‘Well, hello, Ms Edwards. So good to put a face to the name,’ says Dewi.
‘You too. It’s great to meet you, finally.’
I hand him the bag of liquorice, and he looks thrilled.
‘Well, how lovely, thank you. So, sit down. Tell me all about Prague then.’
I tell him how wonderful it was and what the letters were mostly about.
‘Well, well. That was some love story between the two of them, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, it’s all very sad, really. If only he hadn’t had that accident in the river, then they’d have been together.’
‘I know. What a terrible pity.’
‘You know, I wanted to do something to honour them. I thought about a padlock on a bridge in Prague with their names on, but that wasn’t a good idea.’
‘No, that could even be considered criminal damage doing something like that to those lovely historic bridges.’
‘Yes, exactly. But anyway, I’ll think of something for them. Maybe I’ll get a rose bush named after them or something. Can you do that? Or a bench somewhere? That would be nice.’
‘Was Marek buried, do you know?’
‘No, he was cremated. Albert, his brother, still has his ashes at home with him.’
‘Well, that’s interesting. Grace was cremated too, wasn’t she?’
‘Umm, yeah.’
‘You know. I have an idea. Why don’t you put their ashes together? Take Grace’s ashes to Prague. Albert would have to agree to let go of Marek’s ashes first, of course. That might be possible. I suppose you’d need to speak to him and his family about it…’
‘No, I don’t want to go back again. I’ve left now, and… well, Tomas, Marek’s nephew, well, he…’
‘Great, you can ask this Tomas if he can arrange it then.’
‘No, I don’t have his number.’
‘I’m sure you could find it out.’
‘No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ll think of something else.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh, come on, you have to at least ask. The two of them could be together for eternity then. Imagine!’
For a solicitor, he certainly has a lot of meddling time on his hands.
‘I don’t know. I can’t exactly ask Albert or Tomas such a question.’
‘Can’t you?’
‘No! Now, what was it you wanted me to sign?’
Dewi looks through his file and gives me a form to sign saying that I have been told about the will and the estate I will inherit. I sign it whilst he goes through the paperwork.
‘Drat. There’s a form missing. You’ll have to come back again. I am so sorry. I’ve got a new secretary, and she gets a bit confused with things. That’s the problem when you hire a family member.’
