Corduroy Mansions

10. Oedipus Snark MP

Jenny was on her way to Dolphin Square, where she was to meet Oedipus Snark for what he described as dictée. She had asked him why he called it that, and he had replied, ‘Dictation, my dear Jennifer, is such an authoritarian word. If I were to give you dictation, I would feel so like a . . . like a Conservative. Dictators, no doubt, give dictation. Whereas dictée is what we used to have at the Lycée in South Kensington. Our dear teacher, Madame Hilliard, would dictate a complicated passage to us - Proust perhaps, with its dreadfully long sentences - and we poor élèves would write it all down in our little cahiers. So sweet. That’s why I call this taking of letters on your part dictée rather than dictation. See?’

Oedipus Snark had an annoying habit of adding see? to his observations. At first Jenny had been largely unaware of it, but then, after she had worked for him for a few weeks, she became acutely conscious of it and resented it greatly. She had even sent a letter about it to an agony aunt, in which she had written: ‘I work for a man in public life. He has his good points, I am sure, but I am finding his turn of phrase more and more irritating. At the end of many of his sentences he adds the word “see”. He is not Welsh; when Welsh people say that, or “look you”, it sounds rather nice, but he is not Welsh. Should I say something to him about this, or should I try to put it out of my mind? The work is otherwise interesting and I do not want to lose my job.’

The agony aunt had published this letter, and her reply.

Dear Anxious,

There is often nothing worse than some little mannerism in others that we become aware of and then look out for. I have a teenage son who adds ‘and stuff’ to virtually everything he says. When I ask him what time it is, he says, ‘It’s eight, and stuff.’ By comparison, what your boss says is mild, although I fully understand that my telling you that other people have worse verbal mannerisms must be scant consolation. I always remember the advice given by a rather wise psychiatrist, who said, ‘the contemplation of the toothache of another in no way relieves one’s own toothache’. That, I think, is broadly true.

What should you do? Well, the same doctor also said, ‘verbalisation precedes resolution’. And that, I think, is also very true. So I suggest that you talk to your boss and say that there is a little matter that is worrying you. Stress that it’s just you - that it’s an odd sensitivity you have - and then tell him what it is. My bet is that if you are frank - and if you mention that you have many faults yourself - he will be accommodating and will try to stop. Alternatively, of course, he may sack you.

The final part of this advice had persuaded Jenny that perhaps it was best not to say anything, and so she merely closed her ears to the ‘see’. And there was so much else to take exception to in Oedipus Snark that linguistic mannerisms were soon overshadowed. Jenny became used to the false excuses that he gave - ‘diplomatic excuses’, he called them - but still it made her uncomfortable to be party to them. Like all MPs, he received regular invitations to visit schools and libraries in his constituency, and he was in the habit of turning all of these down, without exception. ‘I shall, alas, be tied up with parliamentary business on that day’ was the standard excuse. It was then followed by fulsome praise of the school’s efforts: ‘May I take this opportunity to tell you how many people have expressed their admiration for the high standards that your school has achieved over the last year. I really must congratulate you: it is not easy to motivate students in these distracting days, and you seem to achieve this with conspicuous success.’ This was said to every school, and had even once been inserted into a letter to a local baker, who had written about European regulations and their baneful effect on small bakers.

For invitations to functions that were several months away, more inventive excuses were necessary. It was difficult to turn down an invitation received in, say, March for an event that was to take place in October. But Oedipus Snark was not loth to do this, and he had even told a pensioners’ action group that he could not attend a meeting planned for six months hence. ‘I very much regret that I shall be unable to attend,’ he dictated, ‘on the grounds that . . .’ He paused, and looked at Jenny as if for inspiration. ‘On the grounds that I shall be attending a funeral on that day. There!’ he said. ‘That settles that.’

Jenny looked up from her notebook. ‘But . . .’ she began. ‘But, how could you know? Funerals are usually arranged only a few days beforehand. They’ll know that you can’t possibly be booked to go to a funeral six months ahead.’

Oedipus Snark glared at her. ‘Oh yes?’ he challenged. ‘And what about cases where people are given six months to live? You have heard of those, I take it? Well, there you are. It’s perfectly possible that if somebody has been given six months to live and has told his friends, they’ll pencil his funeral in the diary. Perfectly possible.’ And to underline his point, he added, ‘See?’

Jenny had bitten her lip, both in reality and metaphorically. She told herself that she was not in a position to change him in any respect and that she should therefore simply accept him for what he was. After all, he was a democratically elected Member of Parliament, even if the turn-out in his constituency at the election had been only thirty-two per cent. He had been chosen, and it was not for her to dispute the choice of his electors. In those circumstances, her job was to help him to do the job that he had been elected to do; or to avoid doing it, as was the case with him. But she realised that she did not like him, and never could. And that, she later discovered, was exactly what Oedipus Snark’s own mother thought about him too.

‘Don’t talk to me about my son,’ Berthea Snark had said to Jenny when she first met her. ‘Just don’t talk to me about him.’