The Liar's Dictionary

It was never entirely clear to Winceworth whether these phrases were standard tests or just borne of Dr Rochfort-Smith’s own invention. After their first meeting Winceworth had been sent home with instructions to repeat Silly Susan sitting on the seashore stringing seashells and seaweeds, softly singing or listening in silence to the sirens’ songs. From chit-chat during the session Winceworth gleaned that ‘Susan’ was the absent Mrs Rochfort-Smith’s name. Her sepia portrait hung above the doctor’s fireplace like a crinolined gnat in amber, memorialised as if she were dead. Dr Rochfort-Smith described the absent Susan as suffering from some mysterious, debilitating illness for a good many years, currently sequestered to a sanatorium in the Alps for the sake of her health. A number of her letters littered the doctor’s desk, detailing the tonic of Alpine air and new-fangled Müesli breakfasts. Poor Susan with the sirens. Winceworth had not felt entirely comfortable invoking the doctor’s ailing wife in such a winsome setting as a sibilant fantasy beach, whether softly singing or listening in silence to the sirens’ songs. After the fortieth repetition, he found that he could inject a real impassioned emphasis on the word silly.

Winceworth became ever more certain that rather than reporting the detheption to Thwansby’s or upbraiding his patient on the waste of his valuable time, Dr Rochfort-Smith had devised ridiculous vocal exercises to see how far his patient would be prepared to carry on the charade. Winceworth was sure that the blasted songbird definitely knew he was lying, possibly by using the same instincts animals are said to use when sensing ghosts or storms before they hit.

This new abuse of amazed Zeno and his ears, however, was impossible to attempt without laughing. Winceworth’s face, head nor stomach lining could not manage that today. He hazarded for a distraction.

‘Did you – sorry, did you say God lisped?’ he asked.

Clearly anticipating the question, the doctor leapt to his desk. ‘I refer you to the Coverdale! I have marked the very place in Isaiah, Chapter twenty-eight, I think—’

Winceworth tried to crumble some of last night’s rediscovered birthday cake into the fabric under the cushion of his seat. The songbird noticed and began banging the bars of the cage.

‘Yes, and, elsewhere, Moses, did you know,’ continued the doctor, ‘yes, Moses too! All to be found in Exodus.’ Dr Rochfort-Smith closed his eyes. ‘“But Moses said unto the Lord: ‘Oh, my Lord, I am a man that is not eloquent, from yesterday and heretofore and since the time that thou hast spoken unto thy servant: for I have a slow speech, and a slow tongue.’”’

‘I had no idea I was in such elect company,’ Winceworth said once he was sure the doctor had finished.

The Coverdale shut and the doctor’s face grew sorrowful. ‘It was through hissing that sin entered into this world –’ Winceworth stopped crumbling the birthday cake and stiffened in his chair – ‘and it is perhaps more beneficial to consider your affliction as nothing more than a reminder of this.’

CLANG, went the birdcage.

The doctor brought his hands together sharply. ‘It is nothing that cannot be remedied, however. So, now, if you would: “‘Zounds!’ shouted Ezra—”’

Winceworth had managed some dialogue, some repetition, and he had not been sick onto his own shoes: he should be proud, he remembered thinking, as the blood drained from his head and his eyes swam.

‘And so must end our penultimate session,’ the doctor said. He dusted his hands on his knees.

‘No more tongues and pebbles? No more Zeno?’ Winceworth dragged the heel of his hand through his hair.

‘I will see how many more Zenos can join our final encounter next week.’

Dr Rochfort-Smith’s next client was already waiting in the corridor, a young girl of about seven years whose mother wittered hello!s and good morning!s. The girl shrank from Dr Rochfort-Smith’s attempted swipe at a headpat. Winceworth recognised her from previous weeks when, curious, he had queried the child’s reason for visiting the practice. Apparently the girl suffered some kind of idioglossia and entirely refused to speak in anyone’s presence. She could read and write to an exceptional standard but was entirely mute when in company. Dr Rochfort-Smith explained that her parents overheard her speaking a language of her own devising when she was alone. When asked whether there had been any progress during his tutelage, the doctor would not be explicit but said they had established through the use of paper, pen and orange crayons that the girl believed she was speaking to an imaginary tiger. This tiger accompanied the girl everywhere and was called Mr Grumps.