Robin Hood by Susanna Spanring

Read a runner-up entry in our 2007 short story competition

Susanna, 46, is a peripatetic music teacher. She lives in Cheddar, Somerset, with her husband, Paul, and three children, Andreas, 19, Robert, 18, and Anna, 14.

Robin Hood
A small figure dangerously brandishing a violin and bow came rushing down the grey corridor towards me. Sam Smith was early for orchestra again. Eager, watery-blue eyes glowed from a thin, spotty face. I took the violin he was thrusting at me and obediently twiddled the adjusters, attempting to transform the feeble whine into a perfect fifth. Sam was doing so well. He deserved a better instrument than this.

“We learned about hybrids today, Mr. E! Look, I got my definition off the internet.” He thrust a crumpled piece of paper into my hand and watched me intently.

“'Hybrid. An animal or plant of mixed parentage; a mongrel. Anything composed of incongruous parts'…
“I think you're one of them things, Mr. E.” he announced, with a grin.
This boy never ceased to surprise me.
“Why?” I asked.

“You're a teacher, but you're nothin' like the others,” he replied. Taking back his violin, he zoomed off to battle with the geriatric music-stands as the rest of Crompton Comprehensive school orchestra straggled in.

A hybrid… I had to smile, because this did describe me – and it felt truly liberating. Surviving a massive car accident against all the odds makes you rethink your priorities. I had decided six years ago that my second chance at life would make me feel good about what I did – and not rely on sixty suited, city hours a week for success. So, to cut a long story short, I began persuading the most unlikely candidates that playing the violin was cool – and it worked. Sam Smith was a prime example. Perhaps the fact that I also taught jazz double-bass helped with the street-cred. Certainly, my jazz-bass status enabled me to slouch around the two schools where I was employed, dressed in more outrageously comfortable clothes than even the games-staff. These two schools, though no more than five miles apart, meant that I moved constantly between two totally different worlds – Crompton Comprehensive (1,500 pupils) and Kingsmoore Hall Preparatory School (350 boarders). Just as well that classically-trained musicians are hybrids well-equipped to feel universally at home.

“Ok, everybody!” I picked up my own violin and tapped the stand with my bow. “Rossini's Cat Duet, please. We'll start at bar 60. Cellos – watch out for those B flats, and whack them out really loudly.”

I was proud of Crompton's orchestra. We were playing Rossini's famous work n an arrangement for two violins with an easy but effective part for the orchestra. Sam's battered fiddle seemed to merge with his wiry body as his solo soared above my second part and the orchestra's accompanying chords. His playing was filled with a sensitivity that amazed me. Sam was a bit of a hybrid himself, really. The staff had been briefed about his background and believe me, it was far from harmonious. If only his instrument didn't possess such a realistically cat-like tone…

A week later, avoiding the gaze of a grey-haired oil portrait, I padded my way past an opulent sofa to a glass case enclosing rows of instruments. I had arrived at Blythe's, the violin dealer's, where I was help James Hoode, one of my pupils from Kingsmoore Hall, as he chose a new violin His mother briskly lead the way, her pointed heels sinking into the carpet. With customary efficiency she had made an appointment, so an array of violins was already awaiting James, their golden bodies laid out along the length of a polished table. Each curved, fascinatingly female form hinted primly at hidden depths, waiting to be lured into life by a skilful player.

“There's the price-list, James,” said Mrs Hoode crisply, indicating a piece of paper lying discreetly folded. “Don't look at it. Mr Blythe has selected these instruments so that they are within our agreed price range. Al will be revealed when you have made your choice.”

James approached the table and picked up the first gleaming beauty. He tightened the bow and drew it over the strings.

“No, too muffled.”

The rejected violin was placed behind him on another table, which gradually filled as more of the instruments, with astonishing self-assurance, were deemed unsuitable.

“James is only eleven,” Mrs Hoode confided in a half whisper to the hovering Mr. Blythe. “But he's the best string player at his school. He recently passed his Grade Eight with distinction…”

James also possessed one of the prerequisites of many successful young musician – an ambitious mother. It was she who had ensured that since the age of three, he had practised daily. As I tried out some of the instruments myself, I wondered what she would say if she knew that the violin used by me to propel her son along the path to musical glory had cost a mere £50 at a rather dodgy car-boot sale in Glastonbury.

An hour later, James had made up his mind and the climax of our visit arrived – the moment when the price of the chosen instrument was to be divulged. Mr Blythe himself consulted the price list.

“Interestingly, our young friend has picked out the most valuable instrument in today's selection,” he announced, smiling benignly. “This is a French violin, costing £5000. Congratulations.”

Mrs Hoode's lipstick curved into a smile.
“James, darling – you are so clever!”
“I've just got good taste,” he said, grinning.
I frowned, wondering whether to prick their bubble.
“I wouldn't have gone for that one. Why don't you take it on approval and try it out at home before paying?” I suggested. Her hawk-like profile hovered above her chequebook.

“The price-tag proves that James knows what he's doing,” she replied and signed her cheque wit a flourish.

I remained silent. I would not have chosen that particular violin. In fat, none of them seemed to me to be a patch on my own highly inferior instrument, which had the soft familiarity of – I don't know – an old pair of boxer shorts, perhaps? Nothing to be proud of, but too comfortable to chuck out. Just as well, really, for I had felt familiar stirrings of excitement at some of the beautiful – and priceless – instruments displayed behind the glass. Of course, £5000 was peanuts compared to them.

Admittedly, it was a culture-shock to return from Blythe's to the orchestra at Crompton School. I did my best.

“Violins up, everybody! Now remember, we start quietly and make a gradual crescendo. One, two, three, four!” And off they went.

The enthusiasm, the keenness written all over the faces of the children as they sawed away broke my heart. Those instruments. Even Menuhin would have trouble in coaxing a beautiful sound out of these scarred, hired fiddles, with their sagging, balding bows. My pupils would never be able to produce more than a muffled wail on these dreadful beasts.

“Fortissimo!” I yelled, conducting on auto-pilot while £5000 buzzed around in my head in time to the music. This didn't feel good. This wasn't what I wanted my life to be about. It wasn't that I grudged James. I just wanted the best for all my pupils. I wanted o be able to offer them equal chances, whether bursting out of untucked Asda shirts or gift-wrapped in exclusive Kingsmoore blazers. Both covered the same stuff underneath.

The next afternoon, teaching at Kingsmoore Hall, I did something incredible foolish. How did I think I would get away with it? Although often labelled as unconventional, I have never displayed any criminal tendencies. But now, I returned from the toilet to be greeted in the music block by James' new violin in its rather swanky case, perched on top of the instrument shelf. A quick glance revealed that I was alone, apart from a few cellos leaning drunkenly against the walls, awaiting their owners' return from the cricket match. Surprising even myself, I picked up the fiddle and, as though this were premeditated, walked calmly into my room. There, I shoved the violin quickly into the empty hugeness of a bright-red double-bass case and carried it out to the car. People were used to seeing me lugging basses around. In spite of this I was shaking so much that I could barely get the keys into the ignition. It was not really stealing, it was simply sharing out resources more fairly. Robin Hood and all that. Robbing Hoode, more like, bleated my conscience feebly.

I took James' violin along to the jazz gig I was doing that evening and afterwards showed it to my mate, Andrew Rool – known to all as Drool – a brilliant jazz violinist who also had his own workshop, where he made and repaired violins. Drool examined it carefully in the smoky haze, played a note or two, then said casually;

“Nothing particularly special – French, but there are loads of these about. It's antique, but worth no more than about four hundred pounds.” My stomach lurched.

“Blythe's charged five grand!” I protested. He laughed.

“Blythe can be a bit of a rogue,” he said. “He chooses his victims carefully – usually pushy parents with more wealth than sense.”

I gulped. I'm not sure if a slightly boozy tear didn't trickle into my beer as I confessed to Drool what, with the best and most honourable of intentions, I had done. Drool, a true hero, remained cool.

“What are you on about?” he said calmly. “You didn't attempt to steal James' violin. You simply brought it here to get a second opinion. Send the mother an e-mail. Just tell her what it's really worth and she'll be so grateful, she'll do anything. You're saving her £5000. A cunning touch might even persuade her to donate some of that money towards some better instruments for Crompton.”

He wrote the mail. My hands were trembling too much.

Never one to do anything by halves, Mre Hoode rang me a few days later from Sotherbys', London, who had confirmed that the violin was worth no more than £350.

“I do so appreciate the personal interest you have taken,” she finished. “If there's any way in which I can show my gratitude…” Bingo. She had bitten at the bait, as Drool had prophesised.

“Why don't you join me tomorrow for the orchestra rehearsal at Crompton?” I suggested. “It's only half an hour, then we can go on to James' recital at Kingsmoore afterwards.”

Surprised, she agreed.

Mrs Hoode arrived after lunch and followed me into Crompton's hall. The speckled carpet of peas, chips and carrots was just being swept up. I milked the situation.

“This hall leads a multi-faceted existence as dining-room, gym, assembly-hall and the venue for orchestra rehearsals,” I explained, as I helped pile up the benches upon which three lunch sittings had left their unappetising marks. Some children trailed in and I tuned their violins. With veiled eyes Mrs Hoode listened as the orchestra struggled valiantly with Rossini. I saw her straighten as Sam began his solo. His efforts were partially drowned. From the other side of the paper-thin partition, my colleague the drum teacher, yelled instructions as his students accompanied a pulsating CD.

She drove me over to Kingsmoore afterwards.

“That scrawny little chap plays quite well,” she said, adjusting the air-conditioning. “Shame he can't produce a better tone.”

I plunged at once into a myriad of unsubtle hints about the poor quality of their instruments and how wonderful it would be if funding could be found to help them to purchase better ones and stopped only when we arrived at Kingsmoore's beautiful, purpose-built concert hall.

James Hoode and I had worked hard on the solo he was to perform today. He was preparing it for a scholarship to a specialist music school. Sunlight filtered softly through the nodding branches of ancient chestnut trees beyond the open windows, bathing his face in a golden haze as he correctly picked his way through the slow movement of his Bath sonata. His mother's eyes, full of tension, anticipated each well-known note then relaxed into relieved pride as envious parents' applause rippled reluctantly round the hall.

Yet Drool's touching conviction that Mrs Hoode's charitable instincts would be aroused by the contrast between her son's musical education and that of the children at Crompton proved ill-founded. Her gift to me, carefully wrapped, was a small bottle of brandy.

“What a dreadful school that Crompton is,” she said as we parted. “This will help you cope with it. Why anyone chooses to send their children there is quite beyond me.”

At my place that evening, Drool and I despondently drowned our wild dreams of a James Hoode Instrumental Fund donated to Crompton. As we nipped at the brandy, he picked up my violin, which was lying on top of the piano. He examined it and the expression on his clever, sensitive face suddenly changed…

When Sam Smith was given a new violin, the effect was electrifying. He stroked the bow gently over the strings, playing a few phrases of some melody by ear – perhaps he was making it up as he went along. I wish I had a photo of those blue eyes, lit up by an inner fire that was almost frightening in its intensity, until his face broke into the most enormous grin. Awesome. He got into the National Youth Orchestra recently and he's away on a course just now. He wrote me a postcard;

“Dear Mr. E, two of the boys here go to that posh school near us – Kingsmoore. If we was caught speaking to each other at the bus stop, we'd be in big trouble with our mates. But here – you should hear us, nattering away in harmony all day on our instruments…It's wicked.”

I don't see anything of James Hoode any more, because he has got his music scholarship and moved on. However, I know that he's now the proud owner of a violin worth so much that it would supply the orchestra at Compton with decent instruments thrice over. And indeed, that is precisely the purpose for which a lot of the money was used, for incredibly – and this feels so good – it all landed in my bank account. I always knew my old fiddle had been a good buy.


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