Chapter 21

The other choir came in and were followed by the choirmaster. Mister Jamieson went to help them get connected up and test the devices, while Willow took Gina up to the organ with her to get ready for the Evensong practise. She started with a short piece of Bach, then played the intro to the first hymn on the list, one that most churchgoers know by heart. There was some singing from below, which heartened her. Every hymn was from memory, while Gina looked on, in awe.

When they got to the first choral piece, she just hoped that the choir was ready, as she played from the sheet music in front of her. The six girls and three boys of the choir was right there, with her, sounding like thirty-six girls and eighteen boys. They worked to the end of the list, and she turned the organ off, and gave it a pat. She, and Gina, went back down to find that the multipliers were staying there for tomorrow, and that they would be given to Willow after Evensong to take back to the school on Monday.

As Wendy and Willow went to their car, the school choir were boarding the coach. Mister Jamieson came over to them.

“Thank you for coming. It has been a very productive day for the school. Not only do we have Willow playing here tomorrow, which will be attended by several teachers. But we also have the permission to finalise the concert to play here, with definite BBC coverage. Not only that, when I told the Bishop that we were working on the ‘Beethoven Ninth’, he insisted that we present it here, in the Cathedral, before Christmas. It will be hard work for the orchestras, with both working on that one, but it will be worth it. I think the Head will be pleased.”

Wendy agreed, then looked at Willow in the car, belted up and with her eyes shut. She saw Maisie and Gina come out and went over to them.

“Are you good for a dinner, out? I’ll check to see if I can get a booking.”

They both said that it would be perfect, so she rang the Miller and Carter, making a booking for five. Then she rang home and spoke to Ashley, to get him to meet them at the restaurant when he can. He told her that everything worked and that he’ll shower and be there.

When Wendy got in her car, Willow didn’t move. She drove, carefully, to the restaurant and parked. Wendy nudged Willow, who opened her eyes.

“Are we home, yet?”

“Not yet. We’re at the steakhouse and your father is going to join us. That was too much of an afternoon to be cooking. Here comes Gina and Maisie. You go with Gina and splash your face. You’ve had about half an hour sleep.”

“Thanks, Mum. I feel better now.”

She got out and Gina came over.

“Gina, dear. Can you help Willow to the ladies room? She just had a short sleep and needs to wake up.”

She locked the car and went over to Maisie, who was locking hers.

“That girl of yours is on automatic until she stops. Then she just falls over the cliff.”

“I know. This afternoon was tiring for me, and I wasn’t playing that organ. She was magnificent, wasn’t she?”

“It was a pleasure, and a privilege, to be there and be part of it. Talk about a performance! There’ll be a couple of hundred others who will be feeling the same as us. The Evensong was really beautiful, I think that Gina will want to be there tomorrow.”

“Both of us will take Willow in and see what happens between the two services.”

They went into the building and were shown to their table. They ordered wine for themselves and soft drink for the girls. They sipped their wine and relaxed.

“I never thought that I would be in the Cathedral and seeing my daughter, up next to Willow as she played the organ, with nobody telling her to come down.”

“It’s a strange thing, all round. If the Reverend Russell didn’t know the Bishop when they were new clergymen, he wouldn’t have been in the church last week. Life really is a line of skittles. Knock one against another and you start a chain of events. Here come the girls. Sit yourselves down girls, soft drinks are on their way.”

“Thanks, Mum. I feel better, now. It looks like I go until I stop, and when I stop, I fade. Like that first concert.”

“You’re getting longer before you fade, dear.”

“I was told that I should start seeing a fitness coach, if I want to withstand long performances.”

“I think that’s a good idea. Are there any in the Village, Maisie?”

“There’s a woman who works with older folks, in the village social club on Thursday evenings. She might be able to set something up for the girls. I think that Gina will need something like that, as well.”

They sat, sipping their drinks and talking about that afternoon, until Ashley joined them. Then, they ordered their meals, making sure that Willow had plenty to eat. It was around seven when they left, taking the three cars. Wendy followed Ashley home. Willow said that she was going straight to bed, via the bathroom, and they kissed her goodnight. Willow was in bed and thinking about her afternoon, while cuddling her two companions. The last thing she wondered was why anyone would need four keyboards.

When she woke up, the thought came back to her. Overnight, her brain had worked it out. Set one up to be in a different key, and the other two can be different musical instruments, like the trumpet fanfare she had played. That answered, she was full of beans as she got out of bed, went to the toilet and put a robe on to have breakfast. She was the first in the kitchen so found the makings of a cooked breakfast.

The smell of cooking sausages woke Wendy and Ashley, who came down to sit at the table as Willow made their meal. When they were all served, they sat and ate, with Ashley putting bread in the toaster for them.

“Is the eye in the sky, working, Dad?”

“It certainly is my girl. Here, look at these.”

He got his phone, and worked a couple of buttons, bringing up the scene down the road from the front of the house. As they watched, it shifted to one side, then the back, then the other side, and then to the porch.

“The program is set to stay on one camera if there’s movement. You can alter the timing between switching. I set it to ten seconds. There’s an override if there’s movement from a camera not in operation. I can see what’s happening from my office. There aren’t any lights on the cameras, so an intruder won’t know of it’s on. They even work in low light.”

He called up the front one, and fast forwarded until he saw movement. The time was around one in the morning, and a neighbour’s cat used their gatepost as a scratching post, then squatted in the flower bed.

“That’s wonderful, Dad. We just caught a feline vandal who then took a dump on last summer’s peonies. We really are in the current century.”

“It just shows how good the system is. We may be thankful we have it, one day. I hope it’s never needed, but it’s good to know it’s there.”

“You’re right, Dad. Thank you for installing them. I’m just making fun because I’m nervous about today.”

“You mother told me how much work you put in yesterday. I’m sure that it will all be great. Anyone know what we’re doing between twelve and four?”

“No idea, honey. If nothing else, we can always go into the shops to get something to eat.”

“Plus, a little retail therapy, perhaps?”

“That ability comes with the extra chromosome, love. It’s not something that you’ll understand, unless it was hardware, software, or sporting memorabilia.”

“Don’t forget gardening tools, my love.”

“How could I ever forget your tool, my darling. Now eat up, we need to be at the Cathedral before ten, so that Willow can be sat on her organ stool.”

When they arrived and went in, the Cathedral was bathed in muted lights, with the wall panels up floodlit. An attendant led them to reserved seats, and then took Willow up to the organ.

“The order of service is there, with the hymn numbers. What you did, yesterday, is all you need to recreate. If you look, there are three mirrors. The centre one shows you what’s going on behind you, the left shows the door where the Bishop arrives and the altar, and the right one shows the body of the church. Now, if you turn that small screen on, it will show you the view of the centre aisle and the altar, from the far end.

She turned the organ on and sat for a few moments before starting her performance. She started playing Bach and the attendant pointed to a glass of water beside the organ, and then left her. She was playing something she had played in Stoneleigh, and she settled down, while watching all the mirrors and the screen to see what was happening. Just before ten-thirty, the Cathedral was almost full.

In the left mirror, she saw the Bishop enter in full robes, with the Dean in front, carrying a big cross. There were wardens behind them. Willow tapered the music off as he arrived at the altar. There wasn’t a high pulpit, just a raised lectern with a microphone. Everything happened as it should, with him calling out the hymn numbers correctly. His sermon was, Willow thought, a little long. There were two guests who gave readings. One, to Willow’s surprise, was the Head of Blue Coat, and the other was a well-known actor.

An hour and a quarter after the Bishop had entered, he turned to leave, with Willow taking that as the sign to start the exit music. To her total surprise, he suddenly stopped, looked up at her and raised his palm. She stopped playing. He went back to the lectern, with murmurs coming from the congregation.

“Brethren, today, our organ wasn’t played by our usual organist. Today we have heard one of the most talented thirteen-year-olds in this city. Sorry about this, Willow, but I just have to give you our thanks for your playing. Brethren, please applaud Willow Rose, one of the organists at St. Marys in Stoneleigh.”

There was applause and a few cheers. When it died down, he looked up at her.

“Now you can play me out, Willow.”

She grinned and restarted the exit music as he left the Cathedral. The attendant came back to her before the Cathedral had emptied.

“You can stop now, Miss Rose. A lot of people remain to take private prayers, or to just look at the building.”

She tapered the music off and turned the organ off. When she stood, she made sure that her white outfit still looked good and smoothed her skirt. She followed the attendant, and he took her to the door that the Bishop had gone through. She found herself in a large, circular room with a huge window. The Bishop was there, with slightly less robes on, and came to take her hand.

“Welcome to Chapter House. This is a little gathering of people who want to congratulate you. I’m sorry I interrupted the flow, back there, but I just had to acknowledge the playing. Most of the regulars would have glanced up and thought that our usual organist had taken to wearing a white shirt without a jacket, it was so close to normal.”

She was spoken to by the Dean, the School Head, the actor, and several members of the city council. Then, her parents were ushered in. As they went to give her a hug, she excused herself and spoke to the attendant.

“Can you show me where the toilets are, that glass of water is making itself known.”

He grinned and showed her a door with a very small female figure on. She went in and relieved the pressure. She washed her hands and reworked her lipstick before going back to give her parents a hug.

“Sorry about that. They had a glass of water next to the organ and it worked quickly.”

“That’s all right, my daughter. You were fantastic. I bet you wanted to disappear when the Bishop pointed you out.”

“It was a surprise, but he just told me that he couldn’t help himself. The Head is here, if you want to meet her.”

She took her parents to where the Head was talking to the man from the BBC. He saw her come over.

“Willow Rose, that was a tour de force of church organ. I was just telling your Head that we will be coming along to the rehearsal at the school, the rehearsal here, and the actual performance of the Saint-Seans concert. I just surprised her by saying we will also film the Beethoven concert.”

“Yes, Miss Rose. What do you know about that?”

“Mister Jamieson is the one to ask, Miss. He was talking to the Bishop yesterday and mentioned that we were rehearsing the ‘Ninth’. The Bishop insisted that we will be performing the concert before this Christmas. I didn’t find out about it until my mother told me over dinner. It’s going to make things tight.”

“Tight! You’re right about that. We’ll have to have that as our outreach for the choir this year. I’ll get the combined orchestras set up in the theatre from this week, and it will be full on with the ‘Ninth’. If we pull it off, it will be amazing, especially if it’s shown on TV during Christmas week. You realise that there’s no keyboard in that opus.”

“I’ll be playing my clarinet, I hope, unless I’m needed in the string section. Gina will be alright; she’s already been told that she’s going to be on a triangle. Oh! By the way. The Bishop has borrowed our voice multipliers for his choir to use in Evensong. I’m to be given them to bring back to the school, tomorrow morning.”

The man smiled.

“Now, they are something else again. The ten girls used them when they did the bit from the organ symphony, with the third verse sounding like sixty voices. It was what confirmed my desire to film your concert. Look, I have to run, I’ll see you at the school to confirm times and dates.”

He left them and the Head was introduced to Willow’s father. Then she spoke to Wendy.

“I gather that you were here with Willow yesterday. Can you tell me what went on?”

“Well, Willow played an organ solo, and then she had some music from the ‘Organ Symphony’ that Mister Jamieson wanted her to play, so he could test the voice multipliers through the PA. Then Willow did the music and hymns for this morning service, followed by the hymns and choral pieces for Evensong this afternoon, with the Cathedral choir using the multipliers.”

“He added the words from the Babe film?”

“Yes Miss. It was really beautiful. I think that he may have recorded it on his phone.”

“So, let me get this right. You and two bands are doing a concert in the school in a couple of weeks. Then we’re doing the ‘’Ninth’, here in the Cathedral in the middle of December. After that, we have a Junior Orchestra classical concert, with a Christmas party for the Stoneleigh church thrown in.”

“It’s not that bad, Miss. The band concert is already rehearsed to the point of performance. The Junior Orchestra has rehearsed that concert. All we need to do is perfect the ‘Ninth’, with the combined orchestras and the choir. The Senior Orchestra has already started, with the first movement done, and our orchestras are good enough to pull it off. The party will just take a couple of Saturday afternoons to kick into shape, once we put the band together.”

The Head smiled, then hugged Willow.

“Just keep driving them, young lady. Mister Bamborough has told me that you lift those around you.”

Just then, the Bishop joined them.

“I’ve been thinking. If were doing a Saint-Saens concert. It can’t be complete without ‘Danse Macabre’.”

Willow could hardly suppress a giggle. The Head thought for a moment, then smiled.

“You’re exactly right, Bishop, we will add it to the concert. We do have until May to get it rehearsed.”

The Bishop nodded and left them. The Head looked at Willow and her parents.

“That man!”

Then she giggled.

“Whatever happens, it’s going to be memorable few weeks.”

After that, there was about ten more minutes before attendants came in to take the Roses, and selected others, to St. Michaels House, now used for various administrative projects, but still retaining its grand dining room, now set up for lunch. The diners included the Bishop, several of his staff, the Head, some of the City Council, and the Roses.

It was a pleasant meal, with much chatter and the Bishop announcing that there will be a performance of the ‘Beethoven Ninth’, performed by the Blue Coat School. Willow saw the Head trying hard to keep a smile on her face. She started to think about this as a dream sequence, but then brought herself back to reality. This was real, this was happening, she really was sitting at a dining table with the Bishop, the Head and city managers, next to her parents. If this was what fame brought, she would just have to get used to it.

The meal was a protracted one, finishing in time to freshen up, have a look around the Cathedral, meet Gina and Maisie as they came in, and then go up to the organ for her second performance. She started playing random Bach melodies until the choir master joined her to check the Evensong order.

“I’ll stay with you until we start, then I’ll go down with the choir. Do everything as you did it yesterday and we can’t go wrong.”

She restarted the Bach as they waited. He told her that it was five minutes to go, and set a timer on the organ, next to a glass of water. She worked the Bach so that it finished with five seconds to go, and, at the stroke of four ‘o’clock, she started playing the first hymn. There was almost a full house, and they were there to sing their praises. All the hymns were in the same vein, with the choir leading the singing, and the choral parts also singable by the masses. It sounded so beautiful that it made Willow get teary. She had to grab a tissue out of her bag between hymns. It was timed to end at five, and her watch showed two minutes past as she sat back. She drank the remaining water, turned the organ off and went down to join her parents and friends.

There were a lot of friends to greet her when she reached floor level. Her parents, Gina and Maisie, the Head, several teachers, the school choir, Reverend Jack and some of his colleagues, the Russells, and even some of the ladies from church were there to hear their organist play for the masses. Everyone wanted to hug and kiss, and it took an effort of will, putting a halt to the congratulations so she could go to the toilet that she had been shown, earlier.

When she returned, she felt a lot better, and accepted the adulation with grace and humility. The choir master came to them with the box of voice multipliers, leads and mics. When they finally left the Cathedral, her father drove to the steakhouse again, with Maisie following. They sat to have a meal, with Willow glad to be in some quiet. That night, she hung the white suit on a hanger and didn’t take long before she had cleansed and fallen asleep.

On Monday morning, they transferred the box of electronics to Wendy’s car. At school, Willow took it into the admin office for giving back to Mister Jamieson. It was an odd morning, for her, still coming down from Sunday’s excitement. At lunchtime, her table had visits from the choir singers, all very happy with how things worked out.

Tuesday morning was a joyful chapel service, with Gina at the organ, for the first time. The rehearsal room had a notice to go to the theatre. There, they found enough seats for both orchestras, and the choir. They found seats, realising that they were now oversubscribed. They were joined by both conductors and the Head. The Head called for quiet.

“Today, we start an accelerated rehearsal of the ‘Beethoven Nine’. We will be performing it at the Coventry Cathedral on the second weekend of December. It will be advertised through the website and in the media, with a percentage of sales going to the Cathedral outreach, and the rest to our own outreach. The choir tried the voice multipliers in the Cathedral on Saturday, with their own choir using them during Evensong yesterday afternoon. I was there and they really lifted the sound.”

She stopped and looked at a piece of paper.

“The Saint-Saens concert is a definite performance. It will happen in the middle of May. That will give us the half-year break to make sure it’s perfect, and to get set up in the Cathedral. That one will have us visited by the BBC for the rehearsals here, and at the Cathedral. The concert will be filmed, and it could be a live broadcast, depending on the first time we play it to the Beeb. Now, both Cathedral concerts may be Friday and Saturdays, so you will need to stay committed.”

She took a long look around the sitting musicians.

“You will see that we have more here than we need. Seeing that the ‘Ninth’ is so close to Christmas, anyone who has other things to do can put their hands up now and leave. No ramifications. Others may be nominated as spares, to make sure that we can fulfil our agreement.”

A half a dozen players put their hands up and they waited as instruments were picked up and taken out of the room.

“Right. Everyone here will rehearse the ‘Ninth’. That is our total project for the orchestra. The concert will be considered this year’s outreach for the choir, any carol singing needs to consider the main event. We will get together tomorrow, and next Tuesday. Wednesday will be set for the pop groups to finalise the concert in this theatre, with the stage set for that concert. I can tell you that it will be over the Friday and Saturday with the number of bookings. There will be a Christmas Party in the Community Club in Stoneleigh Village, on the third weekend of December, with proceeds going to St. Marys church to refurbish the roof. That one needs a dance band and I believe that there are already volunteers for that. Rehearsal for the party will be the Wednesdays after the pop concert, until it’s perfect. We will repeat the dance music for the students, here, in the last week of school, after the exams. Next year, we will concentrate on the Cathedral concert until May. The Junior Orchestra concert for this term will be postponed until the end of next term. Any questions?”

There was silence as they took it all in. Willow thought that hard decisions had been made to ensure that everything happened as it should. The Head left them to it, and Mister Bamborough went around the group, nominating those who will be the first team, and those who would be the second team. On the rostrum, he said that they would run through each movement with everyone playing so they all get the idea, then the first team would be needed to attend tomorrow.

That all decided, and with half of the orchestra already good with the first movement, they played the whole piece, with the choir singing in the fourth movement. Willow thought that it was pretty good for the first time, if a bit overloaded in some departments. They stayed a little late to play it again, with just the first team. Willow decided that they were now much better.

Wednesday was just the first team, and they did it twice. After they had finished, Mister Jamieson came over to Willow as she was putting her clarinet away.

“Willow, I’m sorry to tell you, but something has come up.”

She looked at him, waiting for something bad.

“The Bishop has had a brilliant idea. He thought that because we’re doing Beethoven, and because of his high regard of your playing, he has suggested that you play the ‘Toccata and Fugue’ as an opening piece.”

Marianne Gregory © 2025