The Liar's Dictionary

The morning at Swansby House was spent in the usual way, with all the clerks and lexicographers quietly chasing their various entries and wrangling definitions. Bielefeld went on humming under his breath and Appleton kept up his campaign of sniffing while Winceworth picked over the bones of S-words and kept his head low at his desk. Some members of Swansby House’s staff had heard about the events at Barking and visited his desk to express sympathy, curiosity or intrigue. He was not a good raconteur and these conversations were brief. He told everyone who disturbed his work that, honestly, he could remember very little of what had taken place out in Barking. They expressed surprise, regret and boredom and then moved on and let him be. Winceworth shot occasional looks at Frasham and the white-haired Miss Cottingham whenever he spotted them across the hall or their work took them anywhere near his desk. When the boy with the post-barrow came to take the index cards from his desk, Winceworth did not show a flicker of emotion.

Prof. Gerolf emerged from his study at exactly one o’clock and addressed them from the gallery above the Scrivenery hall. He stood directly above the clock, beard cascading over the balcony as he announced in a headmasterly tone that the photographer was ready in the courtyard. No need for the gentlemen to wear hats, he declared,

let the brains cool off. The Cottingham sisters exchanged glances and kept their headgear secured in their white and black hair. Pons pons pons. There followed a stutter of chairs scraping back across the floorboards and the dull tinkle of many inkpot lids being replaced: everyone began shooting their cuffs and smoothing their hair and emptied the Scrivenery in an orderly fashion, column by column.

In an effort to keep warm, the Swansby staff jogged up and down on their toes in the courtyard. Winceworth noticed that Appleton had bought a new watch chain for the occasion and Bielefeld had shined his shoes and parted his hair in a different way. Everybody was absorbed in neatening their moustaches and putting their shoulders back, standing slimmer and taller than they ever did in the Scrivenery. The lexicographers’ shoulders were used to stooping over desks. They arranged into height order and positioned themselves in front of the camera against the Swansby House wall. Winceworth noticed that despite Gerolf’s instructions, Frasham kept creeping into the centre of the photograph with the assurance of one compelled to do so by some ineluctable force – Frasham’s expression did not waver and he did not say a word but his colleagues parted to let him through. Less seamless a negotiation of elbows belonged to Glossop beetling in Frasham’s wake so that they might stand together.

‘Excuse me!’ The photographer was having none of it. ‘Little man! Yes, you, green handkerchief! Back to the front, if you please!’

The photographer had a stentorious, magisterial tone Glossop could not help but obey. Winceworth was jealous that one could possess such a voice. The photographer busied himself behind the camera with fabric and tripods. He looked at the amassed lexicographers with clear disdain. Martinet-lunged and growing red in the face, he explained that he had come from another appointment earlier that day with a particularly boisterous football team from Kennington and he was simply not in the mood for any

blithering or messing about. All the Swansby staff looked at their feet and tugged at their collars.

Prof. Swansby, a sensitive man, tried to clear the air by enquiring about the names for the different parts and processes required by the camera (‘Potassium chlorate, my goodness!’). This had a conciliatory effect and the tension between photographer and subjects lifted. The Swansby staff shuffled and the photographer lowered his head beneath his dark cloth. Behind the camera tripod, he was transformed into a new, slouch-shouldered creature, a glassy Cyclops with a concertina snout.

‘When you’re quite ready …’

Winceworth’s neck stiffened and his mouth ran dry. He never coped particularly well when attention was trained upon him and this was almost as bad as his appointments with Dr Rochfort-Smith. He allowed his gaze to shift slightly towards Frasham. He saw the sharp clean lines of Frasham’s suit, the brightness of his shirt collar, his tennis player’s shoulders and imagined his face carrying a winning, winning, winning smile.

‘Watch the birdie!’ the photographer said. The flash powder flared hot and bright off the brick wall of the courtyard, a brief, indescribable, terrible and familiar colour.

There was a movement from above them – tiny, inconsequential, but enough to catch Winceworth’s attention. A rustling in the ivy, perhaps, or someone opening a window? Winceworth looked up at the Swansby House windows. He blinked.