The Liar's Dictionary

by Eley Williams

  Sophia and Frasham and Winceworth laughed at such an idea. Aha aha.

  ‘In fact,’ Frasham said, clapping a hand to Winceworth’s shoulder, ‘I say, old man: don’t you have a train to catch?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Not that I want to break up your little tête-à-tête, of course, but,’ and Frasham’s face changed as he looked at his fiancée at close quarters. ‘Good God, what’s all this dust on your face?’ He touched the silt of baking powder above Sophia’s eye. ‘You look ridiculous. Winceworth, why didn’t you tell her?’

  ‘There was a cut—’

  ‘A cut!’ Frasham took Sophia’s chin in his hands and studied her. He seemed concerned, then amused. ‘What do you get up to? Quite the buffet you’ve taken. Eating cakes when you know we are going for dinner this evening, and – what? – getting into fights? And leading young bucks like Winceworth astray all at the same time?’

  ‘Did you say – what train—?’ Winceworth tried. Perhaps he had misunderstood. He also realised that at the sight of Frasham, his lisp had automatically returned. He wondered whether Sophia detected the change. He wondered whether he could choose his words carefully enough that no S-words would be necessary in Frasham’s earshot.

  ‘And what is this shawl all about?’ Frasham continued, regarding her at arm’s length in mock horror. ‘Darling, it is quite, quite awful! I have become engaged to a ruffian.’

  ‘Mr Winceworth and I have been saving the wildfowl of London,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure, I’m sure,’ Frasham said. He dropped his hand, and Sophia’s chin lifted slightly. Winceworth pretended to busy himself with a napkin, but he imagined Frasham’s fingers resting gently on Sophia’s knee.

  ‘I ought to be leaving,’ Winceworth said again, slightly more loudly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Frasham. ‘Yes, old Gerolf has been looking for you back at the Scrivenery.’

  ‘For me?’ No one ever looked for Winceworth. There must be some error.

  ‘You must stay, you must!’ Sophia protested. ‘I need someone to explain and corroborate the day’s events.’

  Winceworth began yammering. ‘I was just – quite a coincidence, I ran into Miss – Miss—’ He ignored the fact that the lisp caused Sophia to look at him at a new angle. ‘I’m – I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘Forgive me, only now do I realise that I do not know your—’

  ‘Slivkovna,’ said Frasham.

  ‘Just so,’ said Sophia.

  ‘Soon to be Frasham,’ said Frasham.

  ‘Slivkovna,’ Sophia said again. She laid a hand on Winceworth’s sleeve.

  ‘Sophia is teasing you, I’m afraid,’ said her fiancée. ‘What a word for a lisper to deal with!’ Winceworth imagined grinding an eclair prow-first into Frasham’s ear. ‘Mind as fast as anything. I’ve promised her a visit to the British Museum this afternoon, and dinner near my club after theatre just to tire her out: too much energy by half.’

  ‘And your first name, Mr Winceworth?’ Sophia Slivkovna asked. ‘I remember a P …’

  She does not even know your name. To name a thing is to know a thing.

  ‘Wince as in flinch,’ laughed Frasham. He dug Sophia’s fork into some of Winceworth’s cake.

  ‘I prefer wince as in startle,’ Winceworth said.

  ‘And worth as in “worse for wear”,’ Frasham lisped. He tugged at his moustache again, upwards with his whole palm so that his smile seemed to slide onto his face beneath his hand, a conjuring trick. He brought the same hand down companionably on Winceworth’s arm. Frasham became a conduit between the fabric of Winceworth’s elbow and the fabric of Sophia’s skirt.

  ‘Your fiancé can see I am not, perhaps, running at full steam,’ Winceworth said.

  ‘Startle dignity,’ Sophia quoted, quietly, looking out of the window again.

  Frasham kept his hand on Winceworth’s shoulder. ‘And what was it – sorry, I interrupted – tell me, what was it that you two were doing today? Earlier? Away from the Scrivenery?’

  ‘Is that what you call it?’ Sophia turned to Frasham. ‘The place where you all trap poets’ words like spiders underneath a glass? Scrivenery.’

  Conversation was about parrying now and concerned with feints. Love (n.), in the sport of tennis, the name given when any player has a score of no games or points. Etymology disputed, with submitted but speculative derivations including a French expression l’œuf, with an egg resembling the number zero on a scoring board.

  Winceworth tried to catch Sophia’s eye.

  Winceworth failed to catch Sophia’s eye.

  ‘Where is your umbrella?’ Frasham asked. ‘That funny yellow thing.’

  ‘I must have – I must have left it in the park. It’s such a story – there was a bird, and I hit your friend here, and then we—’ Frasham interrupted her with a large guffaw, making his laughter the main event of their conversation. He suited laughing, it made him seem younger. He had the relaxed posture of someone who laughed, youngly, often.

  Winceworth asked Sophia, ‘Does it hurt awfully? Your eye?’

  She felt the side of her head. ‘Not even a little. I had quite forgotten it.’

  ‘Miss Slivkovna is made of sterner stuff than I,’ Winceworth said, and he knew that it was a line Frasham would deliver with the dashing candour of a proffered cigarette, while in Winceworth’s mouth it sounded like a criticism or as if he was appraising livestock. He reddened again to the roots of his hair. The ceiling of Café l’Amphigouri seemed a foot closer to his scalp and the walls were bending in. He concentrated on the metal scrollwork on his teaspoon.

  ‘I was just thinking,’ Frasham said to him, ‘that you are remarkably alert, considering.’

  ‘Terence—’ Sophia said.

  ‘The party yesterday,’ Frasham continued, folding his hands in his lap and leaning back. He explored Winceworth’s face and spoke as if this was a good shared joke but his eyes were hard. ‘You really were in quite the state, weren’t you? Slurp, quaff, guzzle – it appears I had forgotten quite how much a day of looking up words in one book and writing them down in another can create such a thirst amongst my colleagues.’

  And Winceworth was back in the club room at the party, back in amongst the potted ferns and braying colleagues, speaking far too close to Sophia’s face. What had he said? He regarded his hands and noticed they had balled up, without him meaning them to at all.

  ‘Perhaps now would be a good time to apologise for my behaviour,’ Winceworth said to the teaspoon. His reflection peered across the table at him, upside-down and swollen. Pelican-necked. He flipped the spoon over but the reflection on its reverse was one grown large, chinful and bug-eyed, even more ghastly. Sophia and Frasham regarded him. A lifetime of no one looking, and now this. He pushed the spoon away – it hit his cup at a strange slant and made what was left of his tea slop across the tablecloth. Winceworth scraped his chair back, and the stark ringing of china and metal made other unangelic diners stop and look round at the noise.

  ‘No need, no need to apologise,’ Sophia said. ‘It was a pleasure to see so many of Terence’s friends enjoying his birthday.’ As she laid her napkin over the spreading dash of tea, her engagement ring gave Winceworth a pointed glint. ‘If anything, I really think Terence should be apologising to you. I thought this at the party and now is as good a time as ever for me to say it: I think it was entirely wrong of you to make fun of Winceworth’s lisp in the way that you did.’ Sophia turned to Winceworth: ‘In fact, I really have not noticed you speaking with one at all this whole time.’

  Frasham put his head to one side.

  ‘Is Mr Winceworth joining us tomorrow, Terence?’ Sophia asked.

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  Frasham yawned. ‘Oh, that. Perhaps you’ve heard that we are having another little soirée to raise money for the Swansby House coffers tomorrow evening. A more – ah! – a more intimate affair, shall we say.’

  Sophia leaned forward. ‘Terence has used his influence to get us a pri
vate party in the Secretum! Can you imagine: the most licentious place in the whole of London! Europe!’

  Frasham smiled, so it seemed to Winceworth, directly at him. ‘You do not know my dear Sophia’s interest in the more esoteric side of art. She’s quite the collector.’

  ‘You are mocking me,’ Winceworth said.

  ‘I would not dare! No, poor unshockable Winceworth, do you know she has a chess set that was once owned by Catherine the Great? She hopes to exhibit it at the Secretum – it’s absolutely repellent and quite wonderful.’

  ‘Have you heard of the Pushkin Palace?’ Sophia said. She genteelly tooled her dessert with the side of her fork. ‘Golden doorknob shaped like a phallus, tablelegs positively burgeoning—’

  ‘How very impractical,’ Winceworth said.

  ‘But we are making him uncomfortable,’ Frasham said delightedly. ‘Best not describe what the bishop, rook and knight in the chess set resemble!’

  ‘A single pawn from the collection would sell for seven hundred pounds,’ Sophia said.

  ‘That would free you from the confines of the desk, eh, old thing,’ Frasham said.

  ‘I do wish you – I wish you wouldn’t call me that.’

  ‘Old thing old thing old thing,’ said Frasham. ‘What better soubriquet when we talk of solid-gold antiques. Honestly, Winceworth, you philistine!’

  ‘Seven hundred pounds is not to be sniffed at,’ Sophia said, watching Winceworth’s expression. He felt like there was no air in the room, and all the lights were too bright.

  ‘I – I really must be taking my leave,’ Winceworth said, ‘and I hope that you enjoy the rest of your stay in London.’

  Frasham stood too and his arm was again on Winceworth’s shoulder. ‘Yes! I keep letting it slide – you’ve just reminded me! I stepped into the office on my way here, and old Swansby was there pacing and squawking and looking for you. You’re supposed to be somewhere on dictionary business right now, old man! Something about a train?’

  Sophia also rose from her seat.

  Winceworth stared into Frasham’s face. He knew the man was lying, but was trying to work out what the game might be.

  ‘They just know Winceworth is usually a good bet when it comes to having nothing better to do,’ Frasham continued. ‘I’m joking, old man. But seriously, I can’t believe I forgot! Can’t believe you forgot, Peter, more’s the point – lucky I caught you here, all told: you’d better hightail it back on the double!’

  ‘What – what train?’

  ‘To Barking.’ Frasham did not waver.

  ‘Barking,’ Winceworth repeated.

  ‘Barking?’ Sophia asked, looking between the two of them.

  ‘Yes, yes, Barking. Tell you what – I’ll save you the trouble of going back to the Scrivenery for the tickets—’ Frasham suddenly had some coins and was folding Winceworth’s hands around them, pushing him slightly as he did so towards the door of the café. Winceworth’s diet today had consisted exclusively of cake and he was beginning to feel the effects both on his pulse and vision. He vibrated gently, unsure if it was the sugar or the offence that Frasham thought he could be ushered away with such obvious a lie.

  ‘Barking?’ Winceworth asked again, staring at the money.

  ‘Barking!’ Frasham’s tone was one of enthusiasm and mild jealousy, as if he couldn’t quite believe Winceworth’s luck. ‘Gerolf wants you to clear up a little confusion about the place name. Or the, what, the adjective. You know: with all that jabbering, Winceworth must be absolutely barking. Gerolf seems to think it’s worth you popping along and investigating any connections between the place and the word, however spurious.’

  ‘However spurious,’ Winceworth repeated. With his lisp, the word furred over like rotting fruit.

  Frasham kept nodding. ‘A meeting has been set up for you, apparently, with – oh, what was his name? Some local historian. Folklorist. Something along those lines.’ Winceworth stared at him, clearly becoming florid in the act of improvising. ‘That should be enough to get you your ticket: Fenchurch Street train should take you straight there.’ He grinned again. ‘Best not be late! Sounds like a marvellous research trip.’

  Winceworth had never undertaken a trip for Swansby House before, let alone been sent on such a last-minute and vague expedition. That was the role of field lexicographers and linguists like Frasham and Glossop, not the desk-botherers of the Scrivenery. It was utterly absurd.

  ‘I am working on the Ss,’ Winceworth said, weakly, and Frasham spread his hands and shrugged.

  ‘It was specified that it should be you that goes. You have clearly made an impression.’

  ‘Barking.’ Winceworth wanted to seize Frasham by the collar, garbgrab and scream at him. ‘This is a fiction!’ he wanted to shout. A fool’s errand, a wild goose chase!

  Frasham smiled. ‘No need to thank me. But, time might be of the essence?’

  And Winceworth was backing out of the door and into the street, apologising and nodding and holding his new bottle of ink. For just a moment he turned to look back through the café window – the pair had turned to their own private conversation and were taking their seats. Frasham moved into his vacated chair and was laughing at something Sophia had said. They looked happy, they looked as though they matched.

  Winceworth kept watching as the third, unnecessary chair at their table was moved away by a waiter.

  O is for ostensible (adj.)

  Perhaps a sense of narrative is one of the first things to degrade when you spend a long time looking though dictionary entries. Certainly (‘certainly’!) chronology no longer matters as much as it used to, and links between pages seem either entirely contrived or simply impossible. Patterns emerge but they are often not to be trusted.

  For this reason and although they are tasked with bringing about order and a degree of regimentation, I can’t help but think many lexicographers must go through something of a breakdown from time to time. As I flicked through the blue index cards, I wondered if my nineteenth-century mountweazelling interlocutor knew the word breakdown (n.). I wish I could have extended my hand through time and offered it to him. He might have found it useful.

  Surprising everybody, Pip’s policy of looking for any word remotely related to cats paid some dividends. She busied herself making a small stack of the cards we could identify as mountweazels by the door frame and into an envelope.

  ‘You little prat,’ she hissed. ‘Listen to this, Mallory: “peltee (n.), a hairball, or matter disjected from the mouths of sleaking beasts (SEE ALSO: cat).” Honestly, he’s trying a bit too hard there, I think.’

  ‘Honestly.’

  ‘Honestly. Ah, but here’s a nice one: “widge-wodge (v.). Informal – the alternating kneading of a cat’s paws upon wool, blankets, laps &c.” A sappy so-and-so, then.’

  I did not like thinking of our obscure mountweazeler in that way. I preferred him as bent on chaos, disruption, as somebody thrilled and motivated by sneaking around and having the last laugh. If I let a more tender portrait of him emerge, I ran the risk of liking him. Him, her, it. Him. Let’s say him. Odds are.

  I did not want to feel protective of him. I didn’t want to invest in that fact that many of the words showed small sweet observations, inconsequentialisms. As I flipped over the index cards I found myself hoping that nothing ever entirely terrible or perilous was being termed. I didn’t want that to be his remit, the world he was casting to define. It was fine if that meant his world was small. He didn’t have to make grand claims. I’m much more comfortable with people who just about manage the bare minimum.

  We continued to pore and paw and pour over the index cards, seeking out the distinctive pen nib and any other clue. We swapped between who got to sit on the chair and who balanced on the window ledge every half-hour and compared how many mountweazels we each could find. I had slightly more than Pip because I was faster at spotting the distinctive penmanship, but she was quicker at checking online to see whether the words appeared anywhere els
e documented in the English language. Pip gnawed her lip as she read. Her dentist had told her that she ground her teeth as she slept – bruxism, she had repeated to me through gritted jaws that same evening with a flourish of distasteful new vocabulary. The dentist told her that if she kept grinding her teeth they would be eroded down to half their size. This had shocked an unconscious self-preservation response in her body: ever since then, she made sure to tuck her lips between her teeth and grind them together instead. Mouth as mangle and buffer.

  ‘Do you think David will be pleased with our haul?’ she asked.

  ‘Pleased he can winnow them out, sure.’ I arranged the most recently uncovered fictitious entries together, taking them out of alphabetical sequence.

  skipsty (v.), the act of taking steps two at a time

  prognostisumption (n.), belief, as made by glimpsing aspects of something from at a distance

  pretermissial (adj.), the quality of being unbearable, particularly as pertains to silences

  slivkovnion (n.), a daydream, briefly

  ‘Whoever jotted these down clearly had his mind in the Ss and the Ps,’ Pip said.

  We went on sifting.

  ‘Quite an odd man, that boss of yours,’ Pip said after a while. ‘Don’t you think?’

  I shushed her. ‘He’s just down the hall.’

  ‘It was interesting to put a face to a name this morning. I gave him a good once-over while he was eating his ice cream and waiting for the police to give the all-clear.’

  ‘What did you make of him?’

  She shrugged. ‘I mean, I understand this is his passion. Life work. But trying to digitise all this – it’s not like Swansby’s is ever going to really replace the OED or the Britannica, is it? I mean, Swansby’s is only known for not being finished. Having mistakes and being a bit eccentric.’