The Liar's Dictionary

‘Sophia!’ He dipped his face to kiss the air above her ear. Winceworth looked away. Frasham was too big for the tearoom, too well-formed. Pulling a chair from another table, the other lexicographer sat down with his legs apart. He pressed the fingers of one hand in and across his fine red moustache as if framing a yawn or loosening his face. This was a mannerism Winceworth had forgotten. He found it indefinably repulsive. ‘And Winceworth too! Why, man, you should be at work! Tea, cake, a man’s wife-to-be – you devil!’

Sophia and Frasham and Winceworth laughed at such an idea. Aha aha.

‘In fact,’ Frasham said, clapping a hand to Winceworth’s shoulder, ‘I say, old man: don’t you have a train to catch?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Not that I want to break up your little tête-à-tête, of course, but,’ and Frasham’s face changed as he looked at his fiancée at close quarters. ‘Good God, what’s all this dust on your face?’ He touched the silt of baking powder above Sophia’s eye. ‘You look ridiculous. Winceworth, why didn’t you tell her?’

‘There was a cut—’

‘A cut!’ Frasham took Sophia’s chin in his hands and studied her. He seemed concerned, then amused. ‘What do you get up to? Quite the buffet you’ve taken. Eating cakes when you know we are going for dinner this evening, and – what? – getting into fights? And leading young bucks like Winceworth astray all at the same time?’

‘Did you say – what train—?’ Winceworth tried. Perhaps he had misunderstood. He also realised that at the sight of Frasham, his lisp had automatically returned. He wondered whether Sophia detected the change. He wondered whether he could choose his words carefully enough that no S-words would be necessary in Frasham’s earshot.

‘And what is this shawl all about?’ Frasham continued, regarding her at arm’s length in mock horror. ‘Darling, it is quite, quite awful! I have become engaged to a ruffian.’

‘Mr Winceworth and I have been saving the wildfowl of London,’ she said.

‘I’m sure, I’m sure,’ Frasham said. He dropped his hand, and Sophia’s chin lifted slightly. Winceworth pretended to busy himself with a napkin, but he imagined Frasham’s fingers resting gently on Sophia’s knee.

‘I ought to be leaving,’ Winceworth said again, slightly more loudly.

‘Yes,’ said Frasham. ‘Yes, old Gerolf has been looking for you back at the Scrivenery.’

‘For me

?’ No one ever looked for Winceworth. There must be some error.

‘You must stay, you must!’ Sophia protested. ‘I need someone to explain and corroborate the day’s events.’

Winceworth began yammering. ‘I was just – quite a coincidence, I ran into Miss – Miss—’ He ignored the fact that the lisp caused Sophia to look at him at a new angle. ‘I’m – I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘Forgive me, only now do I realise that I do not know your—’

‘Slivkovna,’ said Frasham.

‘Just so,’ said Sophia.

‘Soon to be Frasham,’ said Frasham.

‘Slivkovna,’ Sophia said again. She laid a hand on Winceworth’s sleeve.

‘Sophia is teasing you, I’m afraid,’ said her fiancée. ‘What a word for a lisper to deal with!’ Winceworth imagined grinding an eclair prow-first into Frasham’s ear. ‘Mind as fast as anything. I’ve promised her a visit to the British Museum this afternoon, and dinner near my club after theatre just to tire her out: too much energy by half.’

‘And your first name, Mr Winceworth?’ Sophia Slivkovna asked. ‘I remember a P …’

She does not even know your name. To name a thing is to know a thing.

‘Wince as in flinch,’ laughed Frasham. He dug Sophia’s fork into some of Winceworth’s cake.

‘I prefer wince as in startle,’ Winceworth said.

‘And worth as in “worse for wear”,’ Frasham lisped. He tugged at his moustache again, upwards with his whole palm so that his smile seemed to slide onto his face beneath his hand, a conjuring trick. He brought the same hand down companionably on Winceworth’s arm. Frasham became a conduit between the fabric of Winceworth’s elbow and the fabric of Sophia’s skirt.

‘Your fiancé can see I am not, perhaps, running at full steam,’ Winceworth said.

‘Startle dignity,’ Sophia quoted, quietly, looking out of the window again.

Frasham kept his hand on Winceworth’s shoulder. ‘And what was it – sorry, I interrupted – tell me, what was it that you two were doing today? Earlier? Away from the Scrivenery?’

‘Is that what you call it?’ Sophia turned to Frasham. ‘The place where you all trap poets’ words like spiders underneath a glass? Scrivenery.’

Conversation was about parrying now and concerned with feints. Love (n.), in the sport of tennis, the name given when any player has a score of no games or points. Etymology disputed, with submitted but speculative derivations including a French expression l’œuf, with an egg resembling the number zero on a scoring board.

Winceworth tried to catch Sophia’s eye.

Winceworth failed to catch Sophia’s eye.

‘Where is your umbrella?’ Frasham asked. ‘That funny yellow thing.’