Page 4 of Summer at Croftwood Cinema
The ceiling was decorated with plaster mouldings but everything had been painted dark red at some point, erasing the beauty of the place but thankfully not the possibility of bringing it back to life.
‘I don’t remember the balcony,’ said Patsy, as Oliver shone his torch across the upstairs which spanned halfway over the ground floor. ‘Although the last time I came here was to see ‘Santa Claus, The Movie’, so perhaps I’ve just forgotten.’
‘Or you weren’t posh enough to sit upstairs. It was more expensive.’
Patsy gave Oliver an indignant shove.
‘You can see the projection room,’ said Patsy, pointing to the small square window high in the back wall. ‘Is all the equipment still in there?’
‘It looked like it on the photos,’ said Oliver, ‘and there was a list of fixtures and fittings, but it doesn’t mean anything to me.’
‘We’ll need to check the integrity of the balcony structure,’ said Matt, who was wandering up and down underneath shining his torch in a way that made him look like he knew what he was doing, which he probably did.
The cinema screen was torn on the top left corner, exposing the metal frame but revealing a large space behind which they went to explore through a door at the one side.
‘Blimey, there’s quite a lot of space behind here,’ said Oliver. ‘What’s that?’ He was pointing at a large wooden panel on the back wall which looked like a huge barn door.
‘Ah,’ said Matt, knowingly, and irritatingly, thought Patsy as they waited for him to expand. ‘I’d heard that this once used to be a small theatre. This is the original scene dock door.’
Patsy and Oliver looked blankly at him so he sighed and then expanded.
‘They needed a huge door to get scenery in and out. That’s why it’s almost the height of the back wall. The opening’s been bricked up from the outside but I expect it was too much trouble to get this down, it’s so huge that they left it. Amazing. Look, it’s on huge runners. It’ll need a lot of work to get them working again, but what a bit of luck.’
The space was full of old chairs and other junk. ‘If we cleared this, the door would open straight into the park and we could use it as a function room,’ Oliver said.
‘That would be amazing,’ said Patsy. ‘You could string lights in the trees behind, it would be gorgeous.’
‘We could have a small bar over on that wall to save people walking through the auditorium to get a drink. Yes, this could be brilliant,’ said Oliver.
Patsy was starting to worry about the enormity of the task ahead and she wasn’t sure exactly what part Oliver expected her to play. Still, at least now she’d seen it they could sit down and make a proper plan.
They headed upstairs although Matt wouldn’t let them go onto the balcony until he’d had it structurally assessed, so the only place left to explore was the projection room. The stairs that led up to it were narrow and there was a door at the top which was locked. Oliver handed the torch to Patsy while he went through the keys to find the right one.
‘I bet it’s that one, the little one with the chunky top.’
Oliver tried the suggested key and after a bit of jiggling, the lock turned.
‘Christ!’ Oliver leapt backwards as soon as he went in, after a startled pigeon flew towards him on its escape out of the broken round window. ‘And you can stop laughing,’ he said to Patsy who had backed out of the door and was staying well clear. ‘I’d like to see you stay calm in the face of an attacking pigeon,’ he said, so indignantly that it only made her laugh even harder.
The room was dominated by a huge projector which had two massive reels on a large metal frame behind it. They were at least a metre in diameter, one above the other. There was a panel full of switches on the wall next to the tiny window that looked out over the auditorium. It looked a bit home-made to Patsy, not that she knew anything about that sort of thing, but because of the pigeon problem, the whole room was fairly unsavoury and Matt gave it no more than a cursory look before they all headed downstairs again, being sure to close the door and lock it to stop any pigeons infiltrating the rest of the building.
‘So, what do you think?’ Oliver asked Patsy once they were back outside.
‘I think it could be amazing. It’s a bit daunting though, there does seem like an awful lot to do.’
‘It’s structurally better than I would have expected, subject to a survey of course,’ said Matt.
‘Of course.’ Patsy couldn’t hide her sarcasm but did at least manage not to roll her eyes, since he was looking right at her.
‘Thanks for coming along, Matt. Let me know what the next steps are.’
Matt and Oliver shook hands while Patsy stood there knowing she wasn’t going to be offered a handshake.
Matt turned towards her and held his hand out. Patsy began to smile in disbelief — maybe she’d got him wrong. Then he said, ‘Hardhat,’ and she was glad she hadn’t already stuck her hand out. Dick.
Once Matt had gone and Oliver had locked up, they began strolling back to the coffee house.
‘I’m totally up for it,’ he said. ‘Now the coffee house is established it’s the perfect new challenge.’
