I’ll never forget Whatsisname. It was many years ago, when I was a mere articled clerk, or "trainee solicitor", as they are termed now. I was just settling down to my sandwich lunch in my pokey little room on a Tuesday in June. The weather was wet and miserable, as it often is in June.

The phone went. Could I see a gentleman who had just come into the office without an appointment. It was important. And urgent. Muttering expletives under my breath, I put my sandwich back in its wrapper, wiped my fingers on the back of my shirt and opened the door.

In swept Whatsisname. I immediately recognised him as an actor currently playing a leading role at the local theatre (this was rural East Anglia - real sticks country). He extended his hand in a majestic manner, greeted me as if I were a long lost friend, and seated himself in the client’s chair. He had a theatrical moustache and wore a long, fawn cloak that got caught up in the arms of the chair and nearly tore apart when he sat down.

‘My dear fellow,’ he boomed, melodramatically leaning forward over my desk and engaging me eyeball to eyeball. ‘I have to go down to the hospital this afternoon - just a little operation, you understand - and I thought I’d pop in here on the way to do my will. That’s all right, isn’t it?’

My jaw must have fallen open. In those days, anything less than a week for preparing someone’s will was unthinkable.

‘Is there something wrong?’ said Whatsisname, looking at me with quizzical amusement. ‘I can assure you it’s a perfectly straightforward matter. I’m sure you can knock off what I need in no time at all.’ He smiled an infectious smile and I half expected him to jump on the desk and give me a little tap dance routine.

‘Okay,’ I said at last, trying to sound enthusiastic and wondering how long it would be before I could get back to my sandwiches. ‘Er . . Let’s see. Have you made a will before?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said with a wave of his hand. ‘But that was a long time ago and things have changed a bit.’

The conversation that followed was soon a blur, a bad dream coming true. I scribbled notes fast and furiously. My boss, the all-knowing, all-seeing, well, I won’t trouble you with his name, had discovered my situation, and in his customary manner was monitoring things to make sure I performed the near-impossible in record time.

You see, Whatsisname’s situation was, in a word, complicated.

Extremely. He had two children by his first wife, who was chasing him for maintenance. He had about three children plus an adopted child by his second wife. The paternity of the youngest, by the way, was in dispute.

He was still married to her but by now he was living with someone else by whom he had another couple of children, plus another child or two that were his partner’s by a previous relationship.

Got that? I think you should read the previous paragraph again to try and take it all in. That’s better, isn’t it?

Now on top of that he was the beneficiary under the terms of a twenty year old trust that also benefited his wife and any children that he may have.

He wanted to make sure that neither of his wives could claim anything, leave most of his property to his current partner and benefit his children in varying shares.

That afternoon was a frenzy of searching out precedents, checking the provisions of various statutes and scribbling draft clauses out on sheets of paper. The boss berated me and I berated a secretary who typed out dozens of drafts before the engrossment (final copy) was anywhere near ready. Sheets of paper everywhere. No word processors in those days. Oh, no. We did things the hard way.

It was towards six o’clock in the evening when a bedraggled figure (me) made its way through the pouring rain to the hospital with Whatsisname’s will, amounting to about five pages of closely typed A4. Whatsisname, sitting up in his hospital bed, looked as cheerful as if he were about to receive an Oscar.

He beamed at me and said, ‘Ah, there you are! Everything okay then? Beginning to think you’d forgotten all about me,’ He laughed and made the bed shake.

I had to smile, if only with nervousness, just hoping that it would soon be all over. I waited anxiously as he read the will through.

‘Just one thing,’ he bellowed, not caring whether the rest of the ward heard all about his affairs or not. ‘My son John Carlton has a third name. I suppose it ought to be in as I have, er, you know, er, another little child somewhere and the mother’s gone and given him the same name, would you believe?’

Well, yes, as you ask, I would believe it, I thought. I was ready to believe anything could happen by this stage.

So I had to go through the splendidly typed document and write in my own fair hand the third name of the child in every place it appeared. Six places throughout the will, in all. Well, it would, wouldn’t it? And each little alteration had to be initialled by Whatsisname and the two witnesses (a nurse and me).

The thing looked like it had been walked over by an ink-stained spider. But at least it was done. ‘

Good luck with the op,’ I said, as I put the will back in my case and got up to go.

‘Don’t worry about me,’ he chuckled. ‘I’m not through yet. I’ll be back on the stage before you’ve got your next legal aid pay cheque.’

The nurse took my arm. ‘He’s got quite a serious operation, you know,’ she said. ‘It’s about fifty-fifty, so I hope he’s got everything sorted out.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘If I haven’t got it straight after all this effort I think I’ll resign and take up acting. It seems to be an exciting life.’

I sometimes wonder if that Will ever made it to the Probate Registry. What I do know is that Whatsisname made it through his operation and was back on stage soon. After that the next time I heard of him was over a year later when he was in another spot of bother. Caught on the roof of a dwelling house with some of the owner’s property in his possession. Just a misunderstanding with the police. Another act in the theatre of the absurd called life. Nothing to worry about.

Copyright © 1999-2008 Philip Gegan, Leicester, England.