WORDS OF WARNING

ALEX HAMILTON

Alex Hamilton, educated variously in South America and England and, after leaving Oxford University, variously employed, is now a feature writer for The Times and The Guardian. He has a sound reputation as a novelist and anthologist and here proves himself also a master of the short story - the science fiction short story at that. It is a caustically funny example of what might well be called a lexicographer’s nightmare.

* * * *

Frances and Alan Bell were sitting like bookends on opposite sides of their beds when the phone rang. “My God,” said Frances who was letting her nails dry, “I thought the virtue of teaching was that you had so much time to yourself! They never leave you alone here.”

Alan, who had the young man’s superstition that a phone left to ring might be to ignore some exciting new offer which would possibly never be repeated, stirred uneasily, and put down the clock which he had been winding. “It might be a wrong number,” he said to placate her, as he padded towards the phone.

“Whoever it is, tell them to go to bed,” she replied.

When she heard him say cordially, “Oh, hello, Dr. Fryer, no we haven’t gone to bed yet,” she rolled her eyes upward in exasperation, and paying no attention to Alan’s hand which signalled her to be quiet, she cried out:

“You might just know that only a man who’s never been married would ring at this hour!”

Alan put his hand over the mouthpiece until she was silent and then said into it, “Sorry, Doctor, I didn’t quite catch what it was you wanted, the radio’s a bit loud.”

Frances giggled suddenly. “Radio!” she squeaked. She jumped up abruptly and dashed across the room to him, languishing over him as he crouched by the phone, putting her head on one side so that her hair concealed half her face, and pushing her bust against the receiver. “Ask him,” she whispered, “how he likes the late show on telly.” But Alan only frowned and shook his head, and she marched huffily back to bounce on the bed, heavier by two stone of rebuff.

When the dazzle of rage had dimmed enough for her to receive again, she heard Alan saying: “Well, yes, Dr. Fryer. I believe I do have that book on my shelves. Hold on while I go take a look.” She said nothing, merely fixed her eye on the hanging receiver until he returned from his study with a hefty volume in his hand, which he spread self-consciously on the small table which held the phone. He turned the pages and groped for the receiver. She went back again and stood over him.

Alan said hesitantly, “You did say the 1965 MLA Bibliography published by the New York University Press? Well, I’m looking at page 71, but there’s no section of American English…”

He drew in his breath sharply as Frances’s finger, newly carmined and brilliant at its vengeful extremity, jabbed down on the page and pointed out to him that the same sheet had a secondary pagination at the foot. Alan continued, “Oh yes, Frances is here and I’ve just realised… Yes, I have the page now… entry 3339? You want me to read it? It reads Schwartz, David L. ‘Syrian Pig Latin.’ AS. XL, 156-157. What? Yes. Same edition as yours. And you’re missing ‘Pig’. No idea why that should happen. Foreign body in the presses, I should think. No, no, Dr. Fryer. You’re not to think that. It’s a pleasure to help, believe me. Any time I can… Good night.” He hung up, and without looking at Frances took the book back to his study.

She was sitting in bed with her knees drawn up when he returned. “Pig is right,” she said. “Bloody nerve! At one o’clock in the morning. For a reference!”

Trying to suppress his anger he replied, “Well, I quite agree. It is a bit much. But what can I do? I can’t very well tell the Head of the Department that his latest trouvaille isn’t that important, can I? You know what Fryer’s like when he’s on to something. At the moment he’s probably drafting a letter to The Times. And anyway, to look on the bright side, it’s a bit of a compliment to me really that he should turn to me for help.”

She exploded with: “Comp… ! Don’t be fatuous. There isn’t anybody else in residence he could turn to.” Then the phone rang again.

They both looked at it without moving. “Don’t answer it,” said Frances.

“We can’t pretend we’ve gone to bed and got to sleep in under a minute, can we now?” he protested.

She wriggled vigorously to get out of bed, but he was sitting on the covers and she was pinned in. She exclaimed, “Let me bloody talk to him then. I’ll give him some references to file.” But Alan pushed her back and answered the call.

When he spoke it was in a low voice, as if he hoped she would not overhear. “In the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology ? Yes, Dr. Fryer, I do have that. Yes, I can turn that up for you.” He held the receiver with his palm over the mouthpiece and whispered savagely, “Listen, Frankie, if you’re rude or hang up on him while I’m getting the book, I’ll bloody brain you. It would be my promotion chances knackered. For God’s sake have some sense.” Looking grimly back at her over his shoulder he disappeared from the room.

This time he rattled out the entry at top speed. “Pig pig young of swine XIII (AncrR.); swine of any age, oblong piece of metal, ingot (cf. SOW) XVI. ME pigge; OE picga, pigga- what’s that? What? I don’t understand. The entry comes between piffle and pigeon… Yes, the word pig recurs twice. Complete complement of pigs in fact. I’ll read the rest of the derivation if you like. You have the rest? Just that you wanted? OK. I don’t quite… Yes, I shall be here. No, I’ll leave the line open. Yes, right, I will. ‘Bye.”

Alan stood looking bewildered in the middle of the bedroom. Frances said, “I hope you feel all this is bringing your promotion forward. I hope his paper on Pig includes acknowledgment to you. I hope the philologists of the world are needing Pig. The sensational chase and ultimate sticking of Pig.”

He began putting on his clothes, and said, “All right, all right, Frankie. I know how you feel. But there’s something funny going on. Philologically pig is gutted. Something very funny…” He was already moving to the phone as it rang again.

“He’s going round the twist, that’s what’s funny,” she said.

This time Alan only listened for a minute, and said quietly, “Yes, Dr. Fryer, I’ll be round. I have the car outside the house right now. Don’t do anything till I get there. Close your books, I should.” He replaced the receiver for the third time and reached for his jacket. “Says he can’t find Pig anywhere in his library. It sounds to me as if you might be right. Hope you’re not, but I’d better just nip round and check.”

She was out of bed and rooting a scarf for him out of the chest of drawers. “How awful, Alan. Do you want me to come?”

“No, it’ll be OK.”

“But you will be careful?”

“Oh, he’s a vinegary old soul, but he won’t be any trouble. I’ll call you when I get there.”

“Yes, please do that. I shall worry until you do.”

And worry she did. She put on her dressing gown and took the telephone into the study, from whose windows she could see the buildings of the University in darkness, and the empty enclosed lawns spread with moonlight like butter. It was not the facts of the case that made a crisis, she decided, but the occasion. Had this happened in termtime, had it been daylight, this would never be a crisis. Old Fryer would be taking out his aggression on his pupils, or the message would have come when she and Alan were with friends, or the old boy could have gone down to the library and set up a posse of his cronies, dotty as himself, to chase Pig through the entire stack. As it was she could see Alan being ushered into Fryer’s place, where he lived alone but for a deaf Portuguese housekeeper whose English was so bad that Fryer still spoke to her in her own language, and trying to persuade him that his Pigs were all on the page and he only needed his glasses corrected. In which case the wiry old devil might hurl himself screeching on her plump husband and… and… and she hadn’t even kissed Alan goodbye. Not to be silly, she went and made coffee, and told herself that of course Alan was sensible and would see the position, and humour him. In which case the two of them would have a game half the night pretending not to see Pig. What kind of traumatic experience in the past could have caught up with Fryer at last, and be making him repress Pig? Such a complaisant animal, after all. Only an academic could have got in trouble with a pig. But, of course, if this were serious, and Fryer were obliged to rest a while from his studies, it could only lead to more responsibility in the Department for Alan. With a fair prospect ahead, provided he published something soon. If he could find the time. More late-night research. Until the day when Alan could not see Pig plain on the page…

How could a night be so still ? Only a faint susurration in the flower-beds, accompanied by a faint trembling of the shadow lines on the lake, as a breeze strayed across it, showed any movement in the world outside her window. How could the Romantics ever have wished their emotions on the weather? There was an old man going mad not far away, brain buzzing like an electric storm, but the setting for it was almost catatonic. The phone rang with such wicked lack of warning, and so shrilling, that she overset her coffee. She only righted the cup before answering. “Yes?” When she heard Dr. Fryer’s cheery tones she was horrified by the sudden image which came to her of Alan sprawled among the footnotes, dead by candlelight.

“Oh, Mitheth Bell.” He sounded impatient, “I wonder if I might have a word with your huthband.”

“I thought he was with you.” With relief that Alan must still be alive, the whole medieval picture vanished. She remembered that Dr. Fryer had a fairly expensive modern establishment with enough lights and gadgets to put a strain on an entire grid.

“I had hoped I might catch him before he left. Prapth you would help me?”

“Prapth,” she replied nervously. She had conjured up his full presence now, and the lisp which produced comic patches when he lectured on philology only made him seem more intimidating to Frances, now that Alan was away. She could never have carried out her original threat to be rude to him, even with Alan there. “I mean I’ll do my best,” she added.

“I need you to look at a word for me,” he said. “There ought not to be any great difficulty in locating it, provided naturally that it itth thtill in itth correct plathe.”

“All right, Dr. Fryer. I’ll look for the word for you. What is the word?”

“Theckth,” said Dr. Fryer.

“I beg your pardon?” said Frances. “Would you mind spelling it?”

“Eth e eckth,” he answered irritatedly. “Theckth. A familiar enough word in this day and age.”

“Oh,” she said feebly. “Well, we have a lot of paperbacks in the house,” wondering if she were letting Alan down by admitting this, “it’s bound to be one of them.”

“Pothibly. But the Conthithe Ockthford Dictionary is what I had in mind.”

From where she stood she plucked the dictionary from its shelf. “Will I read it to you?” she asked.

“No. I know the meanings of the word. I wished you merely to tell me that you were looking at it.”

“Well, I’m looking at it,” said Frances. A slight coldness came into her tone as a faint suspicion began to grow in her mind.

“You thee nothing thtrange about it?”

“Nothing in the word,” she said pointedly. But he either did not notice or affected not to notice the emphasis.

“Another very thmall word,” he murmured, “like pig.” She wanted to reply “like mad, like odd, like bad”, but she restrained herself, and he went on: “It leaveth thuch a tiny gap on the printed page, one almotht mitheth it. One might almotht hurry on, indifferent to the damage. But thome of uth have thith conditioning which obligeth uth to replathe divotth…”

Frances interrupted what seemed to be developing into a soliloquy. “Dr. Fryer, my husband will be with you very soon. Would you discuss it with him? Over the phone, late like this, I’m finding it really terribly difficult to keep up with you.”

“My dear Mitheth Bell. You are no doubt in dish-of-veal, ath the mighty Jorrockth would have it, or I would have made the journey to your houthe to give you a full eckthplanation, inthtead of trethpathing on the kindneth of your huthband. Do ackthept my assuranth that I am very dithturbed, and need to remain in contact with you. Only a major event could make me thpeak like thith.”

“Very well, Dr. Fryer.” She hesitated, then proceeded shakily, “But… choose your words to look up… carefully.”

He replied, “Alath, thith ith one occasion when they are choothing themthelveth.”

She put down the receiver, and thought that that was it exactly, the creepy old devil had rigged Alan’s absence to have a spicy philological chat with her. That reference to her deshabille clinched it. Any time now they’d be moving on to Captain Grose’s Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, the best read in the reference shelf. She shivered and drew her gown more closely about her, as if he might actually be peeking in at her from one of the darkened buildings.

But the minutes ticked by and no call was made on Captain Grose, or any other word merchant for that matter. Alan must have got there quicker than Fryer expected. There was always the return trip, of course, but neither was it inconceivable that Fryer should have evolved a further subterfuge or two to keep Alan out of the way for longer than that. She wished Alan would hurry up and call. He was taking an unconscionable time about it, in view of his promise. As soon as he did she would tell him what Fryer was up to. If only she was given that one chance! Her earlier fears for Alan’s safety were marshalling themselves for a further assault. She paced up and down until it came to her that if she were at the wrong end of the room when it rang Fryer might strike him down before she could shout a warning. She sat on Alan’s desk with the phone on her lap, trembling.

It rang as viciously as if it were being held there against its will. She snatched up the receiver and gabbled, “Alan, look out! Watch out what he’s up to! Can you see him? What’s he doing? Keep him in front of you?” There was a silence at the other end of the line, during which she became rigid as she realised that the caller might be Fryer. Then at last, Alan’s voice, surprised, quick and a little impatient.

“What the hell are you talking about, Frankie?”

She blurted, “Oh, he’s been filthy, Alan! He just wanted you out of the way so he could lisp his horrid words to me. Beastly! I can’t tell you. I got so anxious for you. I think you should get away from there as soon as possible and come straight home.”

Alan laughed shortly. “Could be, I suppose. No reason why ‘horrid words’ should stop behind, particularly. Listen, Frankie. Something quite astonishing is happening here, and I’m going to stay with Dr. Fryer to see how it develops.”

“No!” she cried. “That’s just what I was afraid of. Please don’t stay. He’s already had one little gloat as we looked at sex together. Well, he seemed to be looking at theckth, but obviously there are some good ones just around the corner in his kinky little mind that he can get his tongue around.”

His reply was vehement. “But you’re so wrong! Forget about sex and all its derivatives. There’s a fantastic battle on here. We don’t know what to do about it. Frankie, please understand: words are deserting Dr. Fryer’s library. He first noticed one or two small omissions in some texts he was studying early in the evening, and put it down to overwork. So he abandoned for the day and had his dinner. Then it seemed to him that his mind was perfectly clear, and as he was a bit behind schedule he resumed at eleven o’clock. After about half an hour he noticed the absence of a whole series of definite and indefinite articles. It was a fairly recent publication and he attributed this to a piece of bad programming in some computer typesetting. Well, that explanation soon had to go by the board, because all kinds of small words began to go missing…”

“Oh, Alan,” she laughed uncertainly, “how typical of you both! To go looking for such abstruse explanations. Some of his students have been mucking about to gee him up. I’m sure if you look closely you’ll find they’ve been gumming little pieces of white paper over the pages, and he’s much too nearsighted to spot it.”

“I thought of that. Smooth as if they’ve just been rolled out of the paper mills. If you ever want to see whiter than white, smoother than smooth, I can show you now. No, none of those explanations will do. And the main reason for saying that is that we’ve had the ocular demonstration. We saw one getting away! The word was ‘science’, actually, which you’ll notice is a rather longer word than most of the absentees to date. I spotted it creeping across a sheet of foolscap Dr. Fryer uses for his notes. As soon as I saw it, it stopped moving. But it was in bold type on an unused sheet, with a diagonal slant - it stood out a mile. Well, I prodded it, and it was fixed. At the moment we seem to have it prisoner, though I don’t know what good it will do to keep it so. They’re leaving wholesale. Every book I take down now is riddled with gaps in the text. So now you realise why I’m staying. The implications of this are stupendous. The question that arises first is: is this purely a local outbreak or is it a rebellion that will spread?”

“But, darling,” quavered Frances, “even if they do go on a little jaunt you don’t know that they won’t come back.”

“Come back? Who knows? But supposing they come back in the wrong order. How about that, Frankie?”

“Dr. Fryer would have to start his work all over again in a library, I imagine.”

“Ah, now that’s it. That’s what I want to suggest to you, Frankie. You know where my library keys are kept, in the houndstooth jacket with the leather elbows? Nip across for us and check up a few references.”

“But, darling, I’m not dressed.”

“There’s no one about. And it’s dark.”

“I don’t like it dark.”

“Put the lights on then, for Christ’s sake! Don’t you see this could be the end of civilisation as we know it?”

“Don’t shout at me.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s a shouting situation, though. Please do what we ask. I’ll give you a list of…” He broke off as he heard her uttering small, inarticulate cries. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Are you all right, Frankie?”

At last she struggled out with, “Yes, it’s happening here. They’re not bothering to hide it at all… Oh, lots of them! In all directions. Oh, Alan, I’m scared.”

“They won’t harm you, darling, I’m sure. Just sit still.”

“They’re coming out all over the walls. Millions! They’re making for the window mostly. Oooh, there’s a whole sentence just near me. They’re forming and re-forming in different combinations. They’re almost gay, you know!”

“Sit tight! The mass outbreak is on here now too. Sit down, Dr. Fryer. It’s no good jumping on them! Dr. Fryer’s going a bit berserk, I’m afraid.”

“Alan there’s a whole sentence coming right at me. What will I do?”

“Sit still. Just sit still.”

“It’s coming on my hand. Up my arm.”

“Take a deep breath, and read it to me, Frankie.”

“All right. It’s all in different types and sizes. A sort of goods train of a sentence. It says, ‘Tell your husband that there is nothing he can do. Words have been misused for too long. A new dispensation is called for. When the last book is empty, every prisoner released, every sheet virgin, we shall come to him and start negotiations. In the meantime we shall leave one word behind as an ambassador. The word is Vacation. Message ends.’ “

“That’s it, then,” said Alan. “I’ll tell Dr. Fryer, though I’m afraid he’ll only be one of many that won’t accept it.”

“Alan darling, you know what? I think that ambassador sounds a sweet little word. I say, let those that want to accept, accept. And let those that won’t see where it gets them.”

“But it’s a cultural calamity, Frankie.”

“Calamity, calamity. It’s going to be the nicest summer ever. And aren’t you just a little bit thrilled that they’ve picked you, instead of Fryer, or Jespersen, or Onions, or someone?”

“Well, all but Fryer are dead. But you’ve got something there.”

“So calm old Fryer down if you can, and come home to bed.”

“Why not? At present the Head of the Department is standing in the hall glaring at a sheet of paper with a lot of prisoners on it, while a positive army of words is sweeping by him on both sides. I think I’ll leave him to it.”

“I love you. See you soon.”

She replaced the receiver and walked across to the window. It was a superb night, she thought. She looked down at her forearm. “No offence meant,” she said to the sentence on it, “but my arm really looks better when it’s quite bare. So if you’re going, go!”

She placed her fingers on the window-sill, as if she were giving freedom to some insect which had alighted on her, and the sentence strolled sedately on to it, and disappeared down the drainpipe into the night. Picking her way carefully across the carpet of the study, in order to avoid the jostling verbal exodus, she went back into the bedroom. She placed all her bedside reading by the open window, and dimmed the lights. It was going to be gorgeous when Alan came               and to her. In a blissful summer they would              again and again, recovering many of the                    which had seemed to be threatened by ambition and overwork. She imagined how it would be, and saw                         and                 things which belonged to the two of them alone. A faint flush had come into her cheek, and looking                          good.

She heard the car draw up outside, and Alan charge up the stairs. They stood facing one another, across the room, laughing. Then he                        and

“Yes,” she murmured and                       altogether                bracelets                   boots                                                                                                 chink                                                                                                                                                              in the distance. Later she leant across and                                                                             sleepily but                                                                           remember how Fryer

sea

golden

VACATION.