How to Steal a Piano and Other Stories

by John Hughes

  He sniffed incredibly loudly down the phone and I heard what sounded suspiciously like a fart. Then he cleared his throat. “They left the fuckin’ legs behind.”

  My knees buckled and I slumped into Mr Huxley’s chair. I placed the handset gently onto the cradle, and as I did I could hear the faint, tinny sound of Harry’s voice saying “Ello… ‘ello? Sir James?” Presently I stood up again and made my way back into the showroom. Laura and Raymond were hovering around Brown-nose’s desk. They were giggling and looked as if they were about to wet themselves. I went back to my desk, locked the drawer and in a robotic state made my way out of the department. As I did so I overhead Brown-nose’s telephone conversation and understood what was funny. He was struggling to get through to a non-English speaker at the Bösendorfer factory in Austria.

  “Mykonos! My… ko… nos. Ja, Mykonos. Es ist ein island off Greece. Können Sie deliver there from Vienna direct – direkt aus Wien? Direkt! Es muss next week sein without fail oder nicht gut… kaputt! Verstehen sie? Very good. Das ist gut. Now, bitte, please listen carefully. Mein customer hast just gephoned again… wieder angerufen… mit ein additional – oh Lord what’s German for additional?”

  “Teigrolle?” volunteered Raymond.

  “Many thanks! Ein Teigrolle requirement. Teigrolle. Why are you laughing… is that the wrong word?”

  “What does Teigrolle mean?” I asked Raymond.

  “Rolling pin, I think,” he grinned.

  “New,” persisted Brown-nose. “Extra! Er möchte… he wants, insists, dass das Klavier muss rosa sein. Do you understand… werstehen sie? Der Klavier must rosa sein. The piano has to be pink!”

  Laura rushed off in the direction of the ladies, clutching herself between the legs. Raymond had stuffed a handkerchief into his mouth and was turning purple.

  Martin Allwright, I thought… you, evil, resourceful, hilarious, clever bastard!

  * * *

  Martin’s upper lip had developed a Mr Pastry moustache, as Guinness drinkers often do after their first mouthful. He licked it away and smacked his lips.

  We were in a pub somewhere; the Princess Louise in Holborn I think. I’d made my way over to Curetons so it was somewhere around there. Looking back, that evening was a complete blur to me. All I can recall is Martin’s attempts at comforting words.

  “It’s going to be fine. Don’t worry. They’re going back in the morning to fetch them.”

  “Why did they forget them?”

  “One of those things. They just did. No harm done.”

  “No harm done! Apart from ageing me twenty years and bringing me within a hair’s breadth of heart failure.”

  “You’ll get over it. Everything will be fine.”

  “You said they were in the piano business. How then could they make such a basic mistake as to leave the legs behind!”

  “I had trouble booking any of the usual piano removers, so I had to use what I could get. They were nervous, being a Harrods pick up. Also…”

  “Also what?”

  “They were a bit pissed.”

  “WHAT!”

  “Apparently they nipped into the Tattershalls for a couple to calm their nerves. I was furious when I found out.”

  “I’m furious now!”

  “Keep calm, Jimmy boy. Be assured, they will go back to Trevor Square first thing in the morning, collect the legs and be away. No one will be any the wiser.”

  “What about the lyre?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “The pedal lyre… did they forget that too?”

  “Of course not, pedals are an essential part of a grand piano.”

  “So are the legs!”

  Martin looked sheepish. “Everything will be fine.”

  “Harry seemed to think they hadn’t a clue what they were doing.”

  “Sure they did… what does Harry know, he’s a French polisher. Why did he say that?”

  “Because they forgot the legs.”

  “Ah, there is that. But tomorrow they’ll collect them and…”

  “I know, and everything will be fine.”

  I wasn’t in a sociable mood so didn’t hang around for long. I went home to more alcohol and a sleepless night.

  * * *

  There isn’t much more to tell. The delivery team did return the next morning and collected the piano legs. During Brown-nose’s lunch hour I got a phone call from Lady Bracknell telling me that the legs had landed and that I was a very naughty boy for not having every faith in her.

  It was a Friday. That night I went out after work with some colleagues in Kitchenware and got very pissed indeed. On the way home I tried sliding down the metal divide between escalators at a tube station – Oxford Circus I’m fairly certain. Lord knows why! Unfortunately, I made no consideration for the ribs that held the metal sheets together; they had sharp edges and ripped through my trousers and cut my buttocks. I didn’t feel much pain at the time but woke up the next morning with bloodstained sheets and a really sore backside. Most of Saturday I spent in A&E. Not pleasant, but it took my mind off pianos and piano legs and pedal lyres and Lady Martin Allwright Bracknell.

  The following week no one came to arrest me. I didn’t hear from Martin until I saw him at the Thursday evening rehearsal. Predictably he assured me everything was fine and said he hoped to have some good news by the weekend. True to his word he invited me to join him on the Sunday afternoon for a stroll in Richmond Park, roughly halfway between our respective homes. There, sitting on a bench, high up with a stunning view across the snaking Thames and Eel Pie Island towards Twickenham, he handed over a brown envelope with an elastic band wrapped around it. I opened it. Inside were wads and wads of ten and twenty pound notes.

  “Count it if you like,” said Martin, “but I just did before I came out. One thousand pounds exactly, I promise you.”

  I peered into the envelope hardly believing my own eyes. I’d never seen that much cash before. It was surreal. Instead of speaking, I stretched out my hand and we shook.

  “What are you going to spend yours on?” I asked.

  “Oh, same as George Best,” replied Martin. “Mostly wine and women, and I’ll probably waste the rest. What about you?”

  I knew precisely what I would do with it, but I wasn’t going to tell him. I was going to use it to finance a change in career; to study what I had always wanted to but had been side-tracked into thinking music was for me. “The same,” I replied and left it at that.

  * * *

  I resigned from Harrods soon afterwards and parted company with the piano business altogether. Not long after that I left Melody and Harmony too, for a bigger, better band. I never saw Martin again; not until he appeared in the dock in my courtroom more than three decades later.

  I did however see Laura – about four years afterwards. I’d completed my Graduate Diploma in Law by then and had landed a pupillage with a City law firm. I was well on my way to becoming a barrister. I bumped into her in Foyles bookshop in Charing Cross Road and we had lunch together. She too had left Harrods and was now married and expecting her first child. In the full bloom of pregnancy she looked even more gorgeous than before, if that were possible.

  She told me that Mr Huxley had taken early retirement and Clarence Brownlow had left to set up his own music shop somewhere; in Reading possibly. The piano department had moved to a different floor and was half the size now; more electronic organs and keyboards than pianos. Poor Harry Smith was dead! Collapsed one morning on his way to work and died in A&E.

  Most interesting of all, she told me that Aidan, the piano workshop manager, had been sacked for dishonesty. Apparently he had severely overstepped the mark in terms of doing private work in Harrods’ time. A chance inspection and audit by a divisional manager had revealed that almost every instrument Aiden worked on in Trevor Square was being sent out to
a shop in North London owned by his cousin. Mr Huxley hadn’t known a thing about it, but was greatly embarrassed that it had gone on during his tenure; hence the early retirement.

  “They didn’t prosecute Aiden,” said Laura. “They just wanted him gone. I believe the workshop has closed down now completely.” She sipped her sparkling mineral water and looked at me intently. “About three months after Aidan left we had a phone call from a woman asking for her piano to be delivered. It had been in storage for years because she had gone to live abroad and was now back in England. We couldn’t find it over in Trevor Square, and when we looked into it we discovered it had already been delivered… to a fictitious address in Scotland.”

  “Really,” I said as blandly as I could manage. “How extraordinary.”

  “Very. Naturally it was put down as Aidan’s doing. He got the blame, although he had gone by then and they had no proof whatsoever to pin it on him.”

  “Makes sense,” I said, nodding in agreement. “What did they do?”

  “Ordered another one.”

  “What was it?”

  “You know very well, James Holloway.”

  “It could have been a number of makes.”

  “Take a wild guess.”

  “A black Bechstein grand… model L?”

  Laura smacked my arm. “I knew it! You sly old fox. I can’t remember her name now but her middle initial was…”

  “V for Virginia?”

  “How much did you get for it?” she asked boldly.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Laura,” I declared. “And I would be most grateful if you never asked me that again. However, à propos nothing we have discussed in the slightest, lunch is on me.”

  * * *

  As I walked back into the court room and sat down, I glanced across at the defendant to confirm my suspicions. Adrian Steele it said in my notes. But it was Martin Allwright for certain.

  The jury had found him guilty; all twelve unanimously, and in less than an hour of deliberation. I was sure they had reached the correct verdict. The evidence was compelling and very well presented by the prosecuting barrister. The defence, on the other hand, had focused primarily on planting doubts in the jurors’ minds and stressing to them in the summing up that they had to be absolutely one hundred percent certain in their minds of the defendant’s guilt in order to convict him. In other words, steer them away from the factual evidence which was watertight. I’d heard it dozens of times before; I’d done it myself when I was a barrister. As it turned out, the members of the jury were one hundred percent certain.

  According to the documents in front of me he was previously of good character and this was his first offence. I knew differently… although the scale of the crime was somewhat different, albeit not dissimilar in nature. Stealing a piano from Harrods is chicken feed compared with attempting to embezzle half a million pounds in an online banking scam. He had fallen on hard times, the defence emphasized; his judgment had been fogged by his desperate circumstances.

  Be that as it may, and speaking as myself and not in my professional capacity, he was clearly as guilty as hell.

  Adrian Steele was ordered to stand in the dock. (Steele! Of all the pseudonyms for a thief to choose!) I spoke for a while as a preamble, emphasising his previously unblemished record, before announcing the sentence. Two years’ custody suspended for two years. According to official guidelines, it was the lowest possible I could award. He looked at me curiously, as if I had made a mistake. There was a gasp from the public gallery where some of the people he’d tried to embezzle sat, expecting him to be sent down. They were clearly appalled.

  “Mr Steele, do you have anything to say?” I asked.

  “No, my Lord. Nothing, thank you.” He seemed confused and bemused. He too had expected to be going to prison.

  “Are you alright?” I asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Did you hear me correctly?”

  “I did.”

  “Not quite I think. Let me ask you again, and please listen carefully… are you Allwright?”

  He made eye contact with me for possibly the first time during the whole trial. A veil seemed to lift from his eyes and a spark of recognition appeared followed by half a smile. “Yes,” he said. “I am Allwright.”

  “I thought as much. The court is now adjourned.”

  As I removed my robes and prepared to go home, I was fully aware that I might be criticised for having been so lenient. Nevertheless, that was that, what was done was done and could not be undone. I decided upon a light supper before heading on to the lodge meeting. At least that was where my wife Imogen thought I was going.

  But first, another visit to the toilet, hoping, praying, for a Type 4; only to be disappointed yet again.

  Grasshopper

  Hester arrived at 7.45pm and parked carefully, and thoughtfully, close to the pub entrance where the car park was well lit. She reversed in, to be on the safe side, just in case a quick getaway was required… like the last time. They weren’t due to meet until eight, but she liked to be early, always, for everything.

  It was February and dark. She switched on the dashboard light, pulled a lipstick from her bag and using the rear-view mirror touched up what she had done half an hour earlier before leaving home. This was followed by a gentle brushing and patting down of her hair. She was a brunette; the recent highlights looked good, she thought. Then she took her mobile phone out of her bag, checked for messages (there weren’t any) and opened the Plenty of Fish app to take another look at her date.

  TrimJim – she liked his username. It suited him, she thought, implying a sense of fun and originality as well as a neat appearance. She really liked his main profile photo. He was good looking, fiftyish like herself, with dark wavy hair, lightly tanned skin and a smile to die for. She was very attracted towards him.

  Looks aren’t everything; she knew that, and her friend Caroline was always at pains to remind her. Divorced and a veteran of the dating circuit like Hester, Caroline was additionally a complete hypocrite who didn’t practise what she preached. She fell in love at first sight routinely – every few months or so – with no real insight into the person behind the looks, and every few months she had her heart broken. Hester liked to think she was shrewder than that. Reading a profile was as important as looking at the photo, or photos. You could tell a good deal about someone from how they expressed themselves. On the other hand, there was no getting away from it, she had to concede, the chemistry had to be there. If it wasn’t you were wasting your time. He had to be snoggable.

  She had a good feeling about TrimJim. He had a gorgeous voice. She had melted the first time he phoned her, when was it… last Thursday. Less than a week ago but it seemed like much longer. Such a deep, manly tone. She could have listened to him for hours. In fact she had. The conversation had gone on for ages with him taking the lead. They had spoken twice since. Even though they hadn’t actually met yet, she felt she knew him well already.

  He was a company director; divorced, like her, with two grown up boys, also like her. He lived in Bromley, she in Horley, so The Grasshopper just outside Westerham was a convenient place to meet… roughly half way. It was his suggestion; she had been there before a couple of times to dances and knew it had a reputation as a serious pick-up joint, but TrimJim had assured her he meant the pub, not the dancehall. Besides, this was a Monday evening, so no dance. She looked across at the entrance to the pub. She hadn’t noticed it before. It looked nice.

  Hester checked her phone again. Five to eight… no messages. She hoped he’d be on time. Punctuality was important to her, and being late was a form of rudeness in her opinion. It was how she had been brought up. As this was going through her head, a car pulled into the car park, the bright headlights panning across her briefly and making her squint. It came to a halt a few bays along from her. It looked quite a
nice car with, she was relieved to see, no logos or other signage; always a relief. Her mind flashed back to the previous summer and a date she had had with the sales manager for a chain of Japanese restaurants. He’d turned up in a van with YO! Sushi plastered across both sides and a huge plastic spicy tuna roll clamped to the roof. There had been no second date.

  She sat and watched as the man got out of his car and walked over to the pub entrance. He peered inside, then checked his watch and stood rubbing his hands together. It was cold, and his breath made clouds of condensation.

  Oh dear, he looked older than his photos. Why did men lie about their age, she wondered, not for the first time, and conveniently forgetting that on her profile she had shaved a few years off her own, to keep her on the dateable side of fifty. He looked older, and very different, though not unpleasant.

  Here we go again. She picked up her handbag from the passenger seat, got out of her car, locked it and walked across to the pub entrance. “Hello,” she said. “Are you waiting for your date? Here I am.”

  “Hello back.” The voice wasn’t as deep and manly as it had been on the phone.

  “Shall we go in?” suggested Hester. “It’s freezing out here.”

  “Yeh, alright.”

  It would have been nice if he had held the door open for her, but alas no. He went in first and she followed. The room was virtually empty. It had a strong feel of mock Tudor about it, with fake oak beams, a rich burgundy carpet and dark mahogany tables and chairs.

  “What do you want to drink?”

  “I’ll have a glass of merlot, please,” said Hester.

  “Go Dutch?”

  “If you’d prefer.” Oh dear again. Was it really too much to expect to be bought a drink? She would always offer to buy a second round on a date, but nice to be bought one first. The gentlemanly thing to do. It looked as if TrimJim might be turning into GrimJim. She fumbled in her bag and pulled out her purse, placing a five pound note on the counter. He took it.

  He said to the barman: “A glass of merlot and a pint of Guinness with a whisky chaser.”