Page 61 of Summer at Croftwood Cinema
‘Okay, well we can do that. Maybe once a fortnight?’
‘I have another idea too which I’m personally invested in,’ said Patsy, sitting up properly and leaning against the wall next to Oliver. ‘Purl at the Pictures.’ She spread her hands in the air in front of them as if she were showcasing an invisible sign.
Oliver looked at her, none the wiser.
‘Okay, think the baby and toddler thing but with knitters. Or crocheters, or whoever wants to come. But the point is we leave the lights up a bit so people can knit while they watch the film.’
‘Well, that will appeal to some people but do you think there’d be enough to make it worthwhile? And that’s another film to deal with,’ said Oliver, clearly with little enthusiasm for the idea.
‘I think you’d be surprised and I don’t think anyone would mind what film it was. Cheap and cheerful would be fine. Look at this list,’ she said, waving it under Oliver’s nose. ‘There’s a huge number of films which are so cheap, we could show them once and still make money.’
‘Okay, we’ll put the knitting on the list. Remember Matt suggesting the family film afternoons at the weekends with pizza? I loved that idea.’
‘Oh, me too. We could show the same film Saturday and Sunday, something like Toy Story.’
‘Madagascar!’ Oliver was getting more enthusiastic now and had forgotten to be annoyed about sitting on the floor.
‘Good one. Next thing, projectionists. I think we need to recruit two or three people to do a rota between them, and we should both be trained too. Then if there’s an emergency at least between us we always have a projectionist to fall back on.’
‘I suppose that does make sense. When you put it like that we should probably both learn. How hard can it be?’ he said with a nervous laugh.
‘I don’t think it’s hard but I think it takes nerves of steel. Imagine, everyone in this cinema is relying on you to do it right,’ she said, making her eyes wide and scary.
‘I might have changed my mind about getting trained. I’m not sure I can handle peril of that magnitude.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Patsy, giving him a friendly shove. ‘It’ll be fun. I’ll see if Ed will give us a lesson.’
‘Okay. Bring it on.’
‘Oh, I meant to say, Jess wondered if she could run sewing workshops here? They can only take six people at a time in the shop and here, well they could take as many as they can cope with. She thought it’d be perfect because they can bring a video projector to play tutorial videos on the screen.’
‘That’s brilliant too, basically a rental of the space?’
‘Exactly. Right shall we choose some films then?’
They spent the next hour making three lists of films. One for the main shows, one for the family films and one for the knitters. Patsy was keen to fill that last list with romcoms and Oliver couldn’t argue but he did have strong opinions on the kids’ films. For the main shows they chose their favourite classics, ranging from thrillers like The Day After Tomorrow to comedies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and total blockbusters like Back to the Future and the Indiana Jones films. It was pretty easy and Patsy had the job of booking them. As they were aiming to open properly within the next few weeks, they were probably going to have to take whatever was available to them but hopefully the lists would help with deciding what they could use when.
Once they’d finished, Oliver was heading back to the coffee shop while Patsy decided to go home and tackle booking the films from her roof terrace. It was a balmy late-June day and it was important to make the most of the sunshine while it lasted.
Patsy locked the door and pulled her sunglasses out of her bag, re-did her bun which had become saggy from lying on the floor in the circle, and walked the long way through the park.
The big pond that spanned the bottom of the park was fed by a natural spring that had been landscaped into a stream with lots of jungly plants around it and little bridges that delighted children as well as Patsy, and she liked wandering through that way if she had time. It felt like a secret part of the park that no-one knew about although since the council had put in a new play area right next to it, it was a bit less secret than it used to be.
She strolled along, enjoying the dappled shade of the trees and smiling at the squeals coming from the playground as she approached. It was after school time, so not as busy as a weekend would be but there were a few families who looked as if they’d decided to make the most of the lovely weather and were having picnics.
‘Hello, Patsy!’ A small girl ran up to her with a big grin on her face. Luckily, Patsy recognised her as Matt’s daughter, Flo.
‘Hi, Flo.’ Patsy looked to see where Matt was and spotted him waving with one hand as he pushed Sammy on a swing with the other. He was wearing sunglasses which she had to admit she found surprisingly attractive.
‘Daddy says I have to wait for a turn,’ Flo said, sticking out her bottom lip. Patsy could see that the only other spare swing was on the other side of the row of swings and Matt would struggle to push both children at the same time.
‘Shall we go and see if it’s your turn yet?’
Flo nodded enthusiastically and ran over to Matt.
‘Hi,’ smiled Patsy. After the other night at the cinema when they’d larked around on the carpet, Patsy had been wondering how things would be between them when she saw him again.
‘Don’t you just love the park,’ he said with a wry smile.
