I want to get up and pull the volume from the shelf, but I’m worried that the definition I read will not apply to Mum. So I sit a little longer and my memories of Mum erase all concern. But now, I fear that mother will not apply to Esme.
Meg folded the page and added it to the trunk.
Later, Philip Brooks placed a breakfast tray on the small table beside his daughter. A pot of tea, two slices of lemon in a little dish, four slices of toast and a newly opened jar of orange-and-lime marmalade. There was enough for two.
‘Join me, Dad,’ she said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
Meg picked up her mum’s china cup from where she had left it the night before and held it out for him to fill. He poured her tea, then his. He added a slice of lemon to both cups.
‘Does it change anything?’ he asked.
‘It changes everything,’ Meg said.
He bent his head to sip his tea; his hands shook very slightly. When Meg looked at his face she saw that every muscle was working to hold back an emotion he wanted to spare her from.
‘Almost everything,’ she said.
He looked up.
‘It doesn’t change what I feel for you, Dad. And it doesn’t change what I feel for Mum, or how I will remember her. I think perhaps I might even love her a little more. Right now, I miss her terribly.’
They sat in silence among Esme’s things, and from across the park the soothing repetition of bat on ball marked the passing of time.
The man standing behind the lectern clears his throat, but to no avail; the auditorium buzzes like a hive. He rearranges his papers, looks at his watch, peers at the gathered academics over his reading glasses. Then he clears his throat again, a little louder this time, and into the microphone.
The clamour dies down; a few stragglers find their seats. The man behind the lectern begins to speak.
‘Welcome to the tenth Annual Convention of the Australian Lexicography Society,’ he says, with a small quaver in his quiet voice. Then, after a pause that is slightly too long, he continues.
‘Naa Manni,’ he says with a little more strength, his gaze sweeping around the room. ‘That is the Kaurna way of saying hello to more than one person, and I’m glad to see there is more than one person here today.’ There is the murmur of mild amusement. ‘For those of you who are visiting our city, and perhaps some of you who have lived here all your life, the Kaurna are the Aboriginal people who called this land home before this great hall was built, and before English was ever spoken in this country. We are on their land, yet we do not speak their language.
‘I use Kaurna words this morning to make a point. Back in the 1830s and ’40s, they were used by Mullawirraburka, Kadlitpinna and Ityamaiitpinna, Kaurna Elders known more commonly by white settlers as King John, Captain Jack and King Rodney. These Aboriginal men sat with two German men who were interested in learning the indigenous language. The Germans wrote down what they heard and fashioned meanings that might be understood by others. They were doing the work of linguists and lexicographers, though these are not terms they would have used. They were missionaries, but any one of us would recognise their passion for language, their desire to record and understand the spoken word, not only so it might inform proper contemporary usage, but also so it might be preserved, and its historical context understood. If not for their efforts, the linguistic world of the Kaurna people would be lost to us, and so too our understanding of what was meaningful to them, what is meaningful to them. Few Kaurna people speak their language today, but because it has been written down, and the meanings of words recorded, it is possible that Kaurna people – and, dare I suggest, whitefellas such as myself – will speak it again.’ His voice has risen to an excited pitch and his forehead shines under the harsh lights of the stage. He pauses to catch his breath.
‘Nineteen eighty-nine is a significant year for the English language, though it is probably true to say that few outside this hall would know it.’ There is a smattering of laughter, and he looks up, clearly pleased.
‘This year, the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary has been published, sixty-one years after the completion of the first. It combines the first edition and all the supplements, as well as an additional five thousand words and meanings. This work – this documenting of language – has been done by lexicographers, some of whom I know are in the auditorium today. For this great effort, we congratulate you.’ He claps, and the audience joins in, some with whistles and whoops. ‘Settle down, everyone, we have a staid and serious reputation to uphold.’ More laughter. He waits it out, relaxed now.
‘The great James Murray once said, “I am not a literary man. I am a man of science, and I am interested in that branch of anthropology which deals with the history of human speech.”
‘Words define us, they explain us, and, on occasion, they serve to control or isolate us. But what happens when words that are spoken are not recorded? What effect does that have on the speaker of those words? One lexicographer, whom we can all be grateful has read between the lines of the great dictionaries of the English language, including Dr Murray’s OED, is Professor Megan Brooks: professor emeritus of the University of Adelaide, chair of the Australasian Philological Society and recipient of an OAM for services to language.
‘Without further ado, I invite Professor Megan Brooks to the podium, where she will deliver the opening address. Her lecture is titled “The Dictionary of Lost Words”. ’
Applause accompanies a tall, upright woman onto the stage. As she approaches the lectern, she tucks a