The Liar's Dictionary

‘He looked aghast,’ Pip told me, using a word that sat ungainly and uncomfortable in her mouth. On the evening of the fire she recounted to police officers as precisely as possible what she had seen, then repeated this to different officers at the station, and then again months after that she used the same words in court, wearing a blazer she only ever used for weddings, funerals and job interviews. Each time she chose her words carefully and tried not to get emotional as she imparted, divulged, disclosed the truth whole truth and nothing but the etcs of what she had seen, spelling out the scene as best she could remember. Yet even as I heard it, even as she asked me to check her account for errors or slip-ups, doubting herself, somehow I would not fully let myself believe the truth of what had happened for months. It is hard to shift from one way of understanding the world.

It was certainly impossible to ignore aspects of the facts, however, thanks to the frenzy of press reports and online articles. It began the very night of the fire, with editorials speculating what had happened in the Sad Final Days of Erstwhile Great British Institution Swansby’s Dictionary. There, my quiet, boring days at Swansby’s were suddenly transformed into something far more operatic and formidable. I noticed that every picture printed of David Swansby during this time was edited ever-so slightly before it was published, its filters or colour saturation twiddled infinitesimally so that any discernible cragginess of the editor’s face, any hint of a scowl or glower, became supremely emphasised. At the time of the fire I remember him standing mildly and blankly by the SW1H kerbside, looking up at Swansby House and cradling his cat. He might have been humming on a promenade, he seemed that calm. The pictures of him that were snapped that evening and appeared in newsprint, however, had an undeniable air of Vincent Price or Christopher Lee to them.

I noticed also that a number of photographs from that evening had been assiduously photoshopped before they were published so that the cat’s ears were removed from the neckline of his jumper. The inexplicable streamlined, the not-relevant smoothed away so that it was not too distracting.

But, what exactly happened?

One could turn to published accounts. The story in the press ran thus: heir to a depleted, now-derisory and undeserved fortune and with his family name and its legacy in tatters, David Swansby had been driven mad with financial instability and embarrassment at his folly of a dictionary. All of the spurious and gossipy tabloid accounts of what took place that night prove quite a fun read if you lay the pages out and sift through the fictions. Words like dastardly, bungled, diddle, dodge and hoax crop up with particular prevalence. I remember that one headline even had a spin on some kind of NOT-SO HARMLESS DRUDGERY pun, above a picture of David sitting in a police car looking baffled. The story ran for about a week that Swansby’s Dictionary – a ‘national treasure’ (SEE ALSO: eccentric, laughable, barely tolerated) – had run into such economic hardship and existed with such a skeleton staff that its final editor had tried to pull off an insurance fraud of epic, combustible proportions.

According to these reports and much like Swansby’s infamous editorial probity, the plan had been overly complicated and disarmingly, quaintly ludicrous. David Swansby posed as a hoax bomber and made various threats against the dictionary. He wanted the building gutted, razed and useless so that a big insurance cheque could wangle his way – blame being laid at the feet of anonymous misguided fruitcakes. No harm in that, surely!, and the Swansby name would not be left a laughing stock. In complete tatters, yes, but with some bruised and noble honour attached to it. This way, the narrative ran, the dictionary would not simply dwindle away in the public consciousness as was his greatest fear. Go out with a bang. It appeared that he hoped to get away with it all. He thought he would be recognised as the presiding, grieving steward who was there to the last when the dictionary’s once-bright light was so violently snuffed out.

Can’t buy that kind of publicity.