England and Other Stories by Graham Swift Read Free Book Online Page B

holding her and thinking. He thought: What is Mr Reeves doing now? Is he in bed with Mrs Reeves—with Sylvia? He wondered if when Mr Reeves had talked to them in his office he’d had any idea of how the two of them, his clients (and that was a strange word and a strange thing to be), would spend the rest of the day. He hoped Mr Reeves had had an inkling.
    He wondered if he really might become like Mr Reeves when he was older. If he too would have (still plentiful and handsome) silver hair.
    Then he forgot Mr Reeves altogether and the overwhelming thought came to him: Remember this, remember this. Remember this always. Whatever comes, remember this.
    He was so smitten by the need to honour and consummate this thought that even as he held Lisa in his arms his chest felt full and he couldn’t prevent his eyes suddenly welling. When Lisa slept she sometimes unknowingly nuzzled him, like some small creature pressing against its mother. She did this now, as if she might have quickly licked the skin at the base of his neck.
    He was wide awake. Remember this. He couldn’t sleep and he didn’t want to sleep. The grotesque thought came to him that he’d just made his last will and testament, so he could die now, it was all right to die. This might be his deathbed and this, with Lisa in his arms, might be called dying happy—surely it could be called dying happy—the very thing that no will or testament, no matter how prudent its provisions, could guarantee.
    But no, of course not! He clasped Lisa, almost wanting to wake her, afraid of his thought.
    Of course not! He was alive and happy, intensely alive and happy. Then he had the thought that though he’d drafted his last testament it was not in any real sense a testament, it was not even
his
testament. It was only a testament about the minor matter of his possessions and what should become of them when he was no more. But it was not the real testament of his life, its stuff, its story. It was not a testament at all to how he was feeling
now
.
    How strange that people solemnly drew up and signed these crucial documents that were really about their non-existence, and didn’t draw up anything—there wasn’t even a word for such a thing—that testified to their existence.
    Then he realised that in all his time of knowing her he’d never written a love letter to this woman, Lisa, who was sleeping in his arms. Though he loved her completely, more than words could say—which was perhaps the simple reason why he’d never written such a thing. Love letters were classically composed to woo and to win, they were a means of getting what you didn’t have. What didn’t he have? Perhaps they were just silly wordy exercises anyway. He hardly wrote letters at all, let alone love letters, he hardly
wrote
anything. He wouldn’t be any good at it.
    And yet. And yet the need to write his wife a love letter assailed him. Not just a random letter that might, in theory, be one among many, but
the
letter, the letter that would declare to her once and for all how much he loved her and why. So it would be there always for her, as enduring as a will. The testament of his love, and thus of his life. The testament of how his heart had been full one rainy night in May when he was twenty-five. He would not need to write any other.
    So overpowering was this thought that eventually he disengaged his arms gently from Lisa and got out of bed. He put on his bathrobe and went into the kitchen. There was the lingering smell of toasted cheese and there was the unfinished bottle of wine. They possessed no good-quality notepaper, unless Lisa had a private stash, but there was a box of A4 by the computer in the spare room and he went in and took a couple of sheets and found a blue roller-ball pen. He’d never had a fountain pen or used real ink, but he felt quite sure that this thing had to be handwritten, it would not be the thing it should be otherwise. He’d noticed that Mr Reeves had a very handsome