Lot 41: contents of a piano stool

This is a short story. It is fiction.

Hallam & Rooke, House Clearance and Valuation. Sale of 12 March. Lot 41: contents of a piano stool, mahogany, hinged seat. Sold as one lot, unexamined by the vendor.

1. Associated Board grade one syllabus, 1961. Cover detached.

2. Associated Board grades two to five, 1961 to 1966, six volumes. Pencil fingerings throughout in an adult hand.

3. Metronome, Maelzel type, pyramid case, veneer lifting at one corner. Does not run.

4. Tin, formerly containing boiled sweets, now containing approximately eighty pencil stubs. None longer than four centimetres.

5. Exercise book, ruled, used as an appointments diary. Entries in half-hour blocks, Tuesday to Saturday, September 1963 to July 1964. Names only, no surnames.

6. As above, 1964 to 1965.

7. As above, thirty-nine further volumes, 1965 to 2004. The hand deteriorates from approximately 1998. The final volume is filled to the end of the printed year.

8. Ledger, cash, recording fees received. Rates rise from three shillings and sixpence to eleven pounds across the run. A number of entries are recorded at nil, with no explanation given.

9. Bundle of concert programmes, thirty-one, local halls and schools, 1967 to 1999. In each, one name has been underlined in pencil.

10. Programme, Wigmore Hall, 1981. One name underlined in ink. The paper has been folded and refolded to the point of separation along the crease and repaired twice with tape of two different ages.

11. Newspaper cutting, undated, reviewing the above. Two column inches. The relevant sentence is bracketed in the same ink.

12. Photograph, black and white, a woman of perhaps forty at a piano with a child of perhaps nine standing beside the stool. Neither is looking at the camera; both are looking at the music. Unmarked.

13. Photograph, colour, faded, the same child at perhaps sixteen, in a school hall, mid-performance.

14. Letter, typed, from a conservatoire, 1978, offering a place. Addressed to a third party. Retained.

15. Twelve letters, handwritten, various dates 1978 to 1994, same correspondent, postmarks London and later Manchester. Not read by the valuer beyond establishing the nature of the contents.

16. Four letters, handwritten, 1996 to 2001, same correspondent, at longer intervals.

17. One further letter, 2003, in the same hand, considerably shorter.

18. Envelope, stamped and addressed in the vendor’s hand, to the same Manchester address. Sealed. Not posted.

19. Second envelope, as above, sealed, not posted.

20. Nine further envelopes, as above. All sealed. All stamped. The stamps span a period of some years and are of increasing denomination, suggesting they were bought separately and at intervals.

21. Manuscript paper, twelve sheets, blank.

22. Manuscript paper, one sheet, eight bars completed, in pencil, in the adult hand. Untitled. The eight bars end mid-phrase and are not resolved.

Valuer’s note. Items 1 to 9 and 21 have negligible resale value and would ordinarily be disposed of. Item 3 may be worth restoring. The photographs and correspondence are of no commercial value whatsoever.

The vendor is a nephew and has instructed us to clear the property entirely. He was asked whether he wished to retain items 12 to 20 and confirmed that he did not, and that he had not known his aunt well.

It is not the practice of this firm to make recommendations outside of valuation. Item 20 is nonetheless offered to the room as a single sub-lot, unopened, with the suggestion that it be bought by someone prepared to post it.

Written as a catalogue, because a catalogue has to describe everything and is not allowed to say what any of it means. The valuer manages twenty-two entries before the format gives way.

For another story built out of a record rather than a scene, The lamp room, or Three letters to the occupant.