The Liar's Dictionary

‘That being so,’ and Sophia plucked some imagined fluff from Winceworth’s lapel, ‘all of this should bring in a pretty penny for old Gerolf, so we can’t be too picky.’ Sophia moved her head to indicate her fiancé over by the velvet curtain. Frasham was miming the stance of the Laocoön sculpture with a feather boa. ‘Terence has already got a couple of politicians to stump up over a good couple of hundred pounds, and I’m working on an opera director—’

‘You must be very proud.’

‘We make a good team,’ she said.

‘You have said so before.’ Winceworth adjusted his glasses. ‘You also called him a useful idiot.’

‘He moves in such circles here in London, quite charms a whole host of prospective buyers. Excellent for securing money for Frasham, and all the better for making sure I secure some safe ground for myself.’

Winceworth translated, after a pause, ‘You need him for the money.’

She made a dismissive noise. ‘No, no – although, it is not so terrible an addition to his charms.’ Sophia drummed her fingers against her skirts. ‘It is useful to establish a suitable and reputable base for oneself, however, in order to allow various indiscretions and eccentricities to be overlooked. Even if they happen in plain sight!’ She seemed keen to change the subject, not so much out of embarrassment but out of tedium, looking to change the pace or stakes of their conversation. She steered his elbow slightly, repositioning him. ‘Have you heard of the painter Zichy?’ she said, blurting as if on impulse and not wanting to wait for his response. ‘He was a court artist for Tsar Alexander – and on the side did some quite extraordinary sketches of the human form! You understand. Here, look, they’re up on this wall—’

‘I thank you, no.’ Winceworth stood his ground. ‘No.’ She appeared crestfallen. He looked in the direction she had motioned: a ring of excited potential funders were pushing their noses right up against whatever was mounted on the walls, roaring with delighted outrage.

‘Ah. I posed for him, you know.’ Despite himself, Winceworth let out a surprised chirrup, but Sophia went on as if describing the weather. ‘The pieces are quite disgusting but quite wonderful. They’ll come out one day, maybe, when the man is long dead.’

‘I am not quite sure why you have taken me into your confidence on these matters,’ Winceworth said. ‘Other than you enjoy the thrill of scandalising me.’

She relaxed for the first time that evening, speaking with a new energy. ‘That is exactly it! Scandal – yes! Repercussions, getting under the skin of something! But more crucially, yes, as you say, confidence in one another. That’s exactly the word for it – and what I thought when I first met you: here is someone who knows the value of confidences. And I am right, am I not? I sense it on you, smell it on you.’

‘You can trust me,’ Winceworth said. He was beginning to feel something crumble within him, any last vestiges of sureness and forbearance drain away.

‘Terence is no good at that side of things,’ Sophia said. They walked together arm in arm, passed a shelf with an array of obscene netsuke. ‘We were just today talking about the words in English that might best describe his propensity to gossip or pass on someone else’s business. Tittle-tattle, blabber-mouth. Scandalmonger. Great fun, of course,’ she said, sighing, ‘and an enviable swagger to it that I truly do admire, but no notion of confidences.’

‘You have done very well to be in the position to enjoy such things.’

‘You say this because you have not yet found the balance.’ Sophia halted their pace and held him at arm’s length, regarding him as a physician might an ailing man. ‘You keep yourself all tight and closed up. You are all confidences and no scandal, all battening down of hatches and no great spuming fray.’

‘I hear the lady has taken a turn for the metaphorical!’ said Bielefeld, eavesdropping and leering into their path. Winceworth and Sophia stared at him for a beat. Bielefeld hiccoughed an apology and scuttled off into the crowd.

‘I have my secrets,’ Winceworth said.

‘But are they interesting ones?’

‘I’m not – not at liberty to—’ Winceworth felt the room spin a little as if he was drunk. He wished he was drunk.

‘I apologise,’ Sophia said curtly. ‘I am thrilled to hear you have secrets. Your secret life: the most precious thing. You must define your own terms for that.’ She smiled, and a part of Winceworth’s heart felt good and sore at her frankness and her strangeness but already she had moved on, sighing at their surroundings with a theatrical tone meant for other people’s benefit. ‘I must not forget – I am on duty and should be charming for the sake of other’s coffers. Fewer the-good-so-and-sos than the party where we first met,’ she said, nodding, ‘but the vulgar do have deep pockets.’

‘I’m afraid I am not amongst their number.’ He felt a little sick and a little giddy.