But happening to arrive one day at the same time, we fell into conversation on the escalator, and happy as I was with our arrangement, it seemed absurd to part and sit at separate tables. We should sit at the round table, obviously, we should meet one another halfway; but we both hesitated, with our hands on the backs of our chairs.
‘Alfresco, perhaps?’ Spilkin said, nodding towards the balcony.
‘“Fresco” is a relative term, Spilkin.’ He brought out a slightly haughty tone in me, which I was rather pleased about. ‘Sit out there and you’ll be breathing exhaust fumes in the rush hour, which is about to start. Every twenty minutes or so, the upper deck of the Braamfontein bus will slide into view and the passengers will gaze at you through the railings as if you’re a beast in a cage. Say a chimpanzee from Sierra Leone in the Jardin des Plantes.’ This flourish was prompted by the little Eiffels (I have never been abroad).
I could see he was impressed, but he continued to gaze around the room as if a better option might suggest itself. I had other bolts in my quiver — the wind will scatter my papers to the four corners of the block, the sun will blister my pate, the occupants of the flats above will drop the ash of their cigarettes upon me — but I aimed at a more subtle target in the gloomier depths of the room: ‘Over there?’
He voiced the obvious objection: ‘Too close to the W[ater] C[loset].’
The spot where we already found ourselves now became defined as a reasonable compromise between two unsuitable extremes, and by common consent, we sat down at the round table (it was No. 2) facing one another, with Alibia to my right and his left. A sudden chill shook me, as if a seaward breeze had lifted a handful of pins and needles off the white beach in front of the casino and flung them in my face. He opened the Tonight! section to the crossword and folded it in half with a casual flick, which I had to interpret as a gesture of gratitude. I opened my briefcase — only a fool or a drug dealer would carry a briefcase through the streets of Hillbrow today, but it was a common enough occurrence then — and unpacked my equipment, laying each piece in its position, which was as rigidly preordained as a place-setting: notebook, pencil (Faber-Castell 2B), sharpener, eraser, dictionary (Concise Oxford, fourth edition, opere citato, under the worthy editorship of Henry and Frank Fowler, faithfully revised by a certain McIntosh, proofreaders inexplicably unacknowledged, as usual), lever-arch research file, punch, scissors, Sellotape, index cards.
I opened the file and the notebook. I sharpened the pencil into the ashtray and returned it to its spot.
It has always been my practice before setting to work, to limber up with a few minutes of basic lexicology, stretching the verbal tendons, if you like, to guard against injury, and so I opened the dictionary at my marker. Since my retirement I had been working my way steadily through the Concise, a leisurely passage, no more than a column a day, lingering over words. Let’s see. Chew, Chianti, chiaroscuro. Chiasmus — I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed. Chibol. Chibouk. Chibouque may have been better. Chicanery: from the Persian for ‘polo-stick’. As far as chime. Which comes from the same root as ‘cymbal’. Might make a fine graaff (a lexical backflip). When I was nicely warmed up, it was time for a bit of lexical fartlek (to use that unfortunate term, from the Swiss fart, speed, and lek, play): I opened the dictionary at random and put my finger down on Candlemas: feast of purification. I went to feast, quickly, and then rambled through the entry at my leisure. A large or sumptuous meal. Partake of a feast, eat or drink sumptuously. From the Latin festus, joyous. Obviously the same root as festival … I sprinted for that entry, via fertile ~ feudal ~ fictile … too far … back to festival. Here we are, festival, from the med. Latin festivalis, as festive. Festive … from festum, as feast. Bingo. Back to fictile. Made of earth or clay by a potter; of pottery. From the Latin fictilis, f. fingere, fict — fashion. Quick dash to fashion (farthingale ~ fasces ~ no sign of fartlek) and stroll through factio, f. facere, fact — do, make. Must remember to check ‘finger’. But first sprint to fiction. Yes, of course, as fictile. An invented idea or statement, an imaginary thing. A conventionally accepted falsehood. Back to facile: easily achieved but of little value. Of speech, writing etc., fluent, ready, glib. From the Latin facilis, f. facere — do. Take a breather. I turned to my notebook.
‘If you don’t mind my asking, Tearle,’ Spilkin said, as I’d hoped he might, ‘what are you up to?’
I had been dying to tell someone about ‘The Proofreader’s Derby’ (although I wasn’t thinking of it in those terms yet). I was wrapped up in it then, rapt, passionately intent. And Spilkin and I would have to get to know one another, now that we were sharing a table.
‘I’m working on my System of Records.’
‘Gee-gees?’
‘Proofreading.’
That would have stopped many men in their tracks, but Spilkin, give him his due, was a sharp one: ‘Your life’s work?’
I’d never thought of it that way, but he was spot on. The story of my life. I nodded.
‘Tell me about it then.’
‘Well, in this file here, which is just one of several dozen, are the fruits of a long career — I won’t say a distinguished one, in the ordinary sense of the word, but certainly respectable. My documentation, my papers. You’ll see that many of them are clippings of one sort or another, from newspapers mainly, but also magazines and journals, and books. Those are the photostatic copies, mind you, or the handwritten quotations; I would never be so barbarous (from the Greek barbaros, foreign) as to tear a page from a book. And then also gazettes, programmes, handbills, posters, wedding invitations, menus. I’ve got some unusual things, collector’s items. This here is a label from a tin: “Pot’ o’ Gold petit poise.” Now I’m busy transcribing the important parts of these documents into this notebook here — also one of many, twenty-six to be precise, one for each letter of the alphabet — in a form that allows for easy reference without losing the essence. I never had the time to collate all this raw material while I was employed, although I was gathering diligently for thirty years and more, and so I’m devoting my retirement to the task. Keeping the grey matter supple, too. They say it’s as important as taking care of the body, you know.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Everyone’s always pointing fingers at “them”. “They” said this and “they” did that. Who do you mean exactly?’
‘Who do you mean by “everyone”?’ I countered.
‘People in general.’
‘Well, that’s who I mean by “they”.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘What are you driving at?’
‘Americans. That’s who you mean. Yanks. Specifically Californians. Jane Fonda and Sylvester Stallone.’
‘Who?’
‘They’re the ones who’re sprouting this stuff about the mind and the body as if it was all their idea, as if it didn’t go back to the Greeks!’ Mrs Mavrokordatos’s ear pinkened. ‘The gymnasium, a noble institution founded for the social good, issues in the naked commercialism of Jim’s Gym.’