The Dictionary of Lost Words(54)

‘You got yer pencil and one of them slips?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Take ’em out of yer pocket.’

I shook my head. It didn’t make sense.

Mabel leaned forward. ‘Do it,’ she said, then a little louder, ‘I just gave you a word and you’ll forget it if you don’t write it down.’

I reached into my pocket for a slip and a pencil. By the time I was poised to write, the trembling had subsided.

‘Trade,’ Mabel said, leaning back a little but not taking her eyes off my face.

I wrote trade in the top-left corner. Below that I wrote Mrs Smyth might still be in the trade.

‘You feelin’ better now?’ Mabel asked.

I nodded.

‘Fear ’ates the ordinary,’ she said. ‘When yer feared, you need to think ordinary thoughts, do ordinary things. You ’ear me? The fear’ll back off, for a time at least.’

I nodded again and looked at the slip. Trade was such a common word.

‘Where did you say Mrs Smyth lived?’ I asked.

Mabel told me, and I wrote it on the bottom of the slip.

Before I left, Mabel retrieved something from within the many folds of cloth that kept her warm. ‘For you,’ she said, handing me a disc of pale wood into which she’d carved a shamrock. ‘Thanks for the pear.’

I folded the slip around it and put it in my pocket.



It was an ordinary terraced house with identical terraced houses either side. A Christmas wreath still hung on the door. I checked the address again then looked along the length of the street. It was empty. I knocked.

The woman who answered the door might have been old, but she was straight-backed and well-dressed and could almost look me in the eye. I assumed I had the wrong house after all and began to stammer an apology, but she cut in.

‘Lovely to see you, my dear,’ she said, rather loudly. ‘How is your mother?’

I stared at her, confused, but she kept the smile on her face and took my arm to draw me into the house.

‘Keeping up appearances,’ she said when the door was closed. ‘The neighbours are all busy-bodies.’ She looked at me then, like Mabel had, searched my face and glanced down the length of my body. ‘I assume you wouldn’t want them all knowing your business.’

I couldn’t find the words for a reply, and Mrs Smyth didn’t seem to require one. She took my coat and hung it on a coat stand by the door, then she walked down the narrow hall, and I followed. She ushered me into a small sitting room, walls lined with books, a fire burning low in the hearth. I could see where she’d been sitting before I knocked: a velvet sofa, midnight blue with large, soft cushions of various patterns scattered across the back. It was big enough for two, but only at one end was the velvet worn and the seat depressed from years of being favoured. A book was splayed open on the table beside it, the spine strained. As Mrs Smyth stoked the fire, I moved closer to the book. In Mary’s Reign, by Baroness Orczy. I’d bought it years before, from Blackwell’s bookshop. For a moment I forgot why I was there and regretted the disturbance I had caused.

‘I like to read,’ Mrs Smyth said, when she caught me looking at the book. ‘Do you like to read?’

I nodded, but my mouth was too dry to speak. She went to her sideboard and poured a glass of water.

‘Take a sip, don’t gulp it,’ she said, handing it to me. I did as she instructed.

‘Good,’ she said, taking the glass from me. ‘Now, may I ask who recommended me?’

‘Mabel O’Shaughnessy,’ I whispered.

‘You can speak up,’ she said. ‘No one can hear us in here.’

‘Mabel O’Shaughnessy,’ I said again.

Mrs Smyth did not immediately recognise Mabel’s name, and it was little help to describe the way she looked. But when I told her what I knew of her past, and mentioned her Irish lilt, Mrs Smyth began to nod.

‘She was a repeat customer,’ she said, unsmiling. ‘A stall in the Covered Market, you say?’

I nodded, looked down at my feet. The floor of the sitting room was covered in a richly patterned carpet.

‘I didn’t think she’d survive the game,’ she said.

I looked up. ‘The game?’

‘Clearly it’s not why you’re here.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I get two types of women knocking on my door,’ she said. ‘Those who get around too much and those who get around too little.’ She looked me up and down, took in every article of clothing. ‘You are the latter.’

‘And the game?’ I asked again, my hand going to my pocket to check I had a slip and pencil.

‘The game is whoring,’ she said, as if nothing worse than whist or draughts had crossed her lips. ‘There are players, like any game, though the dice are always loaded. When you lose you end up in gaol, the cemetery or here.’

She put her hand on my belly, and I jumped. When she began digging her fingers in, I tried to move away.

‘Stay still,’ she said, putting one hand in the small of my back so she could get purchase with the other. ‘Mrs Warren’s profession, some call it, because of the play by Bernard Shaw. Do you like the theatre?’ she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I was invited to the opening night of that one. Whores aren’t the only women who find their way to my door. I get my fair share of actresses too.’ She stopped prodding and took a step back.