The Inheritor’s Tale.

Cherished granddaughter, my dearest Sophie,

Accept this gift (of sorts) to you from me.

‘Gift?!’ you say, I can hear you laughing now,

And yes, my shop’s a burden to endow.

Shelves full of books, the books full of debts,

An anachronistic folly, and yet,

It must be you, for you share my pleasure.

You don’t see books. You see hidden treasure.

So now I’m gone, I entrust every tome

To your judgement, as I rest, in my tomb.

(And forgive my awkward and cryptic rhyme,

But remember your Gramps is out of time.)

***

As I puzzle over Grandad’s poem for the umpteenth time, the double-decker grumbles to a halt outside St Paul’s. Big Ben announces it’s two o’clock as I hop off, a floral dress in a throng of grey suits heading back to their offices—or orifices, as Grandad would say—after boozy Friday lunches.

I head towards Grandad’s bookshop.

My bookshop.

Leaving the hubbub of Cheapside behind, I navigate the City’s maze of laneways — a path I walked so often as a child with Grandad.

Why leave it to me? Why are Mum and Uncle Toby so upset? They hate the shop. But when Grandad’s solicitor read the will and poem, Mum looked livid.

I turn a corner and there it is. The narrow timber-framed shopfront, wedged between two towering concrete buildings. Like something out of a Dickens novel. “Like a splinter in a rhinoceros’s bum,” Grandad would say to make me giggle. I always did.

Pulling the shop’s jangle of keys from my bag, I unlock the door. It creaks as I shoulder it open, flattening the mound of mail — mainly bills — on the other side as the brass doorbell tinkles overhead.

I step into the shop’s fusty embrace. The smell of books, leather, timber shelves and panelling, treacly with varnish. Of Grandad.

I close the door: tinkle. Then hush. The long-case clock, standing guard behind Grandad’s counter, ticks and tocks lazily.

Walking between the bookcases is like stepping back in time. Over there, Grandad introduced me to Shakespeare. Over there, Waugh and Woolf. There, Austen.

…tick…tock…

I jump as my phone buzzes.

Mum: Darling, are you at the shop? I can be there in an hour. What was the old fool thinking? Let me buy it.

Then:

Mum: Xxx

What was he thinking? I love the shop, but I have a job—a career—thanks to Grandad, who encouraged me to be a bookworm. He’s why I studied English Lit. He was so proud of my work at the British Library.

Unlike Mum. “What even is an archivist, Darling?”

What’s with the cryptic poem? The iambic pentameter? ‘Entrust’? ‘Your judgement’? Gramps? He was always Grandad.

My phone buzzes again.

Uncle Toby: Sophie, the shop has debts up the wazoo. I’d like to make an offer for it. Keep it in the family. Call me.

Keep it in the family? Uncle Toby runs a successful hedge fund. Why buy a failing bookshop?

I look at the poem again. What’s Grandad trying to hide from Mum and Uncle Toby?

Iambic pentameter: is that a clue?

I head to the shelves housing Shakespeare. As You Like It. Othello…

I take the books off the shelves, flicking carefully through the pages.

No notes. No clues.

Who else? Milton? Wordsworth? I check all the writers I can think of. Nothing.

I return to the poem.

‘Hidden treasure’?

Treasure Island! One of my favourite books as a child.

I find an old-ish edition. Is this what he wants to save from Mum and Uncle Toby? I check the edition on Google. It’s not rare. Not especially expensive. It must be something else.

Buzz and ping.

Mum: See you in 30 mins.

What about the other keys?

There are five. Two for the front door. I try the others in the lockbox under the counter. The smallest key opens it, revealing some old ledgers, the blue-lined rows and columns barely containing Grandad’s languid cursive.

In the office, buried at the back of the shop, I sit at Grandad’s desk. I try one of the remaining keys on the locked desk drawer. It opens. I rummage through its contents. Just stationery.

At the front of the shop, the old grandfather clock chimes the hour.

Bong…bong.

Two o’clock.

I check my phone: 2:47 p.m. That clock’s always slow.

The grandfather clock.

‘Gramps is out of time.’

I scoot back through the shop to the clock. It looks down at me.

…tick…tock…

Sure enough, the long case of the clock is locked, so I try the remaining key. The door springs open. Inside, a brass pendulum. I reach in and gently stop it swinging.

…tick.

Peering inside, I run my hands around the hard edges and dark corners of the casing. It feels strangely intrusive. “Sorry, old man,” I say to the clock face.

My fingers brush against something soft. Canvas, maybe. A parcel. I wrap my fingers around it, lift it out of the clock’s case and place it on the counter.

What is it, Grandad?

I peel back the waxed canvas and read:

Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote…

The prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Worn. Delicate. In iambic pentameter. And very old. Like Caxton-old.

My heart feels like it’s going to burst.

This is worth… I don’t know. If it’s what I think it is, a small fortune.

And that’s why Grandad went to all this trouble. Why he left the shop to me.

He didn’t want his son or daughter to simply sell it. An investment. A transaction.

He wanted it to be cared for. Loved.

Perhaps he knew I’d donate it to the British Library for everyone to see. Maybe not donate it. Maybe sell it. Just enough to keep his shop going for another generation.

“A splinter in the bum of a rhinoceros,” I say to the clock.

Prompts
Genre: Mystery
Location: A bookstore
Object: A grandfather clock