Page 9 of Summer at Croftwood Cinema
That evening, Patsy went to Knit and Natter at Jess’s shop. The shop was long and narrow, the front filled with bolts and rolls of fabric from floor to the very high ceilings, then further on, past the cutting table and the till was the yarn. Patsy’s favourite part of the shop. It was packed from the floor to the rafters with yarn of all colours and thicknesses, all of it beautiful and arranged pleasingly by colour. Although Jess wasn’t a big knitter, she knew every ball of yarn she stocked and what you needed for anything you wanted to knit. Then through the yarn room was the workshop room where a large wooden table lent itself to sewing, knitting or tea and a chat.
‘I heard a rumour that Oliver has bought the old cinema in the park. Is that true?’ Jess asked as soon as Patsy walked in, after checking that no-one was within earshot.
‘Yes. He’s got some good ideas for it. We’re going to run it as an events space as well, something more flexible than just a cinema.’
‘Wow, that sounds exciting. It looks like a wreck from the outside, is there a lot to do?’
‘The inside is pretty untouched but it’s a bit of a mess. The architect, Matt, is getting some surveys done but he thinks it’s structurally sound.’
‘Is it common knowledge yet? I thought I’d better check because I heard from Rosemary,’ she said, giving Patsy a knowing look.
‘I have no idea how Rosemary found out but I think it’s okay if people know. Although if you see Amy, it might be better not to mention it. It’s a bit of a sore point.’
‘Ah, right.’ Jess opened her mouth, presumably to ask what that was all about but they were interrupted by Mary and Penny, a couple of the regulars. ‘Help yourselves to tea and coffee, ladies, you know where everything is.’
Patsy loved the Knit and Natter evenings. She always took very simple knitting because anything that required counting or any concentration on the pattern inevitably ended up being pulled out afterwards because it was full of mistakes. A sock was perfect for covering the knitting aspect so that she could pay full attention to the nattering.
‘Have you seen that the cinema was sold at auction last week?’ said Carol to the group.
There followed a lot of reminiscing about the last time everyone had been to the cinema, who they’d been with, how much it had cost and all sorts of other things that brought the old place back to life for Patsy. It made her realise how important it was going to be to refurbish the cinema in a way that would keep alive all of these memories and feelings people had for the place. It might not look the same in the end — hopefully it wouldn’t — but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t try and keep the spirit of the place intact while they brought it back to life. It hadn’t occurred to Patsy that all of these people were bound to be invested in its future, given that they all held a piece of its past within them.
‘I hope whoever’s bought it gets rid of the seats. They were so uncomfortable, my bottom was always asleep by the end of the film,’ Sue said, with a nostalgic smile.
‘I wonder if they’ll keep the balcony? It was always a treat to sit up there when we were kids.’
‘Oh, they’re sure to. It’s the charm of the place.’
‘If it’s structurally sound,’ Patsy found herself saying.
‘You know something,’ said Penny, looking at her with a raised eyebrow. ‘Since when do you ever say things like that?’
There was no point hiding it. ‘Okay, you’ve got me. Oliver’s bought it.’
‘Has he really? Well that’s something to natter about!’
The rest of the evening was taken up with Patsy being interrogated about what it was like inside and what they were planning to do and everyone was very excited by the end. She also had plenty of offers of help for everything from upholstery and cleaning, to Mary whose daughter was a graphic designer. In the end she was glad she’d told them. It was better than them hearing it from Rosemary and knowing she’d known and not told them. And anyway, it just showed that in general, everyone thought it was great that the cinema would be up and running again. And all she needed to do was find out exactly what was what with the technical side of things.
5
AFTER A COMBINATION of googling and Facebook stalking, Patsy managed to contact someone at the Worcester University Film Society and had arranged to meet a guy called Ed on the university campus to see if she could get a bit more information about the technical side of running a cinema.
She was waiting in the Costa coffee shop, expecting to be meeting a young man between 18 and 21 years old when a man in his thirties came up to her.
‘Patsy?’
‘Ed? Oh, hi, thanks for meeting me.’
‘No worries, I’ll just grab a coffee.’
Despite his age, he was dressed very much like a typical student, in jeans, Converse trainers and a hoodie. He was tall and slim with dark brown hair which was grown out of what had probably been a decent haircut and now was marginally on the cool side of unkempt. He was wearing glasses with heavy black frames which Patsy found particularly attractive, to her surprise.
‘So, you want to find out about being a projectionist?’ he asked when he sat down opposite her with his coffee and a few sachets of sugar.
‘Sort of. My friend has bought the old cinema in Croftwood and neither of us know anything about the technical side of running a cinema. We need to find out if the equipment that’s there is going to work, that’s the main thing.’
‘That’s an exciting project,’ Ed said, as he emptied three sachets of sugar into his coffee and started drinking it without bothering to stir.
‘Yes, there’s quite a lot to do and to be honest, we hadn’t thought about this side of it at all.’
