He was not as they’d expected. He was soft-spoken, silver-haired and kindly. He smiled at them as if he’d never before met such a sweet newly married young couple, so plainly in love yet so sensibly doing the right thing. He was more like a vicar than a solicitor, and later Nick and Lisa shared the thought that they’d wished Mr Reeves had actually married them. Going to see him was in fact not unlike getting married. It had the same mixture of solemnity and giggly disbelief—are we really doing this?—the same feeling of being a child in adult’s clothing. They’d thought it might be a rather grim process. You can’t make a will without thinking about death, even when you’re twenty-four and twenty-five. They’d thought Mr Reeves might be hard going. But he was so nice. He gently steered them through the delicate business of making provision for their dying together, or with the briefest of gaps in between. ‘In a car accident say,’ he said, with an apologetic smile. That was like contemplating death indeed, that was like saying they might die tomorrow.
What do You think about England And Other Stories?
