Somehow Richard had managed to drift away from the Big Bang theory and started telling us about outbreaks of malaria in Cambridge.
‘There was malaria in England?’
‘Certainly. They called it Fen Ague. They thought that it was caused by the bad air from the marshes, the fens’
This was too much for Pierre to bear – as if the Joan of Arc thing had not been enough.
‘Aigu? This is a French word’
‘No, no, this is an English word’
‘What it means?’
Richard searched the databank behind his eyelids. ‘It means fever’
‘Fever?’ Pierre was scandalized. Not only were we stealing the words of his country,
but we were putting them to improper use
In all innocence, Richard asked what it meant in French
And that was when I made my Big Mistake.
‘Sharp’, I said
Pierre looked as though he was about to demonstrate the big bang theory in person
‘It means not Sharp’, halting until the big red light in his nose went out, ‘it means Extreme’
And a solemn moment passed as the Angles and Saxons took in this new information