The Liar's Dictionary

Winceworth felt a fleeting twinge of jealousy that he could not have fresh eyes for the place. He imagined Sophia walking between the desks – by his desk! – in the abandoned hall as if a tourist, required neither to be busy nor to appear to be busy as a worker might with the pressure of a job. He imagined walking through that room and being occupied only by leisure and delight. For him, the hall was now too strongly associated with the work done within it, synonymous with a cricked neck and hardened callouses on his middle finger from years of writing. No pons pons pons headaches from double-checking references seemed to crowd Sophia’s mind as she walked through the heart of Swansby House, and no attendant thoughts of paper cuts, Appleton sniffs. She could walk as she pleased and treat the Scrivenery as if she had entered a cloister or a gallery depending on her mood, a grotto or an ossuary rather than hard-won glossary. He imagined Sophia reaching out a finger to one of the pigeonholed shelves on the Scrivenery wall, touching their pale blue index cards, impressed by their enterprise and prowess.

Even in the daydream this could not work as an image – he imagined her withdrawing her hand as if scalded.

Sophia said, ‘Terence and I took a turn around a museum yesterday after our recuperative tête-à-tête in the café. He felt awful sending you away like that, you know. Terence cares so much about the blessed dictionary, and I do think it makes him a little inhumane. But he also said that he happened upon you back in the Scrivenery in the evening and I do hope he apologised – they have you working all hours of the day here, I must say.’

‘He mentioned meeting me?’

‘He did.’

‘He did.’ Frasham in the dark of the basement yesterday, the sweat on his brow, Miss Cottingham hiding behind the unused presses, their giggles in the dark. Winceworth examined his sleeve.

‘Shall we return to the stairwell?’ Sophia asked. ‘I’m not sure this leads anywhere interesting.’

Winceworth let her take his arm and they doubled back on themselves. ‘Perhaps Frasham mentioned to you how my trip in Barking panned out?’

‘He did not. Anything of interest?’

The strange terrible colour that defied definition.

‘No.’

‘Language never sleeps, I suppose,’ said Sophia, and she laughed. It was a tight, high laugh and one that Winceworth recognised. He could compile a whole dictionary of fake laughs. This one sounded like a feint he used when anxiety greased the mouth and sprained the throat – when he laughed like this it was to mask a voice that might otherwise break with emotion. As they walked, he watched her look up at the ceiling as if to compose herself.

‘Miss Slivkovna—’

‘That is not my name,’ Sophia said, and again her tone was bright. As if this was an inconsequential fact. Winceworth halted. As she continued, however, he was compelled to scurry forward to keep pace at her side.

‘I do beg your pardon,’ he said.

‘The fault is mine.’

Pons pons pons. ‘You do not mean – I am addressing Mrs Terence Clovis Frasham?’

Sophia’s real laugh flourished in the corridor and it was her turn to stop walking. She laughed in his face openly with guileless, true human joy.

‘Not that, no! Strike that from the books!’

Winceworth cluttered.

‘Dear God, you poor man, no!’ Sophia wiped a mirth-borne tear from the side of her face. ‘Ah, you’ll excuse me.’

Winceworth waited.

‘I am not used to giving my real name to anyone –’ She broke off to stroke a Tits-cat sleeping by her feet – ‘I’m afraid you caught me at a moment of improvisation when I introduced myself.’

‘Unless I am mistaken,’ said Winceworth, who was not, ‘it was Frasham who introduced you by that name.’

‘Is that right?’ Sophia’s laugh fluted upwards. ‘A commendable eye for details, of course. I’m sure you’re right. We are a good team, Terence and I – I do well to follow his lead in such things sometimes. Running with the line he has supplied, maybe elaborating on it a little. But I see I have upset you,’ she said, frankly and with an apologetic moue, ‘and I am sorry to have not told you the truth.’ She straightened and smiled, looking easier about the eyes. ‘Names after all, little peshka, should not matter so much.’

‘I would not trust Frasham as far as I could throw him,’ Winceworth said.

‘No,’ Sophia said, and she withdrew her arm from his.

‘And perhaps – you’ll forgive me – perhaps I understand more about him, of him, than you might already know.’

‘I think I know most things. I know most things about many subjects, or many things about most subjects – whichever sounds better.’

Concision and decisiveness were more necessary than breath. ‘I saw him yesterday,’ Winceworth said. ‘Yesterday, last evening—’

‘In particular,’ said Sophia, and they turned a corner at the head of the stairs, ‘I imagine that you saw him in company?’

A cat headbutted Winceworth’s ankle.