A Fool's Alphabet by Sebastian Faulks Page A

and asked if it didn’t shed a new light on the application. The feeling of the meeting was that it didn’t, but Russell’s interest was kindled. He bought a couple of secondhand books on the subject of etymology and put an advertisement in the local paper asking if anyone wanted to sell a complete second-hand set of the twelve-volume Oxford English Dictionary. He had no replies, so set about tracking it down bit by bit at jumble sales and auctions. After five years and various forays in his car, sometimes as far away as Nottingham, he had all the volumes except ‘V to Z’.
    Studying them brought a slight but noticeable change to Raymond Russell. He became briefer, even briefer, in his speech. If he knew the root of a word and used it in a way that was close to that root, he thought he had expressed himself unimprovably. It didn’t matter if no one else was aware of that meaning or if it wasn’t the most current one; Russell went for the oldest and purest instance in the book. ‘I’ve got this chronic pain in my leg where this boy kicked me during the match yesterday,’ complained Pietro. ‘If you received the injury yesterday, it can’t be chronic,’ said his father, not with spite or irritation, but with calm satisfaction as he seemed to feel the word and its true meaning fall upon each other like blissfully congruent triangles. ‘What?’ said Pietro.
    Raymond Russell frequently tried to interest Pietro in his hobbies because Pietro seemed to have none of his own. The boy seemed withdrawn, and his father could not think what else to talk to him about.
    He came back one day from a disappointing search in the Charing Cross Road for the missing volume of the dictionary.
    â€˜I think I shall have to advertise again,’ he told Pietro, as he hung up his coat in the hall.
    â€˜Why is this one so important?’
    â€˜Because it’s the one I haven’t got. Once I’ve got “V to Z” I’ll have the whole set.’
    Pietro followed his father into the sitting room. He seemedto make an effort to carry on the conversation, as though for his father’s sake. ‘Do you think it’s rarer than the others because it’s near the end of the alphabet and fewer people bought it?’
    â€˜It doesn’t matter where it comes in the alphabet. I won’t be fixed up until I’ve got it.’
    Pietro said, ‘Is it towards the end of the alphabet because it’s less important?’
    â€˜No. The order of the letters is just random. It could equally start RJN, I suppose.’
    â€˜And who decided the order?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ said Raymond Russell, delighted with Pietro’s apparent interest. ‘But do you remember learning your ABC at school?’ Pietro nodded. ‘I can still remember the day I mastered it at the village school,’ his father went on. ‘I went through all the pictures on the wall from apple to zebra and the teacher said to me, “Now you’ve got the whole world at your feet.”’
    Pietro was staring out of the window. His father was not sure if he was listening. He said cheerily, ‘Do you know the Fool’s Alphabet?’
    â€˜What’s that?’
    â€˜A for ’orses, B for mutton, C for yourself, D for dumb, E for brick, F for vescence, G for police, H for ’imself, I for Novello, J for oranges, K for restaurant, L for leather, M for sis, N for a penny, O for the wings of a dove, P for comfort, Q for a ticket, R for mo, S for Williams, T for two, U for me, V for la France, W for money, X for breakfast, Y for mistr – er, husband, Z for breezes.’
    Pietro smiled. ‘It’s good. But why is it the
fool
’s alphabet? It sounds quite clever to me.’
    â€˜It’s just a phrase,’ said his father. ‘It’s called that because it’s funny, not because it’s stupid. It’s like saying the