Chapter 20
The other bands were drifting off, and all came to say their thanks. Willow had Sally shadowing her as she was hugged. Sally, being quite a striking looking girl, had her share of hugs as well. When Rick, Racheal, and Jacob were leaving, Willow got a hug and a kiss. She told Rick that she would get in touch as soon as she was given the finished discs.
There was a repeat when Geoff, Zara and her mother left. Sally snorted.
“That girl is going to have a problem with her mother. It looks as if she wants her daughter to be a star.”
“Yesterday, that woman came here fully intending to be away as soon as they could. She heard Zara sing, then I saw her on the phone, no doubt cancelling the other arrangements. She stayed until we packed up. I rather think that she saw her daughter as an independent person and is coming to grips with it. Zara has been going out with Geoff for a good eight months and the appear to be very comfortable together. How about you help me to get some food organised.”
They went into the kitchen where Maisie was helping get some chips cooking.
“What do want us to do, Maisie?”
“We do need numbers, so we can get things going without too much waste.”
“Sally, grab that order pad and pen. Let’s go and get the rabble organised.”
They went out and up onto the stage. Willow asked for quiet and then told them that she wanted numbers for the meal.
“We have pie and chips, egg and chips, sausage and chips, or chips and chips. Those that are staying to see our village choir, hands up those who want pie.”
They counted the hands and then got a count for sausages. Nobody wanted the egg option, and two were happy with just chips.
“That leaves just us, Sally. I’m for the sausages.”
She rang her mother.
“Mum, we’re having some tea at the club. There’s pie and chips or sausage and chips.”
“Make mine sausages, love. Your father will be eating fast food, as he’s visiting the accountant again to look over some papers he’s drawn up. I’ll join you at the club.”
Willow put her phone away.
“That’s another sausage serve, Sally. My mother will join us. She has started singing with the choir.”
“Can anyone join?”
“As long as you have a decent voice. Your father said that he would help out, so you could come along with him.”
They went back to give the numbers. Sally said that she would help with the cooking, so Willow went back into the room, seeing Gina speaking to the magazine people. Tom was sitting with the teachers, and the Head beckoned her to join them.
“We’re discussing the proposal for The Messiah, have you any thoughts?”
“In terms of the orchestra, I think that we have enough with the combined groups to make it, even oversubscribed in the strings. The Messiah can be done with six firsts, six seconds, six viola, four cello and two double bass to make it work. There’s an organ and piano. On the wind side, you can get by with a contra-bassoon and a couple of French Horns. The extras come in at the end and are two trumpets and the timpani player. I think that we’re good with that. The brass and winds that aren’t playing could fill out the male section of the choir.”
The others sat and looked at her. Finally, Mister Bamborough found his voice.
“We’ve just come to that conclusion ourselves. Have you played the piece?”
“No sir, but I have heard it, and was interested enough to research the orchestra make-up.”
“So, who do you think should play what?”
“Not for me to say, sir. You’re the conductor and I’m just a player.”
“If the Bishop pushes this, he’ll want you and Gina to be somewhere prominent.”
“Gina can play the organ, and the senior pianist is good enough for that part. There’s no clarinet.”
“But there are a lot of strings, and the ideal place for you would be sitting next to the conductor as the orchestra leader.”
“What about the other firsts, sir. Surely, they would want that to be one of their own.”
“You are one of their own, Willow, and no-one can doubt your organisational skills. The fact that you stepped back to allow Gina to blossom has given you a lot of leeway with the orchestra. All we need to sort out is a big choir.”
Tom leaned forward.
“We have most of that sorted. There is the Cathedral choir and the reserves, you have the school choir, and there are some that you’ll hear tonight who would be worthy of a place. All that leaves are the soloists.”
Willow spoke.
“What’s Sally?”
“She’s a soprano that needs training, but I can’t get her interested.”
“She asked me if she could join our choir tonight.”
“All right, we’ll see if she is committed. She does love opera, and the chance to meet Margaret, tonight, was an added bonus.”
“You’ve just mentioned the most suitable alto around. Just think of the publicity. I’m sure that there are plenty of tenor and bass voices in the city.”
“What about the wheelchair?”
“What about it. You heard her on the TV. She can sing sitting down. In fact, the four soloists could sit in a line and just stand in place to sing. Then it wouldn’t look out of place if Margaret moves her wheelchair forward a few feet, then reverses after she’s sung.”
The Head tapped the table.
“That does it. If we decide that we go ahead, Willow, you will need to be in on any meetings as orchestra leader, and Tom, you’re welcome to bring your choir along to the school if we get to full-force rehearsals. We’ll listen to what your choir sounds like, tonight, and factor that into the mix.”
Tom and Willow stood.
“Where’s Sally?”
“Helping out in the kitchen.”
“That, I have to see.”
They went to the kitchen and helped by spreading out plates on the big plate warmer, which allowed food to be taken out to diners without cooling too much. Willow grabbed a bucket of knives, and another of forks, taking them out and giving each diner a set, then getting a pile of napkins and taking them around. Tom came out of the kitchen bearing a tray with salt and pepper, putting them out.
Then, Willow showed him where the choir books were kept, and they put them out on a table near the stage, and he helped her carry one of the Yamahas down to floor level, followed by an amp. Gina came over, and, together, they cleared the stage. The techs were still there, with Xavier working on the post-production while they waited for their pick-up. The extra microphones, mixer, and cables were collected together in a box.
Xavier looked up.
“I’ve done the preliminary work, Willow. I’ll have the final items finished tomorrow. Can you organise someone to pick them up? I’ll give you the address.”
“Gina. Can your Mum take us into the city on Friday? It’s just to pick up the discs.”
“I’m certain that she’ll be happy to, friend.”
Willow took the address and thanked him for the work.
“Hell, Willow, with the bands you had here, I would have done it for nothing.”
“Now he tells me!”
“I’ll give you ten CDs and ten DVDs of the other two bands. I’ll burn twenty each of the two sessions of yours. There will be USB drives with all the raw material on them so you can play around with them for training. I get a bonus, as I won’t have to buy from the website. The unit will be in its box with all the paperwork for it. Bambi said that he might get a new set of kit for the school, seeing how easy today worked.”
Willow and Gina went and started carrying out the meals, getting their own as Wendy came in. She sat with the girls as Tom came out with his and Sally’s meal. They sat at the table, and Willow stood to go and get her mother’s plate, finding Maisie carrying two plates out.
“Mum’s arrived, Maisie. Thanks for getting on with the food.”
“It’s all right, it gave me something to do while you two implemented your plans of world domination.”
There was quiet in the room as the meals were devoured. Willow went to the bar and got a jug of soft drink and two white wines, something she knew both their mothers liked. They sat, quietly until Tom opened the conversation.
“Wendy, I haven’t introduced you to Sally, my daughter. I brought her along because she wanted to see Summer Rose and got infected by that strange effect that Willow spreads. When we arrived, Sally wouldn’t do anything in our kitchen or consider singing. Now, she helped produce all these meals and is thinking of joining your choir.”
Willow looked at Sally starting to blush.
“Who does the cooking at home, Tom?”
“My wife. She’s very good, almost restaurant style, we eat well.”
“What’s the difference between her kitchen output and what was produced today?”
“It’s chalk and cheese.”
“So, do you think that Sally would help more if the food was simpler, or if she was allowed to do simple tasks. Not everyone is cordon bleu. Did you have fun in the kitchen, Sally?”
“I did. There wasn’t anybody telling me I couldn’t boil water.”
“With the choir, have you wanted to sing but thought that you would be laughed at?”
Sally put her head down and nodded.
“Tom, someone has told me that I see talent and help it grow. What I do see are people who are scared to show their true colours. It is something I learned because I was also shy child who wanted to hide in the background. I don’t know how I detect it, but I see a yearning in Sally to be able to do something that is hers, and hers alone.”
“You know, Willow Rose, you may be young, but when you get older, you will be formidable.”
“You’re telling me that she isn’t that now! She told me off something proper earlier in the day, and my so-called friend, Marcus, rubbed it in by telling me I deserved it!”
“Hello, Peter, why don’t you join us when you’ve bought your drink.”
Peter went to the bar. When he came back, he sat at the table.
“I want to bring you up to date with my discussion with the Head. She has told me that it appears that the more time you’re all on the stage, the better your grades are. She has a theory about learning music and raising the work ethic. Anyway, she’s happy for us to start organising the odd show. Marcus wants to put together one in the city with all three of the bands. He has pointed out that you were right, Willow, and a steady injection of new Summer Rose into the mix would help put bums on seats.”
“What about dinner dances?”
“She’s keen on those. Something about looking after big donors and the church hierarchy. If you can email your suggested dates to both Marcus and me. I’ll follow your sage advice and de-finger. Note any dates that are a definite no-no.”
“Thank you, Peter, I’ll send something to your office tomorrow. I’ve been told that the product from today can be picked up on Friday. Can we drop by your office to leave you some samples.”
“OK. How are you getting in?”
Maisie raised a hand.
“I’m driving them. I need to go in and get some material. One of my clients has an invitation to a society wedding in a week and a half. I didn’t know she even knew the Baron or his family. She may be a friend of a friend of the Earl.”
They had a laugh, and Willow put her hand on her mother’s arm.
“Bit of a change on Saturday, Mum. Racheal is going to wear apricot and has asked me to be the Maid of Honour. What I get for the Registry has to be suitable for the reception. Cassie hasn’t told us any limits, and we will be playing at the reception, so something that looks good but is also easy to play in without getting overheated will work.”
“Ah! Yes. That reception. It’s a very interesting show that you’ve been booked for, paid twice what you usually get here, money up front.”
“Thanks for reminding me, Peter. We’ll need to have our four wind players for that. Do you think that you could go to the Head and ask for contact details of them. When they play here, Malcolm had been giving them cash in hand. If you sign them up as casuals, they can get a portion of our payment. When you get the details and speak to them, can you tell them to contact me, so I can give them details of the gig.”
He stood, laughed and saluted her.
“Aye, aye, my captain.”
They watched him go to speak to the teachers again. They were clearing the tables and loading the industrial dishwasher as the choir started to arrive. They all got themselves drinks while waiting, and Tom introduced Sally.
“We will test her range first, just as we did with you last week. Then we’ll know where she stands. Bruce Miller from the Observer is here tonight, and he wants to talk to you all for an article. He’s a good guy and will write it in a nice way. There is also some people from a woman’s magazine. Here come our three retirees, let’s get ourselves ready. Willow, do you want to run the scales for Sally?”
“Gina, do you think you can handle the organ tonight. There’s a pile of stuff I need to carry home.”
“OK friend. The music is in the book, so it shouldn’t be a problem. You have a lot of tidying up to do.”
Gina sat at the keyboard and worked through the scales for Sally, who Willow could hear had a good soprano, but needed some breath training. Picking up bundles of cables, and her bag, she left the club and walked home with her burden. She stacked the cables in the spare room and went back to the club to collect the box with the microphones and the mixer. As far as she was concerned, it had been a good day, even with Peter barging in. That may have been a blessing in disguise, as everyone that he needed to talk to were already in the room.
When she got back to the club, she sat on a stool by the bar and had a lemonade. Malcolm came and leaned on his side of the counter.
“Stepping back to give Gina more responsibility?”
“You see through me like a window. I might have a lot more responsibility with the school orchestra heading towards the end of the year. Gina has come along and is gaining her own ways of doing things.”
“I’ve known her and Maisie for years. Gina has grown a year in the last six months. You, young lady, started out as a feisty young girl, but you’re acting like an adult, so take my advice, take some time out for yourself and enjoy your teenage years.”
“The problem is, Malcolm, that I have become an entertainer. I’ve gone from a shy kid who hid away, to someone who isn’t afraid of standing up in front of people. I’ve sung in front of two hundred and fifty here, performed for fifteen hundred in the school, and played the organ for over two thousand in the Cathedral. Christmas Eve, I was playing the organ on the TV, to who knows how many millions, but all I saw in front of me was a set of keyboards. People tell me that I have a knack of finding talent and promoting them. Do you hear that soprano? That’s a girl who was afraid of singing in case she would be laughed at. If everything happens as expected, she may be a soloist in the Cathedral before Christmas.”
“I won’t try to figure out how you do it, Willow, but don’t stop.”
“I’ll try not to, Malcolm, I’m having too much fun. Thank you for your support these two days, I’m sorry that I kept you from your other work.”
“I’ve been able to do some things that I’ve been putting off. I’ve also listened to four very good bands.”
“Four?”
“Summer Rose and the Other side are two different bands. Both worthy of being in the charts.”
“The Other Side was just a cover band today. We are going to have to work up some original material before we take it to the stage. That’s something that I’ll have to coax our guitarists to come up with. So far, my output has been soft-rock ballads.”
“You’ll find your voice with stronger tunes as you age. Once the others start coming to you with new songs, you’ll start to think of ways to improve them. That will lead you writing your own.”
“How did you get to be so erudite?”
“Standing behind a bar and listening to drinkers telling you how they can save the world.”
They stayed where they were and listened to the choir, with Tom taking them through some exercises and a few songs before he called it a night. Willow stayed where she was as she saw Margaret talk to Sally, who had a wonderful smile on her face. Gina turned off the keyboard and amp, and Tom helped her put them away in the storeroom.
Wendy came over to the bar.
“That was fun. It was interesting to see Sally blossom. You were exactly right, and I think that her father may make some changes in their household in future. Are you ready to go home?”
“Yes, Mum. It’s been a long day. I’ll just say goodnight to the others, and I’ll walk home if you want to leave now.”
“I’ll get ready for bed and make a hot chocolate. Your father should be home soon.”
She left and Willow watched as the magazine people were talking to Margaret and her friend, and also including Sally in the conversation, with the teen magazine reporter concentrating on her. Gina came over.
“You look like you need your bed, friend. That was interesting to play for a choir. I think that I learned a few things. We’ll pick you up on Friday morning. Have a day off tomorrow, this is supposed to be a holiday.”
“I’ll do that. See you Friday.”
They hugged and Willow picked up her bag. Malcolm gave her a wink as he bade her goodnight. When she got home, she sat with her parents with the mugs of hot chocolate. Ashley told her that the accountant’s paperwork looked good and that they had an appointment on Monday evening to sign. Then, he asked her how things went, and she gave him a potted history of the day, asking him if he could draw two thousand in cash from her account to pay for the post-production.
“I thought that you had already paid for those three guys?”
“That was for the recordings. Rick offered Xavier a thousand to pay for the post-production of his band, so I felt that I should match that for the two sessions we did. I’m going to pick up the product on Friday. If Peter works things as he should, just one of those sessions will return over a million, so it’s money well spent.”
“What about the other session?”
“That will have to be on the back burner until summer, and our possible live shows. When you see the DVD, you’ll understand why.”
She went off to bed, cleansing and brushing her teeth. Tonight, she had time to tell Tiger and Shaun about her day before drifting off to sleep.
On Thursday, she dressed casually, loaded the new software onto her laptop, and played around with it before calling up the on-line training and following the lessons. After that, she made sure that one of the cameras had the battery charged, and a memory card in, then went to the church to make a film about it, trying out the zoom from the organ loft, and doing close-ups of the plaques and other signs. Then she walked home along the river, stopping to film her surroundings. By the time she got home, she was happy with what she had learned. She put the memory stick into one of the adaptors she found, and played her film back, seeing where she had been unsteady, or too fast with the panning that made her dizzy.
After that, she took the two discs that Xavier had given her and watched them from start to finish. By that time, it was late enough to go into the kitchen and start preparing dinner. As she chopped and diced, she thought about her day and what she had learned. What with the drum machine and the new software, she was becoming far more used to the technology, and she had been quite good at it before.
After dinner, Ashley gave her the two thousand in a brown bank envelope which she put in her bag. Wendy gave her a wad of CD album covers that she had designed and printed off. Willow put the Journey disc into the player, and they sat and watched it, her parents seeing it complete with the full band for the first time. As it finished, Ashley gave her a hug while Wendy was drying her eyes.
“If that’s what gets released, it’s going to get crazy around here,”
“That was just from Tuesday, Dad. Tomorrow evening I’ll have what should be the saleable show, using the new software.”
She had an early night, needing to catch up on her sleep, the efforts of the last few days bringing back some of the fatigue that she had felt after the operation. She was mindful of that sage advice to take time out for herself.
In the morning, she waited for Maisie to pick her up, checking that she had everything in a big shoulder bag. When they went towards Coventry, Maisie took the road towards the farm. Gina turned around in the front seat.
“We went to the farm yesterday to talk about them buying our place. I told Jacob that we were going to pick up the discs, and he wanted to come along.”
Jacob got in the back seat with Willow, and they kissed before he buckled up. They held hands during the trip. Maisie had put the address into the GPS, and they pulled up outside Xavier’s house. When they knocked on the door, Xavier opened it and beckoned them in. His father was there and welcomed them. Xavier had three boxes of discs as promised, with the USB and all the memory sticks. Willow handed him the brown envelope.
“That’s the payment we agreed. Jacob will make sure Rick pays for his set when he’s at the farm. I’ll give our manager two CDs and two DVDs, and the USB to put up on the website. How did you go with the TV guys yesterday?”
Xavier gave his father the envelope as he replied.
“It was really good. They were very interested in what we did on the fly, and I was told a name of a guy to get in touch with. The guy that spoke to me suggested that I could work at the station, part-time, until I finished school. The cameraman had a long talk with Dave and Frank. Do I have your permission to send a few tracks to the station, so that they can gauge our work?”
“Not a problem. Just make sure that they know that they need to get in touch with me before putting anything from any of the bands to air. By rights, because I funded the day, the finished product is my property.”
His father looked up from checking the contents of the envelope.
“This is a lot of money for a day’s work.”
“Not when you’re paying for expert attention. We’ll be dropping some of these to our manager, today. When they go on-line, Xavier will have a bargaining tool when he talks to the TV station.”
“Thank you for all that you’ve done for him, Miss Rose. He showed me a few clips from your show last night. It was certainly better than the ones he had done for the school.”
Xavier and his father helped to take the boxes out to the car, including the recording unit in its box. Willow and Gina gave Xavier a hug and said that they would see him in school. On the way to Peter’s office, Willow asked Maisie to pull over. She got the album cover art out of the bag and added it to some of their own disc cases. Jacob and Gina kept one of each for themselves.
At Peter’s office they gave him two CDs and two DVDs.
“These will allow you to see what it turned out like. One set for you, and one set for Marcus. I’ll give you the digital version on a USB when you’re ready to go on-line. We have the discs for the other bands but think that it’s up to them to give you copies when they’ve been signed on. Jacob will give the Hiker’s set to Racheal to give to Rick, as they’re at the farm a lot, these days. I’ll phone Geoff to send Jim over to pick up theirs.”
He gave them a signed receipt for the discs and then they went to look for fabric, with Willow and Jacob having a cuddle behind the rolls of material.
Marianne Gregory © 2025