Chapter 2
The three friends went back to the house and helped tidy up and put leftovers in the fridge. Jacob said that Racheal was back from the honeymoon and was going to bring him to the morning service at St. Marys. The Roses went home to have a quiet cup of hot chocolate before bed, Willow still wondering what the week ahead will bring.
The family had a slow morning start, with the service not starting until ten-thirty. The club wasn’t opening today, so Ashley had a clear time. They walked to the church and Willow checked over the hymns. Being Easter, there were five today, all that she had played before. She went up to the organ to play the welcoming music.
As she played, she saw her parents talking to others as they came in and was in wonderment at their integration as church attendees. Then she thought about how her parents had become a part of the Village community. Her father was now an integral part of the club, her mother singing in the Village Choir. Who knows what would happen in time to come? Would they want to move to a more affluent suburb if she became moderately rich? She was happy here, with her own affiliation with the club and the church. She couldn’t see anywhere she would rather be at the moment.
She got her mind back to the job at hand as the congregation stood. The sermon was all about a new, and better, life, and there were the five hymns, all uplifting in their way, if one listened to the words and discounted the magic trick. As she played, she realised that the magic trick may be a bit too far, but that an element of magic was needed. The band produced magic beyond their years, so creating the illusion of professionalism. She had been magically transformed into a girl and that created her new persona. Kissing Jacob was a magical moment in itself.
The service finished just before noon, and the family went home to a midday dinner; roast beef and vegetables, served up just after one, with most of the preparation done before they left. They lazed around for some of the afternoon. Willow was constantly checking her emails, but there was nothing new. Then, they went back to the church for Evensong at four, Gina would be starting to play in the Cathedral at the same time.
St. Marys didn’t often have Evensong, as the numbers hadn’t made it viable before the old organist had passed away. This was something new, and the village turned out, with the Village Choir determined to make their voices heard. In its way, Willow thought that it was as good as the Cathedral singing. When the church was empty again, she went down and outside. Reverend Russell was still talking to some of the villagers, and Edie was there with a tray. It had three small easter eggs, wrapped in silver paper.
“Take them all, Willow. A growing girl needs her strength. They’re caramello inside, so don’t eat them all at once.”
“Thank you, Edie. I’ll share with my parents.”
Edie giggled and leant close to whisper.
“They already took two each, so have your own. You really deserve them. The parish is as good as it ever has been, and the Reverend is out most days, seeing those who can’t attend.”
Willow put the eggs in her bag and went to speak to Jacob and his sister. Racheal gave her a hug.
“Willow, I have to thank you for playing my favourite song at the reception. I’m sorry that my old friends bothered you. Most of the girls at school thought that I was destined to work on the land; piss-poor, and lonely. It was a shock to them that I was marrying a band member of a successful group and had other bands as friends. I doubt that I’ll see any of them again, unless I visit the dress shop, salon, or supermarket they work in.”
“That’s all right. It was a good evening and I have to thank you for the use of the room.”
“The least I could do for my Maid of Honour.”
“I still have your pre-wedding outfit at home.”
They walked to her house and Racheal was given the garment bag. Back at the church, Jacob gave her a hug and a kiss, and then Willow joined her parents to go home to a quiet evening in front of the TV. The inane comedy about an Easter Bunny in a store had no interest for her, so she kissed her parents and went up for an early night. Before she went to the bathroom, she remembered the chocolate eggs, taking them out of her bag and finding that they were very soft. Each one didn’t take long to melt in her mouth, which made toothbrushing imperative. She cleansed and put on her good nightie and got into bed. As she lay there, she giggled quietly, realising that it wasn’t good to put all your eggs in one bag.
Her phone was on charge overnight, and it pinged with an incoming message about half-past eight. The message was from Clive Battersby and asked her to ring him at her earliest convenience. She rang the number he had called from.
“Good morning, it’s Willow Rose calling.”
“Good morning, Miss Rose. Sorry to bother you in the Easter break but my boss has been on my back.”
“That’s all right, sir. I have a free day. What can I help you with?”
“We want to see you in the school environment and take some pictures. Is there any time that you would be able to fit that in?”
“If it’s urgent, we have orchestra practise on Tuesdays after school hours until about six or six-thirty. The four of us that recorded the Carpenters album are all in the orchestra. Will that be suitable?”
“That would be perfect. The launch is around the original four and we can pick up with the others if you go well. How good is the orchestra?”
“We have a concert in a month’s time at Coventry Cathedral, playing a Saint-Saens night. We should be doing final rehearsals for that. We have been asked to play on the Monday of the last week of the Proms.”
“How old are the players?”
“We’re operating as a combined orchestra at the moment, using players from both the junior and senior school, so between thirteen and sixteen.”
“How can I organise to come and see you?”
“If you ring the school tomorrow and ask to speak to the Head, she should be able to let you come in after hours. If she’s not available, Miss Russell is part of the Music School.”
“Thank you for your help, Willow. I’ve shown your other DVD to our manager that deals with metal bands. He has already heard, on the grapevine, that you’ll be opening for Blastmasters at the end of August and is keen to have The Other Side in the shops before that. Any idea how I can do that?”
“Contact Peter, our manager, and tell him that I gave you the disc. Tell him that I said that he isn’t the only one that needs to de-finger. The thing is that he doesn’t have the digital version of that concert. I have kept it back.”
“Will do. I think that it’s going to be fun working with you. See you Tuesday.”
When she went downstairs for breakfast, Wendy looked at her.
“I heard you talking on the phone earlier. Something I should know?”
“It was one of the guys who you met at the church that Sunday. He wanted to know if he could get some pictures in the school. I suppose that they want to push the fact that we’re all teeny boppers. I told him to come Tuesday while we’re at orchestra practise. Maisie doesn’t know yet, but I’ve organised with the estate agent to have a look at the industrial site on Tuesday at six-thirty. I had better email Gina and ask her to ask her mother.”
“You do realise that before you make any decision on that, you’ll have a record out and there’ll be another statement from Peter.”
“I had better ask him to transfer some of my account over, then, so I can organise a deposit.”
She went and turned on her laptop, and sent an email to Peter, asking him to deposit a hundred and fifty thousand from her account to the bank account for WR Holdings, giving him the account details. This was sent from the WR Holdings Google address. She added a postscript that he will have Clive Battersby getting in touch during the week and that she had specifically told him to say that Peter wasn’t the only one who needed to de-finger.
Then she emailed Gina to ask her mother if she didn’t mind a detour to Hood Street on the way home to look at and investment property. While she had the computer on, she found a site that gave a lot of information on The Messiah, including the lyrics and music. She printed off several sheets of paper and spent most of the day working through the music on her keyboard and singing the words. Before she went to help with the dinner, she put her notes in a file and put it in her school bag.
On Tuesday morning, Gina told her that it was all right with her mother, and Willow told the two of them that they may get a visit from the record executive during orchestra practise. It was Gina who asked how she knew this.
“I have to come clean, friends. He was one of the guys watching us play at the reception. He was one of the people that Marcus had seen, but the thinking in the record company was that the DVD was a bunch of kids miming to a proper band. They had come to speak to me, that morning, because Marcus had dropped the fact that I played organ in the church.”
“Why did you keep it to yourself?”
“Because it was all maybe and could be. I didn’t want to raise your hopes if it turned out as a bummer. The email from Peter confirmed that they were going ahead but doesn’t know how close it was to being rejected. At the reception, I gave them my contact details and the guy who spoke to me as we were clearing the stage, rang me yesterday. He wants a chance to see and photograph us in the school and I told him to talk to the Head.”
Placated, the other two got out of the car, with Wendy giving her daughter a nod as she picked her bag out of the footwell. It was Gina’s turn on the chapel organ that morning, and the day was as good as days at school could be. When they arrived at the rehearsal room, it was set with the two keyboards, so Willow thought that they may do ‘Carnival of The Animals’ today. That was confirmed by Mister Bamborough.
“We have three sessions after this to be perfect with the concert. We have looked at the timescale and have decided that Willow should only play the ‘Allegro’ movement of the ‘Seven Improvisations’, then the ‘Carnival’ before ‘Danse Macabre’. There will be an interval before the ‘Organ Symphony’. I want to nail the first two today, the second two next week, and then we will have two extended sessions to do the complete performance with our techs recording and filming, for our school use.”
As he was finishing, the door opened, and the Head came in with Clive Battersby and two other men, one with a camera. The Head asked Mister Bamborough if she could say a few words. She looked over the orchestra.
“Today, we have some visitors to this session. One is Clive Battersby, an A&R Executive with the record company that Summer Rose will be on, with product in the shops on Friday. There is also, as you can see by his camera, a photographer. They are here to take pictures of the four members of Summer Rose that are in the orchestra and were the four playing on their first album. Two will sit by the wall, while the other one circulates taking pictures. I’ve been told that he is experienced at photographing orchestras, so try to ignore him. Brent and Jacob, can you put your hands up, so he knows where you are.”
The two raised their hands.
“Gina and Willow will be on the two keyboards. Is there anything else?”
“Yes. When I saw the band play at a reception, there were wind players. We would like some preliminary shots of those.”
“All right, those who were at that reception last week, put your hands up.”
When the photographer had picked out all the ones he wanted. The Head told Mister Bamborough that the floor was his.
“Thank you, Head. We will open the concert with Willow and the ‘Allegro’ from the ‘Seven Variations by Saint-Saens.”
He nodded to Willow, and she started the movement. The photographer took several pictures of her from different angles, and then went around the rest of the orchestra, taking pictures of them all listening to the music. When Willow finished, she saw the third, so far un-named man, with a big smile. Then they were into the ‘Carnival’. At one point she looked up and saw the man writing something in a notebook and show it to Clive, who nodded and smiled. When they had finished the fourteen movements. Mister Bamborough called that they had done very well and that they would rehearse the second half of the concert next week. The four band members were lined up for pictures, with the school uniform on, with some including the Head. Clive was talking to a few of the other orchestra members, and the third man was in deep conversation with Mister Bamborough.
The three made their exit as soon as they could, after Gina had a quick hug with Brent, who was somewhat bemused by all the interest. They got outside and found Maisie waiting for them. As she drove them to the industrial area, she saw how excited her passengers were and asked why.
Gina gave her the news about the session and the photographer.
“There was another guy there, an older one, and he seemed very interested in what we were playing.”
“Perhaps he’s a classic music buff, friend.”
“There has to be a reason why he was there. Perhaps you will find out and can let us know.”
“OK. If I get an email, I’ll forward it on.”
They arrived at the building, met the agent, and he unlocked and showed them around. As it was, it was unsuitable for a studio, with a lot of smaller rooms with various pieces of equipment in. Jacob knocked on the walls and pronounced that a lot of them were only stud walls and could be removed in a couple of days. Willow told the agent, who had originally thought that Maisie was the customer, that she was prepared to put fifty thousand down as a deposit, providing that he organised an independent building inspection, with an offer of four hundred thousand to take to the vendor. If the offer wasn’t accepted, to send her the inspection account anyway and she would pay it. She gave him the WR Holdings email address and asked him if he could keep her in mind if similar sized properties came up that were well built.
On the way home, Maisie wanted to know about the building.
“It’s all brick, Maisie, with a five-year tenancy at over thirty-one thousand a year. If we buy it, we’ll get nearly half of what we paid in rent. It will have to be worth what we paid in five years, if not more. If all those stud walls come out, we could convert it to a recording studio if the tenants leave. I don’t intend to allow Peter to sit on my money and keep the bank interest. If we pay it off, then we can look for other places.”
They dropped Jacob off, and then Willow.
“See you tomorrow, friend.”
“See you tomorrow, Willow.”
She had a sandwich and turned her laptop on. There was an email from Clive on the company letterhead.
‘Thank you for the opportunity to see you in a different light today. I didn’t introduce our companion as he wanted to hear for himself. He was mightily impressed that you and Gina played the whole session without the score in front of you. He is a contractor with our company, working with the classical catalogue, and has a full-time job as a producer at Abbey Road, which was built to record orchestras before the Beatles. He wants to get the orchestra into his studio and asked your conductor to send him a list of pieces that you can play. We got a lot of good pictures and a hook to hang some advertising material on. I believe that you’re in the Cathedral next Sunday. We will come along to that as well and will be at the school next Tuesday to hear the other half of your concert.
Clive’
She forwarded the email to the team, as it did no harm to let all of them know.
Wednesday evening, she played the keyboard for the choir while Gina sang a bit. Tom was getting excited about the prospect of presenting the Messiah, and Sally was sounding better every time she sung. Before they left, Willow asked Tom if he would like to add the Cathedral Choir to the school one when they had the concert, just for the last part of the ‘Organ Symphony’. He thought it was a nice idea and would talk to the Head. He was told that it would be rehearsed after school the following Tuesday.
On Thursday, on the way to school, they heard ‘Finding a Friend’ on the radio for the first time, with the announcer telling his audience that this was from a new album by local band, Summer Rose, and would be available to buy the next day. Before they got out of the car, he had played ‘Her Day’ as well.
The day went well, and lunch was busy with orchestra members that had received the email on Tuesday spreading the word about a possible recording at Abbey Road. Several wondered if the album could have a picture of them all on the zebra crossing, as a panorama wrapped around the CD. The Head intercepted the three friends as they waited for Wendy.
“I have to hand it to you three. If you didn’t so much good, you’d be dangerous. That Marcus thought he was offering us the world when he said he would get the orchestra on a cut-price classic label. Now, I’m told you may all be taken to Abbey Road and issued on one of the best labels around. I had my radio on quietly at times today, and it seemed as they were playing your new album on rotation. Congratulations on a beautiful body of work. They did mention that every song is an original. Well done!”
Willow blushed, and Gina spoke.
“They are all Willow’s originals, ma’am. She sent the rest of us the vocal and a basic tune and we all added our own parts. When we played it for the first time, we all had the same ideas and what you have been hearing was settled inside a day. I’m now waiting for the next album to work on.”
Willow laughed.
“I’ve been far too busy to even think about new lyrics. I reckon summer may be a good time. I wouldn’t want to take time out of my studies, now, would I?”
The Head laughed with them as Wendy pulled up. When the three were in the car she turned to them.
“What was the joke with the Head? She seemed very happy.”
“Just Willow being playful. The Head told us that she had heard a lot of our album on her radio today.”
“So, have I. We have one on at work, louder in the warehouse, and I’m almost over Summer Rose already!!”
On the way home, Willow’s phone pinged. She looked at the message and passed her phone to the back seat passengers. Gina squealed.
“What’s that message?”
“It’s from Clive, Mum. He said ‘Album on Nat, a/play. Preorders over fifty K. Clive.’”
“Interpretation, please?”
“A lot of people have been hearing the songs, and fifty thousand have placed orders for their copy when it’s released tomorrow.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Better than we expected, Mum. It’s brilliant!”
“When will you start seeing some return?”
“It depends on the payment schedule with the label. It may be weekly, or at the end of each month. Perhaps it’s some chosen day of the month, say, the twenty-seventh, which may have some in our next statement.”
Gina handed her phone back.
“Willow. Can I join in with your property portfolio?”
“If you want. See your mother’s accountant and get him to create a company with you and her as directors. I did that with WR Holdings. That will give you a bank account and credit card in the company name that you can use. It also will include your mother in any profits if we sell. Then, any one of you can come to the other two with a project or likely property. We can enter joint agreements to cover each case.”
“It would be great if you join us, Gina. We can make sure our earnings don’t get frittered away. With the three of us examining each case, we can pick it apart and not get hoodwinked. Dad’s seeing the farm accountant next week about one for me, with him as co-director. He has already spoken to the guy and has created one in Racheal’s and Rick’s names, which has stopped him buying a Ferrari.”
They all laughed, and it was a happy carload that arrived at the farm. Rosalie came out and invited them in, having been listening to her radio.
“When you told me that Jacob would be on the TV this year, Willow, I thought that you were joking. Now they’re playing your songs, and he will be on TV in a few weeks, if only playing the triangle.”
“I expect that there will be segments of our DVD on some of the news channels if our album is a hit. We’re a novelty by all being thirteen. We had pictures taken of us in school uniform the other day, I’m almost afraid at what we will look like. Anyway, if the school pick the guitar concerto by Rodrigo, he may fill the screen at the Proms concert.”
They had a cup of tea and carried on, and when they stopped at Gina’s, Maisie came out to beckon them in. Over another cup of tea, she told them her news.
“I went into the city today and saw Frankie. We had lunch together and had a long talk. The upshot is that I will work for her as a consultant on bridalwear that I’m known for. I’ll be designing and doing the fittings, but her workshop will make the garments. I’ll be paid a retainer and a slice of the profit. It will be enough for us to live quietly, even without what Gina earns.”
Gina went to her mother and gave her a long hug.
“That’s great news, Mum. You can use that new sewing machine to create stage outfits for me and Willow, which we can pay you for. We were also talking about creating a group to buy commercial property. Can we see our accountant and set up a company with us as co-directors. Jacob is setting one up with his father, and Willow already has one with her parents.”
“That sounds good, my darling. I already have one for my dressmaking.”
When Wendy and Willow arrived home, Willow was in the toilet while Wendy was putting the car away.
“No more tea, Mum.”
“I agree, daughter. Now, stand aside while I get to the ensuite.”
Marianne Gregory © 2025