The Dictionary of Lost Words(52)

I looked at her like she was mad. ‘I can’t have a baby, Lizzie.’



Expect. Expectant. Expecting.

It means to wait. For an invitation, a person, an event. But never for a baby. Not a single quotation in D to E mentioned a baby. Lizzie calculated that I’d been ‘expecting’ for ten weeks, but I’d been oblivious.

The next day, I stayed in bed instead of joining Da for breakfast. A headache, I told him, and he agreed that I looked pale. As soon as he left for the Scriptorium, I went to his room and stood in front of Lily’s mirror.

I was a little pale, yes, but in my nightdress I could see no change. I loosened the ribbon around my neck and let the nightdress fall to the floor. I remembered Bill tracing his finger from my head to my toes. Naming every part of me. My gaze retraced his path; gooseflesh rose as it had each time we’d been together. I stopped at my belly, at the hint of roundness that could easily be a big meal or wind or the heaviness before my monthly bleed. But it was none of those things, and the body I had so recently learned to read was suddenly incomprehensible.

I pulled the nightdress back up and tied the ribbon tight. I returned to bed and pulled the covers up to my neck. I lay there for hours, barely moving, not wanting to feel what might be going on inside me.

I was waiting, but not for a baby. I was waiting for a solution.

I slept badly that night. In the morning, I felt worse for the lack of sleep, but I insisted on going to the Scriptorium. I kept a packet of McVitie’s in my desk and nibbled them through the morning post and while sorting slips. I tried to improve on the top-slip meanings suggested by volunteers, but nothing better would come to mind.

I looked over to the sorting table. Da sat where he had always sat, as did Mr Sweatman and Mr Maling. Mr Yockney sat where Mr Mitchell used to, and I suddenly wondered what kind of shoes he wore and whether his socks matched. Would another child be welcomed beneath the sorting table? Or would new assistants complain and chastise and accuse? Da coughed, brought out his handkerchief and blew his nose. He had a cold, that was all, but I suddenly realised that he was older, greyer, fleshier. Would he have the energy to be mother and father, grandmother and grandfather? Would it be fair to ask it of him?

At lunchtime, I joined Mrs Ballard and Lizzie in the kitchen and suffered their anxiety.

‘You must tell your father, Essymay. And Bill should be made to do the right thing,’ Lizzie said.

‘I won’t be telling Bill,’ I said. Lizzie stared at me, her face full of fear.

‘At least write to Miss Thompson. She’ll help you tell your father. She’ll know what to do,’ suggested Mrs Ballard.

‘There’s time yet,’ I said, not knowing if there was or there wasn’t. Lizzie and Mrs Ballard looked at each other but said nothing more. The kitchen became unbearably silent. When Lizzie asked if I’d be going with her to the Covered Market on Saturday, I said I would.



The market was crowded. It was a relief. I hovered beside Lizzie as she went from stall to stall, testing the firmness of one fruit, the give of another. The banter was familiar and reassuring; no one made a point of asking how I felt or of telling me I looked pale.

Eventually, we made our way to Mabel’s stall. It had been weeks since I’d seen her. She looked smaller, the unnatural curve of her back more pronounced. As we got closer I could see that she was whittling. Closer still, and the movement of her hands was mesmerising, their dexterity a contradiction to her wretched body.

Mabel was so absorbed that she didn’t notice we were standing by her stall until Lizzie put an orange on the crate in front of her. Her craggy face barely registered the gift, but she put down the knife and whisked the orange into the folds of her rags. Then she picked up her knife and resumed her whittling.

‘You’ll like this, when it’s done,’ she said, looking at me.

‘What is it?’ asked Lizzie.

Mabel turned to Lizzie for a moment and passed her the figure.

‘It’s Taliesin the bard. Or maybe Merlin the wizard. I reckon Miss Words-Worth ’ere will like it for ’er da.’ She looked back to me, expecting praise for her wordplay. I gave a wan smile.

‘It must be one or the other,’ said Lizzie.

‘One and the same,’ said Mabel, her eyes shifting over me and narrowing slightly. ‘Just the name keeps changin’. ’

Lizzie handed back the whittling, and Mabel took it without looking away from my face. I shifted uncomfortably and she leaned forward.

‘Yer showin’, ’ she whispered. ‘In yer face. If you took off that coat, I reckon I’d see it.’

The shouts of stallholders, the clatter of carts, the competing conversations; all the sounds of the market were sucked into a single piercing note. Instinct made me look around, made me do up the undone buttons of my coat.

Mabel smiled and sat back. She was pleased with herself. I began to shake.

Until that moment, my anxiety had been all about telling Da. I hadn’t thought about what anyone else might think, or what the consequences of them knowing might be. I looked around and felt like some small creature with nowhere to run.

‘Ain’t ’eard of no wedding,’ Mabel said.

‘Enough, Mabel,’ Lizzie whispered.

Their words cut through the ringing in my ears, and the sounds of the market came flooding back. There was a moment of relief when I realised that nobody seemed to have noticed. But it didn’t last. I had to lean on Mabel’s crate to stop from falling.