The Dictionary of Lost Words(97)

I did not believe it was Shakespeare’s England bowing the Controller’s head, and suddenly the article seemed callous. To name a book but not a single man. I stepped back from the doorway and knocked louder. Mr Hart looked up this time, a little dazed, a little frightened. I handed him the corrected proofs.

Next, I went to find Gareth, but he wasn’t in his office. I found him in the composing room, leaning over his old bench.

‘Can’t stay away from it?’ I said.

Gareth looked up from the type. His smile unconvincing. ‘Too many empty benches,’ he said. ‘The printing room is the same. Only the bindery is at full strength now, though a few of the women have signed on to the Voluntary Aid Detachment.’ He wiped his hands on his apron.

‘Perhaps Mr Hart should think about employing women as printers and compositors.’

‘It’s been raised, but it’s not a popular idea. Inevitable, though, I think.’

‘Mr Hart looks awful.’

Gareth took off his apron and we walked together to where other identical aprons hung on individual hooks. ‘I think he’s falling into one of his depressions,’ he said. ‘It’s understandable. This place is like a village; everyone is related to someone, and each death ripples through it.’

When we crossed the quad, it struck me for the first time just how quiet it really was. Instead of walking towards Jericho, I directed Gareth down Great Clarendon Street. ‘It’s not too cold,’ I said. ‘I thought we could walk along the Castle Mill Stream. I’ve brought sandwiches.’

I could think of nothing ordinary to say as we walked, though Gareth seemed not to notice. We turned into Canal Street and passed St Barnabas Church. It was only as we were on the towpath that he asked if everything was alright. I tried to smile, but was completely unsuccessful.

‘You’re making me nervous,’ he said.

I chose a quiet spot dappled with weak sunshine. Gareth took off his coat and spread it on the ground, and I placed mine beside his. We sat, too close for the acrimony I thought would come. I took the sandwiches out of my satchel and passed him one.

‘Say it,’ he said.

‘Say what?’

‘Whatever is on your mind.’

I searched his face. I didn’t want anything to change the way he looked at me, but I also wanted him to understand me completely. My mind swirled with images and emotion, and I could not recall a single word of what I had rehearsed. I felt breathless. Got to my feet. Walked beside the stream, gulping air, but still I couldn’t breathe. Gareth called after me, but the rushing in my ears made him sound far away.

I would tell him about Her, I knew that. Though I might not be forgiven. I felt sick, but I turned back.



We sat opposite each other. Each on our own coat, Gareth looking down now, stunned and silent. I’d told him everything. I’d said words I’d been afraid of – virgin, pregnant, confinement, birth, baby, adopted – and I was calmer. The nausea had gone.

I watched Gareth, detached. I might have lost him, but the loss of Her was certain. He might have been disappointed in me, but I was disappointed in myself.

I rose and started walking away. When I looked back he was still sitting where I’d left him, his hand was stroking the coat I’d left behind.

Along Canal Street, I found the doors to St Barnabas were open. I sat in the Morning Chapel. I don’t know how long I’d been there before Gareth found me and put my coat over my shoulders. He sat beside me. When he took my arm sometime later, I let him lead me back out into the winter sunshine.

When we arrived back at the Press, I collected my bicycle and insisted I could ride back to the Scriptorium alone.

Gareth looked at me – no acrimony, but there was a sadness.

‘It doesn’t change anything,’ he said.

‘How can it not?’

‘I don’t know. It just doesn’t.’

‘But it might, over time.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. The war has made the present more important than the past, and far more certain than the future. How I feel right now is all I can rely on. And after all that you’ve told me, I think I love you more.’

Few words have as many variants as love. I felt it resonate deep in my chest and knew it to mean something different to any other version I’d heard or uttered. But the sadness on Gareth’s face remained. He took my hand and kissed the scars, then he turned and went into the Press.



When I stirred the next morning, the house felt frigid. I could hardly raise my body from the bed. Gareth’s words should have been a relief, but they were tempered by his sadness. He was holding something back from me, as I had from him. I shivered and wished that Lizzie was there.

I dressed quickly and walked in near darkness to Sunnyside.

Lizzie was up to her elbows in suds when I came into the kitchen. The bench was crowded with breakfast things: dirty bowls and teacups; plates with crumbs of toast.

‘The range is blazing,’ she said. ‘Go warm yourself while I finish the dishes.’

‘Where’s the girl who normally comes in the morning?’ I asked. There had been a few, and the name of the current one escaped me.

‘Gone. At least the war’s good for some people: the factories pay more than the Murrays ever could.’

I removed my coat and took up a tea towel. ‘Any chance Mrs Ballard could come out of retirement?’