Page 27 of Summer at Croftwood Cinema
‘I do.’ He stopped and turned towards her.
He was so close, she thought this might be the moment that he was going to kiss her.
‘You make me happy,’ he said, simply.
Patsy thought her heart might explode. She closed her eyes, taking a second to enjoy the feeling. To savour the moment that Ed had finally told her how he felt. Before she could open her eyes again, she felt his lips on hers. She leant in towards him and kissed him, more definitely, hoping to convey the depth of her feelings through her lips.
‘Come on,’ he said, once they’d pulled apart, his eyes bright and smiling. ‘The burgers are calling me.’
They sat at a cosy table for two in the restaurant which was situated underneath a railway arch near the University library. They ordered a bottle of wine to share and sipped it while they waited for their food.
‘Have you thought about what films you’ll show at the cinema when it opens?’ Ed asked.
The conversations she’d had with Oliver hadn’t extended past the plan to get the projector working and the next steps after that were a complete unknown.
‘No, we have no plan at all. There’s no point trying to compete with the big chains by showing recent stuff so it’ll be classics, I suppose.’
‘It’s good that you’re not bothered about having new films because it’s hard to get hold of copies on 35mm now that it’s digital everywhere. Classics are the way to go.’
‘You know last week when we watched Jaws, I realised I hadn’t seen it properly, all the way through, even though it’s an absolute classic. There must be loads of films like that, ones that people kind of feel like they know but haven’t actually seen. Maybe we should show those kinds of films?’
‘Like The Breakfast Club. I hadn’t seen that until I projected it a few months ago. When I was at school, I felt like the only person who hadn’t seen it.’
‘It’s overrated,’ said Patsy, thinking that if Ed agreed, they really were on the same wavelength.
‘Absolutely, but still a film you have to have seen, like a rite of passage or whatever.’
‘Even though you’re thirty?’
‘Five. Thirty-five. But if you want to think of me as thirty, that’s fine. How old are you? And don’t make me guess, it won’t work out well for either of us.’
‘Thirty-two.’
‘Longest relationship?’
Oh god. It was inevitable that it would come up but Patsy had been hoping that she could have avoided it for a bit longer. It felt like it was their first proper date and the last thing she wanted was to started getting into her past.
‘Um, I suppose about eight years. How about you?’
‘Eight years is a long time. I managed a three year relationship while I was at university and then it took us a year to realise we were staying together out of habit. It wasn’t me that pointed it out, to be honest. Self-awareness isn’t really my strong point.’
Patsy smiled, grateful that he hadn’t asked her anything else and also because she loved how honest he was. She owed him a little bit in return.
The food arrived and gave her a brief respite from the conversation but once she’d finished her falafel burger, she’d decided to tell Ed at least something about her past.
‘I was married.’ She looked at him but didn’t see the shocked expression she’d been expecting.
‘What happened?’
‘We’d grown apart. We weren’t the same people who had fallen for each other in the first place and I couldn’t see why we were together anymore.’
That was the bare truth of it, without any of the unpleasantness. She’d taken a long time to get over how her marriage had tainted her life and how she saw herself and she wasn’t going to let it touch her. Especially not now that she had finally managed to move on and make a decent life for herself and was seeing a man who she hoped would never put her in that kind of situation again.
‘I guess that’s what happened with me and Sarah. Not many people are the same in their thirties as they are in their teens and twenties.’
‘Mmm.’ Patsy wanted to get off the subject of past relationships. ‘Where did you go to university?’
‘Lancaster. Good times,’ he said with a nostalgic smile. ‘That’s where I got involved in the Film Society and tried to replicate that in Worcester when I got the job here.’
