Chapter 16

When the four arrived at the airport, they went to the Emirates desk to check in, to find that they needed to check in at the first-class desk. There, Willow showed the paperwork that Jill had sent her, and their cases were tagged and put onto the conveyor. They went through emigration and a bag Xray, then they were directed to the Club Lounge, where they found Jill and Lauren waiting for them.

“I hope this isn’t going to show up on our next statement as an expense.”

“It won’t, Willow. The four of you have been paid for by the TV station in Sydney. The label has a membership with British Airways, which has a reciprocal agreement with Emirates. Any expenses on this trip will be counted as advertising and promotion by our accountants, so sit back and enjoy the flight.”

They settled in comfortable seats, with the adults enjoying the free wine. Jill made a comment about the party being special.

“How was it special, Jill?”

“In other ones I’ve been to, the pop stars have usually got high as a kite and bad-mouthed each other. I’ve never heard them laugh so much and sing together before. Also, you wouldn’t know this, but we’ve never had a classical album go gold before.”

“Mister Bamborough seemed to think that it was being bought because we’d played organ on it.”

“That may well be the case, but it’s still exposing a whole new demographic to classical music. It will be different when we release the Messiah album, that will be one for the purists. The two albums you recorded in Cambridge and York will show if you’re the magnets that attracts the customers pound. We held back the ‘Musk Rat Quest’ until February, seeing how the Berlin show is selling.”

“It’s not called the ‘Musk Rat Quest’ and you know it!”

“It’s what our promotions people have called it, ever since they listened to the CD. It’s got it’s hook into them. There’s a couple of songs that have been hummed around the office for weeks. These will be the ones pushed to the radio stations.”

“That’s odd. I suppose that I’ve only considered it as a concept album in its entirety.”

When they were called, they followed the other passengers to the plane, where they were settled into the plush seats that would stretch out to be a proper bed. Once they had gained altitude, they were served dinner and given PJs. The seats were far enough apart to have a curtain between, allowing for privacy in changing. Willow didn’t find it hard to get to sleep, even considering how high they were.

They were woken with a breakfast, some five hours later, and the sun was shining in a perfectly blue sky. They ate and washed before changing back into their previous clothes. The plane started to descend towards Dubai. They had taken off at eight in the evening, and they were now arriving in Dubai at just after seven in the morning, so had lost four hours.

When they disembarked, they were led through to a transit lounge, where they were given the choice to stay, or take a guided tour as temporary visitors. They took the tour and were taken into the city in an air-conditioned coach. During the day, they saw various sights, went up to the observation deck at the Birge Khalifa Level one hundred and forty-eight. They ate lunch in a restaurant under an aquarium, and shopped in an arcade that made where they bought their party dresses look like an op-shop. Maisie was looking in one window.

“Good God! Look at that outfit, they’re asking fifteen thousand for it.”

Gina peered at the mannequin.

“That’s just for the skirt, Mum. The top has a tag which says that it’s another ten thousand.”

The coach took them to a posh restaurant where they had dinner, and then it was back to the airport. They were due to take off around half-past nine, and glad to be inside and under cool air, as a TV screen showed that it was twenty-four degrees ‘C’ inside, and still thirty-four outside.

Back in a plane, they were going to be in the air for close to fourteen hours but would be landing at six-thirty in the evening, so losing another five hours. Jill told them that she had spoken to the contacts in Sydney, and it was, indeed, eleven hours ahead of London. On the way back, she said, they would be chasing the sun and with twenty-one hours in the air, in clock time it would only be a ten-hour flight and a very long night.

It wasn’t long after they took off when they were all snug in bed after an exciting day. It was bright and sunny when Willow woke, and she gazed out of the window to see clouds below them, and the sight of water in the clear spaces. They got themselves clean and tidy and redressed. She could see some who had different outfits on this morning. That was something to think about next time. They ate, read the airline magazine, looked at the films on the screen. They looked at the map with a line between Dubai and Sydney, with a red dot that showed where they were. In the end, Willow resorted to laying back and thinking about songs in her mind.

They were given lunch, and then dinner, and then they started the descent into Sydney. By this time, Willow had decided that, if she ever took the trip again, it would be in first-class and never mind about the cost. Lauren came and made Willow and Gina look like stars before she was asked to return to her seat.

Before they landed, the captain thanked them for flying Emirates and that the time on the ground was half past six in the evening, and the temperature was a warm thirty-two degrees. When they disembarked, the airbridge was hot, but the terminal was cooler. They went through customs and immigration, to emerge into the concourse and bright lights of a TV camera, and the sound of some screaming girls.

They were blinking with the light when a man came over with his hand out to shake.

“G’day. I’m Barry Boysee, the host of the TV show. Welcome to Sydney, the beating heart of Australia.”

Jill took his hand.

“Hello, Barry. I’m Jill and we’ve spoken by phone.”

“G’day, Jill. I guess the two young ones are our stars. Let’s get you through this mob and into the cars. You must be knackered from the trip.”

Willow was looking past him at the crowd. She started to make out details, and saw that there would have been about twenty, or so, and all looked about her age. She thrust her case into her mother’s hand and walked towards them.

“Hello. Thank you for coming out this evening.”

The crowd of girls quietened, and one, wearing black jeans and red shirt, stepped forward.

“Hello, Miss Rose. Welcome to ‘down under’. We’re the Summer Rose Fan Club here.”

“Well, that’s a bit different. We’ve never met anyone from a fan club before. In England, we just go to a venue and perform, with some fans wanting to meet us. I suppose we may have a fan club, but the record label would see to that. What’s your name?”

“I’m Evelyn, and I’m the Founder and President. It’s such an honour to talk to you, most pop stars just wave as they breeze through.”

“I’m not a pop star, Evelyn. I’m just a schoolgirl, like you, who just got lucky and worked hard to make things better. I see you have a medallion around your neck. That doesn’t look right.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s plastic from the cheap import shop. The ones on the website would cost seventy-five dollars to get mailed here, and this one was only five dollars.”

Willow delved into her bag, where she still had a few of the real ones.

“Here, Evelyn. These are genuine and my gift to you and your friends for coming out to say hello.”

She gave the packets to the startled girl and pulled her notepad and a biro out of her bag.

“Look, if you write your name and address on this, I’ll send you a box of medallions to give out to your members when I get back home.”

“Would you do that for us, Miss Rose?”

“I certainly would, Evelyn and friends. It’s lovely to be met by friends when you arrive anywhere. So far, the only other person to speak to us was Barry.”

“Him! He’s a right wanker. The current one of a long line of TV pop show wankers. We only watch his show for the stars, even the adverts are better than his blather!”

“I’ll keep that in mind when I speak to him on air. Look, add your email address and I’ll let you know what we’re doing here. Even I haven’t been told that.”

Evelyn added her email and gave the notepad back to Willow, who put it in her bag and reached out to hug the girl, with her friends gasping.

“Thank you, again, Evelyn. I hope we can meet up in the next few days. I’ve got to get back to the others. As they say, the show must go on, and I think I might have put someone out by talking to you.”

She went back to the others, where Barry and Jill were discussing the schedule and hadn’t even noticed she had gone. Willow winked at the others, took her case back, and the five left the two to their business and walked past the bewildered cameraman, to be joined by the fan club.

“Evelyn, this is Gina Summer, my best friend for life. It was us getting together that started Summer Rose.”

Gina had watched Willow, so stopped and gave Evelyn a hug.

“So, Evelyn. Where can we stop for a chat before we get whisked away? I need a cup of tea.”

They were led to a café area, where Wendy and Maisie organised tea for them and drinks for all the girls. That’s where Barry and Jill found them, in conversation with the fans, talking about where they went to school and what they did for fun. For Willow and Gina, it was such a different life, filled with tennis and the beaches. The girls couldn’t agree on the best beach, as there seemed to be half a dozen along the coast of Sydney. The one thing that they all agreed on was that Manly was ‘naff’ with all the tourists.

When Barry and Jill got to them, he looked a bit angry.

“Come along. We have a hotel to get you to.”

“Sit down, Barry. We’re relaxing after that long flight and talking to friends. Your urgency is not our concern. The hotel isn’t going anywhere.”

“But I’ve organised a few of the press to interview you.”

“Let them wait. We’ll tell them the plane was delayed, turbulence can happen, you know.”

“What about my reputation?”

“Reputation? I’ve just spoken to twenty ordinary TV viewers who tell me that they mute their set when you’re speaking. If you’d done any deep research before you got us here, you should have known that I sometimes do things out of the box, and that we’re all still in third year at school, so are normal people and not vapid pop stars with egos the size of this country. Now, sit down and tell us what you want us to do, and I’ll tell you if it’s agreeable.”

He looked bewildered and sat, as his cameraman couldn’t hide his grin.

“All right. We will take you by limo to the hotel on Darling Harbour, where there was an interview session with the local music reporters. Tomorrow, it had been planned to take you on a tour around the Hunter Valley, with a visit to a winery or two, with lunch in the Blue Mountains at Katoomba. Then we will record the show in the afternoon. Your bit won’t take long, as it will be some talk, before we show the entire Berlin DVD, and some more after the DVD to round out the show. We were planning to show the interview you did with the BBC recently, but talking to Jill, here, about using it, we found that the two of you were available.”

“I can tell you that the wineries are off the table. You seem to forget that we’re only fourteen, not twenty-four. Girls, where do you think we should go and have fun?”

There was a chorus of, ‘Luna Park’.

“What’s at Luna Park, Evelyn?”

“It’s lots of rides and fun things, just the other side of the bridge.”

“All right. Barry, tomorrow morning, after a late breakfast, you will take us to this Luna Park. Jill, I’ll pay for any of the fan club that come along. Put it down on my account.”

Gina chimed in.

“Split it between us, Jill. I didn’t spend over twenty hours in a plane to then spend six hours being driven around in a car.”

“Now, Mister Boysee. What are we doing on New Year’s Eve?”

“You have a free day, but we have you as part of our count down to the fireworks show. There’s actually two shows, one for the young ones earlier in the evening, and the big one at midnight. You will be part of the hosting team, along with some station regulars and a popular duo called ‘Funbase’.”

Willow was looking at the expressions on Evelyn and her friends faces.

“What do you think of ‘Funbase’, girls?”

It was one of the others who answered.

“They’re a couple of stuck-up failed uni students who play electropop. They think that their shit doesn’t stink, they’re very Sydney, and they’re both as bent as a paper clip. We give them about three months before they’re forgotten or in rehab.”

“Looks like you’re not the only one around here with a false impression of your reputation, Barry. We’ll go along with that, seeing that you’ve paid for us to be here. Now, we’ll allow you to take us to the hotel. We’ll see you tomorrow at Luna Park, girls. Tell Jill where we can meet.”

It was the cameraman who led them out to the waiting limo. Their luggage went in the back, and they had some hugs with the fans before getting in with Jill. Wendy, Maisie, and Lauren were in another limo.

They sat with the air-conditioning going. Willow asked the driver why they weren’t going.

“We have to wait for Mister Boysee, young lady.”

“Do you know where we have to go?”

“Yes, but…”

“Barry can get a cab, take us there.”

She saw his grin in the mirror as they pulled away from the terminal. He looked in the mirror and saw her looking.

“Barry was getting into the other car with the cameraman as we had left, Miss. He’s not going to be happy at this.”

Gina laughed.

“No happier than when Willow put him in his place in front of those fans of ours. I thought some of our pop show hosts in Britain were bad, but he’s really the dregs.”

“He’s not the first in this country, not by a long way. It will be fun driving you two around tomorrow.”

“We’re not going far, just to Luna Park to have a bit of fun with our fans.”

“What, no wineries?”

“We’re fourteen, sir, and not allowed to drink yet.”

“I’ve seen the Berlin video; you looked a lot older there?”

“The magic of cosmetics is a wonderful invention. It even made the guys look older.”

“I brought my daughter’s copy of the Berlin show with me. She insisted that I try to get your autographs. I told her that talking to the customers doesn’t usually happen, but she insisted.”

“Sounds like your daughter has done more research than Barry ‘G’day’ Boysee. Bring her along tomorrow, there’ll be at least thirty teenagers there to have fun with us on the rides.”

“Oh, dear. The other presenters won’t be happy. They put on a show for teenagers but have no rapport with them, too busy trying to get promoted to more mainstream shows.”

“We’ve been told that the viewers mute the blather, and just put the sound on for the video clips. The station could save money by just showing back-to-back videos. It does happen in other places.”

They arrived at the hotel, and he pulled up by the main door. The other limo pulled up behind them. Their luggage was whisked away by uniformed lads, and they thanked the driver for a safe trip. They all followed Jill into the foyer, where she collected all their room cards and gave them out. They were in three suites, each with two bedrooms. The luggage had already gone up and Jill asked the reception where the reporters were. The receptionist grinned.

“Two have spent some time in the bar, madam. There is one in the lounge reading a book. He is more of a classical reviewer than a pop reporter.”

“Thank you. We’ll just go and see him.”

In the lounge, they saw him on a seat, reading a book, with an empty cup and saucer on the table in front of him. Willow told Wendy and Maisie to go and rest, and that they would join them in a little while. Jill went up to him, introduced herself and then introduced Willow and Gina, then left them to handle the questions, knowing that they could hold their own.

The friends went and sat down on the two seats opposite him. He gazed at them for a few seconds, and then spoke.

“Why are a couple of good classical players wasting your time with this pop nonsense?”

Willow laughed.

“Perhaps because it makes people happy, we’re good at it, we have fun, and it makes us a lot of money. Pop has always had a use-by date, and it will allow us to spend the rest of our lives in the way we want. How much of our classical work have you heard?”

“A friend of mine has sent me the double CD of an orchestra, with you two playing organ solos on one of the discs.”

“Do you have a shop in Sydney that sells BBC products?”

“There is one, yes.”

“Then have a look for ‘Coventry Classics one and two. One is that orchestra in Coventry Cathedral, with the final piece as Saint-Saens Organ Symphony. Two is also in the Cathedral with the final piece as Beethoven Nine. If you can’t find them, go on-line at the Blue Coat School in Coventry, which has links to all the works that the orchestra have done. The latest is just about to go on the market with us performing the Messiah, which was a BBC show Christmas Eve in Britain. There will also be a BBC product of us with the orchestra with a performance in the Albert Hall as part of the last week of the Proms. That one had Gina playing Grieg.”

“That’s an impressive resume. I’ll have to look at these and write a story based on your output. What do you play?”

Gine answered that one.

“I’ve played piano since I was seven. My mother would drive me to the teacher and leave me there for a few hours. I’ve played piano in the Junior Orchestra at Blue Coat since I started there. It was Willow who introduced me to the organ, by getting me to try out the organ at the church in Stoneleigh, where we both live, and that led to us alternating for services there, which led to us alternating in the Cathedral for about four months.”

“You’ve played hymns and church music a lot?”

“We both have. There are two albums that Willow didn’t mention, as we both recorded double albums at the end of our summer. One with the Kings College Choir, and the other at York Minster, which is religious music and some historical madrigals. Actually, we have both recorded one-hour episodes for ‘Songs of Praise’ at Saint Martins in the Fields church in London. We did that after we recorded our ‘Homegrown’ album at Abbey Road. That was the week after we recorded the orchestra album that you have.”

“What about you, Willow?”

“I’ve played piano and violin since I was in primary school. I also play clarinet, which is my usual seat in the orchestra. I did act as first violin and leader for the Messiah. The organ playing came about as a strange situation before I started at the Blue Coat, and it’s been my main instrument since.”

“How much further are you going to take it?”

“I’m not studying music after high school but will concentrate on business and financial management. That’s not to say that I won’t do further studies along the way. Gina has set her sights on being a soloist pianist.”

“I’ve looked at the Berlin show a couple of times before I came to talk to you. Are any of the others in the orchestra?”

“All of them. The four wind players are regulars, Brent, our drummer, is a percussionist, and plans to do that as further study. The three guitarists have all performed in the Messiah as part of the choir. Jacob, who played the semi-acoustic in the show, has performed the Rodrigo concerto, and did so at the proms. He is sick, at the moment, and unlikely to be playing with us again.”

“Yes, I noticed that he didn’t look happy. I believe that you have a recording for the two-hour show tomorrow, and that you’re going to be part of the team to count down to the fireworks. Then what?”

“Then we get on a plane and go home. We start our second term on the fifth. It’s only a short holiday in Britain. If there’s enough interest, we may be back down here in our summer holiday, which starts at the end of July.”

“Look, I won’t hold you up. It’s been a long day for you. Thank you for being so forthright with your answers. I’ll look at the rest of your impressive careers and will write a piece which will reflect your obvious classical training that allows you to be the pop performers with that slight difference that makes it commercial. Now that you’ve told me this, I’m remembering why some of your music sounded interesting. It’s the infusion of old masters that makes them better. I wish you goodnight.”

They all stood, and he shook hands with both of them, before they went off to their room for a well-earned sleep.

Next morning, they had a large breakfast and felt better after it. None of them could be certain of the time, and the waitress told them that jetlag was usual travelling in the opposite direction to the sun, and that they would have a better time when they go the other way. They had all bought summer dresses which made them feel a bit better when they went outside to the limos. There was a teenage girl standing with the driver.

“I took your advice, Miss Rose, and brought my daughter along. She’s been to Luna Park several times, so can show you the ropes. Samantha, this is Willow Rose and Gina Summer.”

The friends broke the ice by giving the unsure girl a hug.

“Come and sit with us in the back, Samantha. Jill, what are you doing for the day?”

“I’ll come to the park with you to pay for everyone, and then your mothers, Lauren and I are going to do that winery tour that’s been organised. We’ll see you back at the hotel, after you’ve done the recording. Remember, treat young Barry gently, as you may have broken him yesterday.”

Marianne Gregory © 2025