a thick sweater beneath. A pipe hangs from his mouth with a little plume of smoke rising in front of his warm brown eyes.