Speccie Competition Short Story
Competition: Short story
LUCY VICKERY
SATURDAY, 31ST DECEMBER 2011
In Competition No. 2727 you were asked for a short story entitled ‘An unwelcome bequest’.
The Guardian recently invited its readers to share their experiences of unwished-for bequeathals. The request elicited a crop of hugely funny and touching stories featuring, among other things, ‘a hideous pink pig in a hat and a pinny drinking a cup of tea’, which was initially consigned to a cupboard but metamorphosed over time into a symbol of stoicism that provided its recipient with solace in dark times.
Animals popped up frequently in the entry: I especially liked Basil Ransome-Davies malign, windy polecat. Honourable mentions, too, to Mark Ambrose, G.M. Davis and Natalia Colthurst. Bill Greenwell’s vengeful parent gets him £30; the rest nab £25.
It is never pleasant to open an elaborately locked cabinet, having taken patient time to crack its combination, and having been assured that the contents, far from being meagre, will consist of everything from uncut gems to more accessible bundles of well-thumbed tenners — only to discover that there is nothing within it but cold ash, and the unpleasant scent of its having been confined there for a while, with a disdainful and hectoring letter (on the subject of greed) as accompaniment.
Rupert stared intently into the open box, as into a deep and troublesome mirror, and thought of his relative, and the pain he had caused for so long.
Eventually, he smiled.
Setting light to the ten-pound notes was easier than expected, and he warmed his dying hands by the blaze. He had disposed of the rest in the sea. What he enjoyed most was the letter to his son.
Bill Greenwell
My parents were but days dead, my exile to Colonel Thwackham’s Boys Academy yet uncommenced, when I, Daniel Chippenblock, found myself summoned to the offices of Mr Jancery, family lawyer.
Mr Jancery, as much crow as man and more vulture than either, explained that a distant cousin had died, bequesting to me properties valued at £30,000. I would no longer need to be cruelly schooled, employed at some infernal factory or billeted upon relatives who loathed my very sight. Life henceforth, Mr Jancery insisted, would be simply splendid.
Considerably downcast by this announcement, I asked Mr Jancery how my character was to form without the application of trial or tribulation, for it seemed to me that a life of unmitigated good fortune was unlikely to equip me for the literary life on which my sights were already set.
‘Some people,’ Mr Jancery rightly observed, ‘are never satisfied.’
Adrian Fry
Sir Jeremy had been rich, a miser, a judge and a spiritualist. Before he died, he established that he was legally entitled to bequeath all his money to himself (or rather, to his spirit), and thus arranged for the conversion of his wealth into diamonds, their placing post-mortem into his coffin, and his burial for security reasons under an assumed name. But phones can be hacked and rumours can spread. He had not been dead three months when there was a great knocking on his coffin-lid. Deprived of his already uncomfortable sleep, he sat up grumpily (on his, in the event, unwelcome bequest), to face a delegation of furious fellow-residents, whose own graves were being surreptitiously and speculatively disturbed. He was swiftly but entirely legally sentenced to become the graveyard ghost, charged with staying awake to repel such prospectors. It was a death and a life sentence.
Brian Murdoch
That’s my late uncle hanging on the wall. Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those grim dramatic monologues in which you discover that the speaker has a ghastly personality and is guilty of murder. Not the murder part, anyway. Ha, ha. When Uncle Jasper died at an absurdly advanced age, I was the only one left to inherit. I made a few quid selling his formidable collection of lad mags. (The dealer who bought them was delightfully louche.) This flat he left me is comfortable enough. Naturally, I wouldn’t dream of selling the old boy’s portrait. Not that anyone would dream of buying it. Hanging him next to the mirror like that is my little joke. Lavish nose, skimpy chin, silly protruding upper lip — my father and grandfather had the same hopeless face. I’m happy to say nobody will be inheriting that from me. The buck teeth stop here.
Chris O’Carroll
‘No, I said. ‘Impossible’. Mr Swithery smiled indulgently. ‘But your Aunt Edith specified Rantipole as integral to her estate. No, Rantipole, no...’
Siamese cats are niggardly with their love: Rantipole had expended his all on Aunt Edith. At least we were equals in mutual loathing. On the way home he christened my car with a flood of foul-smelling urine. His powerful jaw bent the clasp of his cat basket. His howls of frustration at failing to release it brought a fearful neighbour to the point of ringing the police. Once inside the flat he squinted with disgust at the wallpaper, and stretched his claws.
Only the kitchen seemed cat-proof. I rang Katie, in need of human support — there would be steak, a bottle of Rhône. But Rantipole had unsuspected talents: his devious paw had opened the fridge, and hooked the steak. A table-height leap had knocked over the bottle. This was war.
D.A. Prince
I trudged up the black volcanic shingle, past the rusting debris from the guano quarry. The stench of the vast seabird colony reinforced the effects of the landing by small boat. Offshore, the Greenpeace vessel Pacific Warrior and a Chilean frigate circled each other like suspicious dogs. I turned to camera.
‘When I inherited Desperation Island, I had no idea that I would also inherit a territorial dispute and an environmental struggle. My uncle...’
There was a pause for adjustments to the wind baffle on the mike. Mist curled over the leeward edge of Mount Upton/Almirante Patricio Lynch. A small gang of penguins taunted us. Take two.
‘When I…’ At the warning shot from the frigate, the cameraman threw himself to the ground, while I and 80,000 Hoffmann’s Albatrosses stayed as we were, gaping. The Chileans are all right, I thought, no secret police. They are, aren’t they?
Frank Upton
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