Page 49 of Summer at Croftwood Cinema
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PATSY WAS SAT on the sofa in Oliver’s flat with the huge spec document on the table in front of her. They had been working on it sporadically for days, each of them taking turns to come up to the flat and work on it, leaving it covered in Post-It notes with questions for the other. They’d made good progress on the basics, anything that wasn’t related to what the place was going to feel like and look like in the end. Things like the bathroom fixtures and fittings, the kitchen, boring things like plug sockets and light switches, all of that had been decided but until they knew what they wanted it to look like, they’d hit a stumbling block.
‘I think we should go for the Hollywood glamour thing for the whole place,’ Patsy said, when Oliver appeared after locking up for the night. ‘It’s sleek but understated and if we can get the bare minimum done, it’ll still look okay because twenties and thirties was minimalist, it was the Great Depression. Like the hotel in Birmingham,’ she was on a roll now. ‘It was so beautiful but the foyer, you would say that was totally Art Deco and actually it was only those lamps and the stair balustrade. The rest was just paint choices and clever lighting. We can so do it, Ollie!’
‘Look Pats, I don’t hate that idea,’ he said, sitting down next to her with a weary sigh. ‘I did love that hotel, it was cool and much more my style than the mustards or whatever you want to call the scheme we decided on the other night, but I’ve got a meeting with Matt to finalise everything tomorrow afternoon. I don’t think we’ve got time to change everything and get this spec document finished before then.’
Quickly trying to come up with a solution that didn’t involve another evening of sitting in the cinema stalls and gazing around them for inspiration, Patsy said, ‘If you’re willing to give me tomorrow morning off I can come up with a proper scheme and have everything ready for Matt by lunchtime tomorrow.’ As Oliver’s mouth opened to most probably object, she continued. ‘I’ll stay here tonight, we’ll get as much done as we can, then an hour before the meeting with Matt I’ll pitch it to you so we can make sure we’ve covered everything and if we don’t love it, we’ll go with the idea we had the other night.’
Oliver shrugged. ‘Okay, seems fair enough. Are you sure you have time? That’ll be a lot of work.’
‘Definitely.’
They brainstormed for a while, fuelled, perhaps unwisely at that time of day, with coffee and leftover pastries from the coffee house.
‘So if we go for the muddy purple on the walls with pewter beading and woodwork, the marble-effect ball light sconces along the walls and the Art Deco fan lights for the tables, what are we going to do about the chairs and tables? When we were going for the seventies type theme we were going for faux leather in those kind of muted colours. I don’t know what would work now.’
Oliver was busy printing out the ideas they’d already settled on for a mood board which he had said would be just as good if they set it up on Pinterest but which Patsy insisted needed to be a physical thing. ‘What about dark brown buttoned sofas and chairs?’
Patsy sighed. Bless Oliver, they’d be the perfect suggestion for the coffee house. He had no idea but was trying his best. ‘Hmm, I’m not sure that would work with the colour palette.’ She kneaded her eyes with her knuckles. ‘I don’t know if we can pull together the whole scheme by tomorrow. There’s such a lot to think about.’
‘Well what about velvet chairs? Like an actual old-fashioned cinema?’
Ready to shoot down the idea for its lack of taste, Patsy paused. ‘If they were purple velvet and a deep pewter grey and maybe a lighter grey and maybe even a colour pop of something else on the very odd few. You know what? That could look classy.’ She started googling for images.
‘And for the tables, maybe lots of small bistro tables in that dark pewter or even glossy black? If they’re small, that’ll make them easier to move around when we need to.’
Patsy stared at Oliver who had gone from tasteless to brilliant in a couple of minutes. ‘Oliver! You’re a genius, that’ll look amazing.’
At 2 am, Oliver began dozing off over his laptop so Patsy sent him to bed. Aside from a power nap at about 3 am, she worked through, enjoying seeing their vision come together. Now that they’d made the big decisions, it was easy to fill in Matt’s spec document with details like paint colours, flooring choices and light fittings.
As promised, Patsy had everything ready to show Oliver an hour before the meeting with Matt. He’d got Jack to cover the coffee house and came upstairs to see the results of her all-nighter.
‘Okay, so here it is.’ Patsy pulled out the boards that she had finished filling with their ideas. If Oliver’d had any doubt as to the depth of her vision, he could see now that he had no need to worry.
‘Blimey, Pats. This looks amazing.’
‘Really? Do you like it more than what we planned the other night?’
‘Yes! I love it, it’s perfect. It’s… I can’t believe it, Pats. It’s exactly what I wanted although I didn’t know it. And you’ve definitely elevated it since I went to bed last night.’
Patsy threw her arms around him. ‘Thanks Ollie! What relief! And you did come up with some great ideas last night, it wasn’t only me.’
They sat on the sofa and spread Patsy’s work over the coffee table. She explained to Oliver her thoughts behind the overall design and how that translated into the details. She’d even made a comprehensive list of suppliers for some of the things she felt were must-have items to pull the scheme together and had added quite a few things onto the spec that weren’t even on there before.
‘You know what, you’re wasted being a barista.’
‘Well, no offence but being a barista wasn’t a life-long ambition.’
Oliver grinned. ‘I know. Far be it from me to encourage you to do anything which might make you leave the Oliver’s empire but you’re brilliant at this stuff. How you pulled this together so quickly, I have no idea.’
‘I think it was the Matt effect. We have to be ready, otherwise he’ll be stressed out and grumpy with us. And I’m guessing that if there are any hold-ups, it’ll end up costing more.’
Oliver nodded, gravely. ‘That’s absolutely true.’
‘So Amy’s not snapping at your heels for the money?’
‘Not exactly but I know there will be a deadline at some point. I think it’s helped that I could move back here, it’s taken the pressure off.’ Oliver leant back into the sofa and looked at Patsy. ‘Seriously, Pats. You should be project managing this. I know I’m going to regret this because I don’t know if the coffee house can cope without you but hopefully Jack can fill at least one of your shoes. Do this. It’s easily a full-time job now that we’re getting nearer to the end, especially with the catering things you were going to do anyway later down the line. I honestly think if we stand any chance of being ready before the end of the summer, you need to take this on.’
