Bill and I continued a rigorous correspondence—sometimes I begged for money, sometimes I thanked him. I offered news and always kept him updated on our sons’ lives—Douglas playing on the under elevens football team. Davy corresponding with Tollers about The Hobbit, learning runes and the Erse alphabet. I told him of Davy’s favorite pastime—roaming through Blackwell’s Bookshop for as long and often as he pleased, as Jack gave him a large book allowance. And of all surprises—Douglas had begun writing poetry!
“A golden peacock flies,” one poem began. I hoped I painted a picture of our happiness for Bill, for it was a happy life.
Jack was alongside me every day he came to Oxford from Cambridge, and many whispered that he’d moved in. What vivid imaginations they had.
There had been a night I thought we were on a “date”—when he took me to see Bacchae, the great Greek tragedy. In the dark of the theater he had taken my hand. With our fingers wound together and the great tragic ending of the play approaching, I believed in more for us. But alas, after leaving that darkened theater our natural rhythms returned—philia, banter, beer, and laughter.
Every Sunday we went to church together at Holy Trinity, where he and Warnie had gone for years, attending the service without the organ and sitting behind the pillar so the priest could not see when Jack disagreed with his sermon. Always, the three of us slipped out directly after Communion and walked to town for a beer. There were sections of the liturgy that fed my soul and others that made me bristle with argument.
One splendid evening in the beginning of the year, I dug out a fancy dark-blue ball gown from my days in New York. Surprised to find that it still fit, I wore it to attend a dinner that Jack threw in my honor at Magdalen. Here I met his friends I’d heard about but never encountered. I behaved. I smiled demurely. It was a smashing evening that ended with a cab ride full of laughter as he imitated each one of his friends. We were a team, the two of us understanding each other in a way that no one else could or ever had.
Twice I’d been to meet Jack before or after an Inklings meeting, which is where I learned that Tollers’s talking tree, Treebeard, was modeled after Jack.
Just when I believed I’d learned all I might, there was more to discover about this man. I was confident in this: it was only the beginning. I felt we were on a threshold, a precipice. We had a lifetime to grow closer and come to truly know each other.
A lifetime.
And who knows what that lifetime is made of? How many days, or hours?
“Jack.” I faced him as I plucked my purse from the hook on the wall to leave for the registry office. “Is this meant to be a secret? This marriage?”
“It isn’t so much a secret as it is between us. Because it’s not in the eyes of the church and we aren’t living together, it is ours to hold close. Of course Dr. Humphrey and Austin Farrer will be there today, so they will know.”
“I want the world to know,” I told him.
He smiled sadly and buttoned his jacket before looking directly at me. “We shall know, Joy. We shall, and that is what matters.”
I smoothed my cream suit to leave for the office on St. Giles, down the street from our beloved Bird and Baby, where we would sign the papers binding us legally as husband and wife on April 26, 1956.
CHAPTER 48
Open your door, lest the belated heart
Die in the bitter night; open your door
“SONNET XLIV,” JOY DAVIDMAN
“There might not have ever been a more sublime October,” Jack said quietly. The lit end of his cigarette glowed, its own full red moon, and then fell in sparks to the ground. “The mornings cool, the days warm, and the nights like this. I can’t remember another as beautiful.”
The October moon was full, hovering over us in the back garden of my Old High Street house. We’d grown silent after hours of talking as we sat on the same bench, our knees touching.
I nodded, and although he wasn’t looking at me I knew he felt the agreement. Kay and Austin Farrar and others had just left a little dinner party I’d given. Kay had whispered to me in the kitchen, “Austin and I agree that Jack seems more genteel in the past months. He’s quieter and more relaxed. It’s as if his sensitive nature has at last come through. And we all know it’s because of you.”
For dinner that night I’d cooked mutton the best I knew how, served mashed potatoes American style, and green beans I’d canned from last summer at the Kilns. I made the apple pie from my backyard apples and could almost taste summers in Vermont with the Walshes. The wine and conversation had flowed as smooth as could be.