I’m chauffeuring Annie around again, in our clapped-out old car. Right now, we’re heading back from an out-of-season football friendly in our local town. Her team won 3-2. Go the local town girls under-fourteens!
As we drive back, suddenly – apropos of nothing – Annie asks:
‘Dad? Have you and Mum got a will?’
Now, Annie is quite money-orientated. She gets it from her mother. So this question doesn’t come as a total surprise, even though the timing is so random. Anyway, I try to remember if Lizzie and I actually do have a will. I dimly remember putting something down on paper. But the details of it are lost in a fog of forgotten legalise.
‘I think we do have a will, Annie,’ I reply. ‘But I can’t really remember much about it.’
‘Anyway,’ I continue, pandering to my daughter’s inherited materialism, ‘if anything does happen to me or your mother, you’ll be equally provided for. You and Jake…’ I should stop there, but I can’t help adding… ‘And Rosie and Cedric and something for Kitten too.’ The latter three are our pets, of course.
Annie ignores the bit about the pets, but looks satisfied with my comment that she and Jake will be equally provided for. In fact, this is of great importance to her (and her brother). Both Annie and Jake are OBSESSED with being treated equally. If one of them gets thirty pounds as a birthday present, from their Grandma, the other MUST GET THE SAME. Otherwise, they’ll be struck by a sudden Marxist, egalitarian fervour – and we their parents won’t hear the end of it.
Annie is particularly sensitive to this issue, at the moment, because Grandma just gave Jake fifty pounds for doing well in his GCSEs. ‘Your time will come,’ Grandma winked at Annie, afterwards, before presenting her with a paltry, compensatory five-pound note. ‘It’s SO UNFAIR,’ Annie ranted at me and Lizzie, afterwards, with the zealous look of a French revolutionary who’s considering sending a relative to the guillotine.
So, yes, the fact that any money – Lizzie and I have managed not to piss away – will end up equally shared by our kids, is of huge significance to our daughter. She seems appeased on the matter, by my comment. But then Annie’s eyes widen… clearly she’s been hit by a worrying thought.
‘Will Jake and me get you and Mum’s bank accounts too, when you die?’ she asks, nervously. ‘Will we have to pay money for them?’
Annie, of course, is referring to the fact that Lizzie and I have a few debts between us (do most people with kids?) and are usually paying interest as a result. Our current accounts (personal and joint) are often in overdraft. And our credit cards are, well, rarely in credit. It’s because, quite simply, we live beyond our means. We regard ourselves as bohemians… but want to live like bankers.
Anyway, Annie – wise beyond her years – is suddenly concerned that she might inherit these ridiculous debts (instead of any actual inheritance) and be stuck with paying the interest on them herself.
‘Don’t worry Annie,’ I smile at her, reassuringly, ‘in the old days, people sometimes had to pay off their parents’ debts. But not anymore. When Mum and I die, our debts die with us!’
I feel unnerved that I just uttered a sentence of such terrible bleakness (‘when Mum and I die, our debts die with us!’) to our thirteen-year-old daughter, in order to reassure her. What kind of a fucked-up environment are we bringing her up in, that this is an actual example of some words of comfort? Does Annie’s sudden interest in her parents’ will stem from her mother’s recent brush with mortality? Has all this dark stuff been preying on our thirteen-year-old daughter’s mind?
Fortunately, Annie seems quite happy with my bleak statement. She looks thoughtful and pleased. So… everything WILL be split equally between her and Jake… and she WON’T have any interest to pay on her parents’ debts!!
RESULT!!
P. D. Clifton 
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