The Liar's Dictionary

Winceworth let his shoulder sag. ‘Thank you. That would be—’ He sighed. ‘I could keep bees.’

‘You could learn chess,’ she offered.

‘Keep bees, learn chess. Peacefulness on my own little underlooked stretch of the world.’

‘But wouldn’t you miss all your lexicographicking? I assume you are here with the rest of the Swansby lot?’

The woman laughed at the expression he made. The sound thrilled him, and he found himself screwing his face even tighter for the sake of her delight. ‘I think I’d rather disappear entirely and stop pretending I know what’s best for language.’

‘I like your candour, sir.’

Winceworth blushed, coughed, but words were tumbling out faster than the rhythm of normal speech, almost a splutter, the uncorrected proofs of sentences. He was acutely aware that his words might be coming out as a mess. He saw it all, how easily it could go: his vowels tangling in the air and sibilants snagging on his lips, garbles treacling in the corners of his mouth.

The woman locked eyes with him and Winceworth trailed off: the unformed words got caught in her eyelashes or in the shadowed notches on the edge of her iris. He opened his mouth to attempt a regroup, or an apology, or anything resembling another sentence to reel out into the space between them, ready to apologise for over-speaking or speaking out of turn.

‘So what is it that stops you?’ she asked, cutting through his unravelling thoughts. ‘What keeps you from the shipwrecks and the bees?’

‘No funds for it.’ He did not say it wistfully, because already the daydream was dissipating, and the sense that he had prattled became more important than the thoughts themselves. ‘It is no matter. Just something nice to dwell upon.’

‘How much would you need?’ the woman asked. ‘How many countless riches to have the life you want?’

Winceworth played along, and made a show of calculating on his fingers. ‘For a small cottage, a beehive and a chessboard? Throw in some new clothes perhaps, and maybe a bottle of whatever best champagne is doing the rounds—’

‘It wouldn’t do to die of thirst even though you are so close to the most lovely of beaches.’

‘Call it six hundred and ninety-nine pounds exactly,’ Winceworth said, and he twirled his hand, ‘with maybe a shilling or two spare for the train.’

‘A bargain,’ she said, and they touched their glasses. They shared the smile of strangers who felt no longer strange. They looked out once more at the figures at the party.

‘You are not going to ask where my dreams would take me?’ she asked after a while, and Winceworth almost yelped his apology.

‘What where and how would you—?’

But before he could get his mouth around his question, Frasham and his bully’s bloodhound nose for awkward situations chose that moment to notice the top of Winceworth’s head peeping from the leaves of the shared potted plant. Winceworth raised his glass to his face again, but it was too late – Frasham was striding towards them.

‘Winceworth!’ he cried, ‘Stop scaring the cobwebs and speak to me properly.’

Neither Winceworth nor his companion moved.

‘Discovered, alas,’ she murmured.

‘I could always just ignore him,’ he replied, not entirely joking and not entirely undesperately.

‘Winceworth, old man!’

It was not worth reminding Frasham that greetings had already passed between them and Winceworth admitted defeat.

‘Frasham.’ Winceworth emerged. ‘A joy.’ He was enfolded into the host’s broad chest. A shirt button bruised his eyelid.

‘Taking in the local flora and fauna, I see,’ Frasham said. He seemed as if he too had been enjoying the waiters’ attentions. Frasham motioned to the young lady emerging on Winceworth’s arm from the plant. ‘Sophia, has he bored you so much you’re trying to blend in with the props?’

Sophia! Winceworth’s new favourite name.

Her gloved hand tightened on Winceworth’s sleeve in what he decided was a show of camaraderie. ‘We have travelled,’ she said, ‘from the very depths of the wildest woods together. We are now closer than siblings.’ Winceworth swallowed and tried to focus.

‘The old dog.’ Frasham eyed Winceworth appreciatively. ‘And has Peter explained how we know each other, I wonder?’

‘He has not yet had the opportunity.’

‘Winceworth’s the one I was telling you about,’ Frasham said, and his voice raised somewhat. ‘The man with the lisp working on the letter S!’

Winceworth wondered whether his blush would scorch through the fabric of his shirt.

‘How precious,’ squealed one of the party attendants eavesdropping nearby. Winceworth recognised him vaguely from the desks at Swansby’s, a scholar of oral linguistics. Winceworth couldn’t for the life of him remember the man’s name. For some reason this man was wearing a fez and turning glassy eyes from Winceworth to Frasham with sloppy bonhomie. ‘But,’ continued the man, ‘Terence, you simply must tell us all more about your Siberian adventure.’