The Liar's Dictionary

I always disliked the expression sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me. It is one of the least useful ways of understanding one another, or how words work.

The truth of it is: I ran out of a building not knowing what was going on, wanting only for my loved one to be safe.

A truth of it is: I changed in a small way that evening. Not particularly profoundly, unless you count the grit that is still embedded in my elbow from where I fell, grit that will probably stay with me for as long as I have skin. The change happened when I watched Pip dust herself off and tell me she was fine. Some new feeling flooded in. I don’t know if I had ever hoped before like that, indiscriminately.

The truth of it is: here’s to tying things up, and to change, and to hell with neatnesses.

I did not go back to the site of Swansby House, and I did not speak to David ever again. I received a letter from him while he was in custody, sent to my home address. In it he said that he was sorry. The letter was spelled well and grammatically perfect. Characteristically, he was also at great pains to reassure me that Tits was being looked after but did not mention who I should contact in order to be paid.

That is by-the-by. So much is. Keep it salient, keep it sprightly, keep it imprecise. Simply put is impossible, and not the way for me.

So, what happened?

It is true to say that Pip and I huddled together for a moment by the roadside and looked on as Swansby House caught ablaze. There was a small explosion followed by a larger one, and in an instant scraps of burning paper flew from the windows of the building. We stepped back, compelled by the heat.

A police officer asked, pointing at Pip and me, ‘Are you two together?’

And I said, simply, ‘Yes.’

I tightened my grip on the envelope of false entries. Pip pressed her arm against mine and amongst a group of strangers we watched as loosed paper flew up and out of a building, dispersing on a breeze – words suspended and newly cooling, as paper met ash met star met nothing, and quickly it all meant nothing at all in a quiet night sky.

Z is for

zugzwang

(n.)

A museum at night is full of a strangeness of shadows. Artefacts loom out of niches and recesses with oddly heavy eyelids, or with mouths that appear to open an inch as you stroll by. Winceworth dressed in an approximation of his finest suit, and waited in a side street outside the British Museum, until an hour where night fused with morning. At three o’clock, a group of men and women passed him and walked towards the building. They were swaddled against the cold but gave occasional glimpses of finery: chiffon and mousseline de soie twitched beneath their wraps and stoles. A figure appeared in a sudden slice of light, a doorman with a cigarette at his lips. Words were exchanged and Winceworth watched as the party was ushered inside.

He steeled himself, I’ll show her, I’ll show her, and made his move across Montague Street. The doorman looked him up and down.

‘Do you know the password?’ he asked.

‘I do not,’ said Winceworth.

And honesty being the best policy, the man shrugged and Winceworth was shown into a bare anteroom. There, a very quiet, polite young man in an acid-yellow waistcoat welcomed him and confirmed that he was indeed here to attend tonight’s revelries. Winceworth was so tired and felt generally so numb that he did not even roll his eyes at this ridiculous noun.

‘I’m here for the fundraiser,’ he said.

‘So much to raise,’ the young man said, and Winceworth saw his eyes brighten with the zest of euphemism. ‘This way, sir. And, sir,’ the young man said, ‘I am sure you understand that the festivities are intended to be a private affair and I ask that upon leaving the grounds, you are not necessarily indiscreet regarding either the proceedings, your fellow attendees, the nature of the artwork—’

Winceworth let the young man run his excited patter, and let his words bounce off the parquet flooring and stuccoed walls as he walked through dark hallways and passageways. He knew these corridors vaguely through incidental trips to the Reading Room, or weekend visits attempting to find interest in a schatzkammer of things rather than words as a reprieve from Swansby House. They were walking at such a brisk pace, however, that any sense Winceworth might have had of which part of the museum they were passing or which direction they were facing was soon lost. They continued through heavy doors and skipped down side corridors. The only sound was the tap of their footfall until, after what seemed an age, Winceworth heard the clink of glass and strains of music marbling in the air. Around a final corner, and the refined, honeyed light of candles pooled in a splash across the floor. His companion drew back a velvet curtain,

fnuck—