You are an only child. Choose son or daughter as you wish.
From an early age, you were unwanted, shunted off to boarding school aged just seven. During school holidays, your parents disappeared to the Caribbean, Pago Pago or St Moritz, leaving you in the charge of a Universal Aunt. Kindly and well-meaning as they were, these ladies had neither the spark nor indeed the funding to take you anywhere beyond a day out at the seaside. Christmases were no different.
The jewel in this tarnished crown was Aunt Glenda, your mother’s sister, who often took you to her cottage during holidays. Thanks to her, you saw the Musée d’Orsay and the Louvre in Paris, mesmerised by the self-portrait of Van Gogh. One Christmas, she took you to Lapland to see Father Christmas, on another, skiing in Les Alpes. During her visits to your house, you regularly overheard her berating your parents for their treatment of you.
Denied university, you run a successful but steady insurance brokerage. Seriously damaged emotionally, you have had several relationships but lack the courage to commit.
Your parents died four years ago within months of each other.
One morning, Ernest Braithwaite, Glenda’s solicitor, calls to say she has died and asks you to see him regarding the will.
Chalk stripe suit, carnation in the buttonhole and an office furnished by Oxfam, he is the archetypal old-school lawyer.
‘Glenda was not only my client, but a close friend. She has left everything to you. Her cottage in Rutland is valued at £450,000 and her savings and investments £500,000. I’ve prepared all the documents giving you title to house and monies. She was appalled by the way you were brought up.’
Still numb with shock, you sign on the line. Come Saturday, you drive from your Nottingham home to Uppingham. The house is in apple-pie order and the contents add a substantial amount to its value.
In the study is a Victorian roll-top desk, which when opened, reveals three shelves of identical black diaries, one per year. Armed with a bottle of Glenfiddich, you sit down and initially, you skim read them. What you find makes your hair stand on end, detailed accounts of your parents’ lives. Multiple affairs, orgies and two illegitimate sons to your father whom he rejected. Your mother had at least one abortion resulting from affairs. Far from being a successful financial adviser, your father was a con man, living on fraud, non-existent opportunities and Ponzi schemes and willingly assisted by your mother. Somehow, they managed to stay one step ahead of the law.
Many hours later and with the Glenfiddich down to a quarter, you are devastated by the whole picture.
Write a story based on the diaries’ contents, which offer a rich treasure chest of opportunity.
Write on!
I’m not sure I like the characters enough to use this prompt, but thanks for giving me a glimpse into their lives.
I disagree with Gail. With the aforementioned diaries, this prompt offers a plethora of plot lines to write a story in any way you care to. The poor son and the aunties are actually fine people. Using this as a narrative summary to write a story has potential. Nigel, is this your next novel?