Chapter 14: Muse

We went back to the house after breakfast. I was now free for a few days. The second week of exams was heavier for me—I had four exams in four days from Tuesday to Friday—but I was pretty confident about all the material for these modules, so I didn’t really feel the need to study heavily all weekend. I’d go over my notes the night before each exam, but that was it. So, I was free for at least the next four days. Hell, I could probably get away without having to study for most of Monday, too, as long as I did a couple of hours in the evening.

That didn’t mean I had nothing to do, though. I went up to my room and made a list, putting revision for the exams at the top. I also needed to research the town’s student housing market, including the price and availability of properties close to the campus, and write a business plan for Chloë and Mark.

And I had no idea how to do that.

Chloë had also emailed me her business plan for ‘English Rose Productions’—a slightly different name than her ‘England’s Rose’ nickname in the press, but I think it sounded better anyway.

Regardless of what she called her company, I needed to read through her document before deciding whether to invest in it, and the bonus was that it would give me some idea of how to write my own business plan, too.

But before any of that, I sent a message to Carly.

She replied almost immediately.

I quickly replied.

She replied:

Then she sent me the address. I looked at my watch. It was just after ten. I figured I’d spend an hour or so reading Chloë’s business plan and then try using it to write my own. I could do the research on the numbers to put in it later.

Riverbank Studios was, as the name suggested, on the bank of the River Westell. It was on the same business park as Will’s office and not far down the river from Westell Mill. It was a large, modern, single-story building, like so many other offices, workshops or industrial units on the estate. It could just as easily been a professional services company, furniture workshop or any other business you could name. There was nothing to make it stand out.

I arrived just after two and spoke to a middle-aged woman sitting behind the reception desk.

“Hi, I’m Paul. Carly ... I mean, ‘Kayla’ invited me to watch her recording session.”

“Kayla Valentine? She’s a sweet girl. A bit excitable, but sweet. She told me to expect you. They are in studio two. Through this door here—” She pointed to the door in the wall to the side of her desk, one of only two internal doors in the small reception area, the other being in the wall furthest from her desk. “—down the corridor, second door on your left. Press the buzzer at the side of the door, and someone will let you into the control room.”

I followed her instructions, and Glenn opened the door and greeted me.

“Hi, Paul. Come on in. I think you know Ronnie, from Saturday night?” He gestured to the man sitting on a sofa on the left side of the room. I held up my hand in greeting, and he waved back, but then carried on tapping away on his phone. “Carly is in the booth. Roxie and Sarah are in the Live Room. Not sure where the other two are. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Harry and Ellie—the producers and songwriters that are working with Carly while she’s here.”

The control room was a lot bigger than I expected—probably about as big as my lounge. I think I expected it to have room for a mixing desk and not much else, but that was based purely on films and TV shows I’d seen that featured a recording studio. This facility was, I’d read on the internet, only five years old, so I guess it made sense that it would be more spacious. The location probably helped, out here on the business park rather than in some inner-city back street.

There were two more sofas beside the one Ronnie was sitting on—one perpendicular to it, directly next to it, and one on the opposite side of the room facing it. In between them, just in front of a large window overlooking the Live Room beyond—I only knew it was called the Live Room because that’s where Glenn had said Roxie and Sarah were, and I could see both of them through the window—was a bank of switches, dials, keyboards, and monitors that made up the mixing desk. Or should it be called a control desk? This was the Control Room, after all. I didn’t know.

Sitting at the desk were a woman and a man. I couldn’t tell you any more than that because they had their backs to me.

As we approached them, I whispered to Glenn, “Where’s Carly? I can’t see her?”

I don’t know why I whispered. It just felt like the right thing to do if they were recording. But Glenn had spoken at a normal volume when he greeted me.

“In the booth,” he said, pointing to the far corner of the Live Room where there was what looked like a large black box with two windows in it. Through one of the windows, I could see Carly singing into a microphone with one of those large round filter things in front of it. “The booths are soundproofed, so Roxie and Sarah’s guitars aren’t picked up by the mic. Only Carly’s vocals.”