Page 88 of Summer at Croftwood Cinema
‘I have the password.’ Seeing yet another shock register made Patsy certain that she had the upper hand now. The hold that he’d had over her was well and truly over and even if she hadn’t had the trump card she was yet to play, she was fairly sure he wouldn’t be coming looking for her again.
‘What do you want?’
‘I want you to sign these.’ She looked over at the guard who came over with a pen and stood over Dan while he signed the pages that Toby had helpfully indicated with sticky tabs. The guard took the pen and went back to stand near the door. ‘Thank you.’
‘So I can have the money?’
‘Not all of it. I hope you’d agree that the way you treated me, I probably deserve to keep all of it but I’m willing to make a deal.’
For the first time in the whole time that Patsy had known Dan, he looked slightly ashamed. He wasn’t going to break down and beg her for forgiveness but it was enough to see on his face that he acknowledged that what she’d said was true.
‘I’m listening.’
Patsy took a piece of paper out of her bag and passed it to him. It had already been checked on her way in and was okayed by the prison. Not that it was probably much use to him until he was out again, anyway.
‘This is a crypto wallet that I’ve set up for you. I’ve emptied the old one and I’ll transfer the value of half a Bitcoin into your wallet every year for the next ten years. But in return, you have to agree not to contact me, not to contact anyone I know and to have no interest in me or my life for the rest of yours.’
‘So you can go off into the sunset with the lion’s share of my money and your new man?’
‘Yes, exactly.’ She paused, wondering how he could have gone from looking ashamed to being remorseless so quickly. ‘You might think I’m taking your money but you took most of my money for years along with my self-confidence, self-respect and most of my friends and family. Then you came back, terrorised me and my friends purely because you wanted literally the only thing that I’d taken from you. And I really did think it was a crappy old laptop that you wouldn’t miss. This is karma, Dan.’ She stood up and waved her arms expansively at the room before leaning towards him and saying, ‘And this is karma.’
She walked out into the sunshine feeling like she finally had closure. She had signed divorce papers in her bag and she knew that there was no way that Dan would jeopardise the deal they’d made because he was too desperate for the money. By the time ten years came around and the deal was over, hopefully he’d have moved on and forgotten all about her.
Instead of catching the bus back to Croftwood, she jumped on a train to Ledbury and spent the rest of the afternoon mooching in some of the independent shops. She treated herself to a few things to brighten up the flat from a wonderful Scandinavian homewares shop which she normally wouldn’t even set foot in because it would be too expensive. But today, she was treating herself with her little windfall from Dan. Now that she’d given some of it to Oliver to repay him for the kindness and support he’d given her over the past three years she felt that it had done some good. It would enable him to move on as well and it meant that both of them could move forward with the cinema on an equal footing. Patsy finally felt as if she’d contributed to its regeneration instead of feeling as if Oliver was involving her out of pity.
She wandered back down the high street towards the train station and caught sight of a sewing machine in the window of a charity shop. It was like a sign. She could do one of Jess’s sewing courses if she had her own machine. A new hobby would be just the thing to start this new chapter of her life and would fill the hours that were hers again now that she wasn’t bug hunting, projector cleaning or project managing.
Luckily the machine was relatively modern and light so she managed to carry it home on the train, although by the time she plonked it on the floor in her flat she felt as if her right arm had stretched by a few inches. She unpacked the rest of her goodies which included a new tea towel with bright Scandi flowers on it, a little tray and matching coasters for the coffee table and a vase, then she flung open the window and took a blanket out onto the roof terrace so that she could lie in the sunshine.
What a day. It was the end of everything she’d been running away from and the start of something wonderful. When she thought of wonderful, she automatically thought of Matt and was overwhelmed with sadness that things hadn’t worked out between them. It would be so easy to go to him, tell him what she’d done to get Dan out of her life and walk into the sunset together. But that wasn’t fair. She had no assurance that Dan would stick to the deal. She was pretty sure the temptation of the money would be enough to keep him away and she was very happy with the level of certainty that gave her, but Matt had other considerations. How could he trust that it was over for good? Trust her enough to know that his children would be safe? That Dan wouldn’t get greedy and turn up to threaten him again?
Accepting that she had to leave Matt was the hardest thing she’d ever done and it was going to take some time to forget, if she ever could, how she’d felt for the brief time they’d spent together. How for the smallest of moments, she’d begun to believe that someone loved her again and that she wasn’t broken, hadn’t been ruined forever by that man who had taken everything. Because she knew now that he had never taken her heart. That was Matt’s at the moment. Although she wished with every part of it that she wouldn’t, one day, have to contemplate moving on and giving it to someone else. But after everything she had been through, she knew she wasn’t going to hide anymore. She was going to pick herself up, allow herself time to come to terms with the fact that she was alone again, and then get on with her life. She’d waited long enough.
37
PATSY WAS IN the projection box alone, lacing up the projector with the first film she would be responsible for showing for paying customers. Luckily her debut projectionist gig was for Purl at the Pictures, a matinee showing with the lights not fully down, so that people could bring their knitting or other craft and do it while they watched the film. Hopefully the audience would be kind if there were any problems.
The available and relatively cheap film was One Fine Day with George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer which seemed appropriate for what Patsy fully expected to be a roomful of women.
Once the film was weaving in and out of the projector and back to the tower, she got her checklist, which was looking pretty dog-eared by now, and went through it to see if she’d missed anything. So far so good. A glance at her watch told her she had ten minutes to sort it out before they opened the doors. Was ten minutes long enough to play the start, to make sure she’d put the five separate reels of film together in the right order? It would mean lacing up again afterwards but maybe that was okay. It was important to have peace of mind.
Once she’d put the lamp on and started the film, she forced herself to acknowledge that it would still be okay if she wasn’t standing watching it run through the projector and ran downstairs to the circle balcony to check the sound was working and that it looked okay, which it did. She clapped her hands together in gleeful relief and headed back to start all over again.
By the time she got down to the foyer, Alice, was waiting on the doorstep.
‘Sorry I was late letting you in,’ Patsy said apologetically. ‘I was just checking the film for the last time.’
‘No problem.’ Alice skipped past her. ‘Where do you want me?’
They were severely short-staffed. ‘This is going to be a bit of an experiment but I thought if I sold the tickets and you did the drinks to start with, I’ll go up and start the film and then come back down to help once it’s on. Will you manage with the tickets and drinks once I’ve disappeared?’
‘Yes, I’m sure I will. I expect most people will be here by the time you go to start the film.’
‘Hopefully, yes. It’s hard to know how many we could expect for the first time.’
Patsy went and sat in the ticket booth while Alice manned the bar which was well stocked with cakes, since a drink and a cake were included in the ticket price. She looked at her watch. Half an hour until the advertised start time of the film. It took another ten minutes before she heard footsteps on the steps outside, by which time she was wringing her hands with worry that no-one was going to turn up.
‘Hello!’ It was Linda from the library.
