“Oh, Jack. That’s simply wonderful.” I leaned my elbows on the table, avoiding the tiles, and told him, “When I first visited it last year, I wrote to Bill and told him how much I loved it, how it is more compact and harmonious than Oxford, more Old World. But that I love the architecture better in Oxford. It’s a glorious city, Jack.”
He was silent as he set a word on the Scrabble board between us, as if it helped him think. He was beating me. I then placed my four tiles, the z on a triple score—zeal. “Looks like the game isn’t quite as over as I thought,” I said.
His laughter caused him to sputter smoke. “Do you mean my career or this game?”
“Both,” I said. “Tell me everything. This offer must feel like redemption after Oxford’s pass-over.”
“It does, but here’s my concern: how could I leave here, Joy?” He spread his hands across the room. “I’ve been at Oxford for thirty-five years.”
I nodded. “Yes, that’s a long time. A little less than a lifetime for me. But maybe change is good. And Cambridge is only a couple hours away; it’s not another country.”
“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.