‘Of course,’ he said.
‘I am very aware of the way Terence likes to comport himself.’ She made a face. ‘But, really, will you listen to me – indiscretion, comport. So few days on this island and already I am so at home with using your obscure euphemisms.’
‘Comport, consort—’
‘Cavort, contort.’ She joined in as one enjoying a word game, glad to be egged on. ‘You have your secrets too, I think?’ Winceworth said nothing and Sophia paused, then raised her gaze to the heavens. ‘You think me cruel for saying so. You are hurt.’
‘It is not for me to say.’ Winceworth let her finish another entirely winning laugh. He set his jaw. ‘Frasham is an idiot.’
‘The very definition of an idiot,’ Sophia said. ‘He is a useful idiot, however. And quite sweet: he said he would make sure Swansby’s puts an emphasis on Russia in the entry on chess just for me, which I think as close to a love-gift as an encyclopaedic article can get.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘In truth,’ said Sophia, and she deflated to see any game was not in the offing, ‘it was to make sure that you received an invitation to the party this evening. I can promise you it will be a more lively event than the one at which we first met.’
‘You know about this evening?’
‘You are speaking to the one who organised it.’
Sophia Unslivkovna enjoyed Winceworth’s incredulity, gently joshing him with an elbow. ‘Terence said that you would be too delicate for it or find it distasteful, but I just know you’ll enjoy it. Loosen those limbs. What could a lexicographer enjoy more than the explicit? Now, no need for such a serious determined little face, Peter.’
Peter the prude. Peter the lisping prissy prig. The shock of hearing his name from her lips did not flip the room upside down or cause his heart to explode with a strange new colour. Winceworth moved his arm away. ‘I am afraid I have plans this evening.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Sophia. ‘You are a terrible liar and I would like you to come. I command it.’
‘Command?’
Sophia rolled her eyes. ‘I do not just describe the invitation but also prescribe it. Come! Relax! A bit of sport amongst some statues and whathaveyou.’
‘It is the whathaveyou that makes this ghastly,’ Winceworth said.
‘Ghastly, oh, dear God,’ said Sophia. ‘I am quite serious that it will be worth your while.’
‘It is – unseemly—’ Winceworth said, but he muttered it and she did not seem to be brooking his answers.
‘I don’t mean worth your while because of – heavens, whatever it is that frightens you so – muckiness and daubing your fingers with debauchery—’
‘Please do not mock me, Sophia,’ Winceworth said, and he tried to face her down.
‘I would not dare,’ Sophia said. ‘I am sorry.’
She leaned forward and kissed him, softly, x on the cheek.
‘There is a password you have to say this evening, to get in,’ she said. ‘Terence was laughing earlier at the thought of you being stranded at the door, lisping guesses at shibboleths. Say you will be there,’ she said.
Winceworth did not move. She approached as if to whisper in his ear, but he turned his head and stepped back a little. She laughed, then, a full clear laugh, and then she took her leave, descending the stairs just as the staff of Swansby House entered. They doffed their hats to her each in turn as they pooled in through the door.
She glanced up the stairs to meet his eye, but Winceworth was no longer to be seen.
Y is for
yes
(exclam.)
I could mention some of the nouns, verbs and adjectives of the aftermath. I could select the best of all of these or select the ones that seem most obvious or most relevant to me, or the ones that are generally agreed upon as the most useful, appreciable, evocative. I could also take the time to arrange an account of what happened there on the Westminster pavement as Swansby House shrouded in smoke in front of us, and express it using an order that is cogent and coherent and concise. That would be a responsible thing to do.
Simply put is best put.
So what happened? Fire engines added their sirens to the yawp of Swansby House’s alarm. That’s something I remember very clearly, as well as the lines of people gathered outside – the second time today! – where they all stood rubbing their faces or covering their mouths and taking photographs of the building. Everyone looked shocked, baffled, curious. They scattered back a few paces and drew aside as Pip, David and I barrelled out of the burning building. We landed together in a spluttering heap at the bottom of the stone steps.
‘Give them some air!’ I heard. ‘Give them some room!’
Maybe it was a firefighter or a member of this crowd that helped the three of us to our feet and away from the shadow of Swansby House. We were scooped and propped up next to some bollards across the road, and I remember someone checking Pip over. Apparently I was repeating her name as if looking for her even though she was close enough for me to look down and see her hand in mine. Someone else was administering to me, a man with a kind voice and a uniform that had lots of holsters and belt loops. I kept my eyes trained over his shoulder, watching Pip.
She caught my eye. She looked pale, with red-rimmed eyes and grey smudges across her forehead.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked. Her voice was hoarse, and she repeated the question so that it was a little clearer, calling it across to me despite us being so close together.
‘I’m fine,’ I said. It was an odd wheeze in the crisp and crisping air.
Pip waited a little, then she said, ‘I’m fine too,’ over the medic’s shoulder.
She was. She is. Pip is fine. All the important facts.
So, what happened?
If I piece it together with hindsight, David must have been looked after by another paramedic nearby, someone who probably took the time to ask him questions while pointing up at the building. Pip recalls seeing David nodding to the medic as if in conversation but it struck her he did not seem to be really listening. David had got hold of Tits: the cat was nestled in his arms beneath his woollen jumper and I could tell from the movement beneath the fabric that Tits had set about palpitating David’s shirt-front with his paws. If I knew Tits at all, he was probably crooning and purring. This is a detail that will not make the police reports, nor the newspaper columns nor the trivia books that list the evening’s events in their pages, but as I watched David Swansby watching his empire burn to the ground, I saw two furry ears and the top of Tits’s head appear up his collar. Momentarily Swansby’s final editor stood there chimerically two-headed, some greasy residue from the fire stamped in a mask of soot across his eyes.
I remember one of my hands was in Pip’s and that with the other I was gripping the dossier of false entries close to my chest.
But, what happened?
Onlookers stepped up their oohs and ahhs as a snicking burst of glass came from above. As a group we all instinctively ducked and looked up: in Swansby House, flames were visible from the window of the room where Pip and I had been working just minutes before. Dictionary as accelerant. Red and orange tongues lanced into the evening sky. Two tourists took a picture of it.