The Liar's Dictionary

‘I caught an early use of supersensuous in one of his articles just yesterday,’ said Salt-Cottingham. A competitive edge crept into her voice.

‘How wonderful.’ Appleton paused, then added with the flourish of an Ace across baize, ‘Of course, it was in Coleridge’s papers that I netted – now, what was it – ah, yes, astrognosy and mysticism some months ago. And I was rather pleased to catch his deployment of romanticise over the summer.’

‘Don’t forget narcissism,’ Winceworth said. ‘Noun.’

Three faces turned to him.

‘I’m sorry, Winceworth,’ Miss Cottingham said, ‘did you say something?’

‘Only—’ Appleton looked at his pewter cup of pencils, then at the ceiling, then at Miss Cottingham and Bielefeld for camaraderie before settling back on Winceworth. ‘Well, you know, the old lisp, ah! It’s sometimes difficult to—’

‘I’ve often said,’ Bielefeld spoke up, ‘that if Coleridge’s maxim holds true, and poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, lexicographers are doubly so, hidden in plain sight.’

‘Oh, very good!’ Appleton said, and Miss Cottingham gave an abrupt clap of her hands.

‘That was – that was Shelley, I think—’ Winceworth said, but at that point one of the innumerable Scrivenery cats jumped up onto his desk.

‘Oops!’ said Appleton.

‘To what do we owe the pleasure!’ said Bielefeld.

‘Steady there!’ said Miss Cottingham.

The cat looked at Winceworth, right into the heart of him. He extended a hand. Without breaking eye contact, the cat reversed a couple of steps, paused and then, protractedly and calmly, coughed something hairy and pelleted and faintly damp over Winceworth’s paperwork and into his lap.

Appleton and Bielefeld’s chairs squealed against the floor in their haste to push away and Shhhhh!s filled the air of the Scrivenery once more.

E is for

esquivalience

(n.)

I had not received any training regarding specific bomb threats. I had not received any particular training at all, so I stared at the phone receiver for a good minute. I picked up my mobile and texted Pip in the café where she worked, I’m sorry this might be it, I love you, goodbye, x. I switched off my computer without saving, I watched the ivy outside my window bounce and waggle in a light breeze, then I smashed my fist into the red BREAK GLASS TO ACTIVATE fire alarm just by my desk. I did this with all the zeal of an employee who has fantasised about doing so since their first day on the job.

It was then I learned that the fire alarms in the building were not functional, the result of another cost-cutting decision. Unsure what to do next, I remembered that there was a laminated Health and Safety sheet of guidelines in the stationery cupboard, spotted with damp beneath the plastic. It had little pared-down ideograms of men falling over triangles and red POW! explosion shapes over pictures of bent knees. I walked to the cupboard, picked this sheet up and held it tight to my chest. I knocked on David’s door. He sat stooped over his computer, typing with his two index fingers.

‘Did he call again?’ he asked, not looking up.

I explained the situation, miming hitting the fire alarm with particular vigour, and he rolled his eyes.

‘I think that means we should –’ I consulted the Health and Safety poster for the right wording – ‘vacate the premises?’

‘Lest we evacuate ourselves,’ David said, and he looked pleased. I smiled because it seemed expected of me.

‘Should I take the cat, do you think?’ he went on, looking vaguely around his feet under his desk, then, ‘No, no, not a priority, come along—’ and we made our way down the stairs past the central hall, beneath the portrait of smiling Prof. Gerolf Swansby and out into the street, our shoes skittering against the stone one-hundred-and-twenty-years-of-bustle-polished steps.

‘Have you rung emergency services?’ David asked as we descended. I nodded, then behind my back thumbed the numbers into my phone.

The police came quickly and appeared to take the bomb threat seriously. Swansby House was so close to Buckingham Palace that they had all the right gear and were presumably ready to spring into onto unto action. One of the officers wore camouflage and a high-vis tabard, which seemed perhaps a mixed approach. Special officers with a whole index of particular equipment barrelled through the building’s doors, presumably in order to sweep the building. This was a phrase I had heard on crime dramas. We watched from the sidelines, a little overwhelmed. I mean, I was overwhelmed: David seemed more concerned that the officers not scratch the paintwork on the doors.

‘A good thing the building was not booked today,’ David said, a little absently, as we watched them swarm in. ‘Just the two of us rattling around – imagine if there had been a wedding.’