Page 12 of Summer at Croftwood Cinema
Patsy walked home wondering how it could be that she could go three years without entertaining the idea of having a man in her life to now, in the same week, two men had… what was it even? Had an effect on her? Made her notice that she was a woman capable of being attracted to men? Whatever it was, it was disconcerting. Especially because somehow, Matt was in the mix even though she had an inkling he had misogynistic-arse tendencies. But her heart had ached for him when he’d said goodbye and she’d seen that look in his eyes. What was going on?
6
PATSY HAD TEXTED Ed and arranged to meet him at the entrance to the park at eleven o’clock on Thursday morning. She had the keys from Oliver and was going to go back to the coffee house afterwards to let him know what Ed thought of their projection set-up.
‘Hey, Patsy,’ said Ed, arriving at the park entrance wearing an outfit almost identical to what he’d been wearing the day she’d met him but with a smart black wool peacoat, the collar turned up against the chill of the bright spring day. In contrast, Patsy was wearing a navy blue teddy fur coat which had seen better days. Feeling decidedly down at heel compared to Ed, she decided right then that this was going to be its last winter.
‘Hi, Ed. Thanks for coming. Shall we go straight in?’
‘Lead the way,’ he said, gesturing with a sweep of his hand.
She followed the path towards the door with Ed behind her, which made her extremely self-conscious. She could feel his gaze on her back and wondered what he was thinking. As well as the slightly scruffy coat, she’d chosen to wear some old-favourite purple flared corduroy jeans and she suddenly worried what he would think. They weren’t especially fashionable but she loved the way they looked with her Red or Dead T-bar shoes. Now though, as she walked along, imagining him critiquing everything he could see, she was convinced that he’d think she was dressed like a five-year-old from the 1970s.
Luckily, Matt had left the hard hats inside the doorway and Oliver had reminded her to make sure they used them. He’d also made her get some masks, given that there was at least one pigeon that had taken up residence in the projection box and apparently Matt had gone on to Oliver quite a lot about the health hazards related to pigeon poo.
’Are the hats and masks an indication that it’s a right state inside?’ asked Ed.
‘It’s not, although there was a pigeon in the projection box because the window’s smashed. Look.’ She pointed to the round window above them, where helpfully, a pigeon flew through as they stood there.
‘Yes, I see. So that probably needs boarding up before the equipment gets ruined by pigeon shit.’
‘It might be too late for that.’
Grabbing a torch each, they went into the auditorium first where Ed marvelled about how it was a time warp and Patsy explained their plans, such as they were.
‘Shame the screen’s ripped,’ he said, shining his torch on it. ‘They cost serious money to replace. Although if we can repair the tear we might be able to shift the projector to the right slightly and then we’d miss the worst of it.’
It boosted Patsy’s confidence in the whole project for him to be referring to doing things as ‘we’. He was obviously pretty keen to be involved and thank goodness because the comments he’d made, even in their first meeting, had made her realise how much she and Oliver didn’t know about running a cinema. It had started to feel worse than Oliver not looking around the building before he bought it.
They made their way up to the projection box and Patsy made as much noise as she could when they opened the door to frighten the pigeons out.
‘You go first,’ she said to Ed, just in case there were any birds planning to jump out at her.
He headed straight for the projector which seemed to have escaped the worst of the pigeon detritus.
‘Oh, yes. This is similar to the model we have at uni. Not exactly the same but I know where I am with it. And the tower, apart from being a bird perch at the moment looks to be in good nick. All of it will need dismantling and cleaning but I think it’ll work.’
‘What’s all that other stuff?’ Patsy asked, pointing to the unit which had all the switches.
Ed grinned. ‘This stuff is the sound. That’s not so much my area of expertise, you’d need to get an engineer to check it out. I mean, we’ll be able to tell if it works but if it doesn’t that’s where my knowledge ends.’
He walked further into the room, past the projector.
‘Ah, nice little making-up table in here.’ He turned round and surveyed the room, nodding his head, which Patsy took to be a good sign, even if she couldn’t see his expression because of the mask. ‘Top priority, get the window boarded.’
‘Okay. I’ll tell the boss. Look, do you want to come for a coffee? My friend Oliver runs a coffee house in town and he’s the one who bought this place, he’d love to meet you and hear what you think.’
‘Yes, sure, that’d be good.’
They made their way back outside and took big lungfuls of fresh air as soon as their masks were off. They looked at each other and laughed.
‘Great minds,’ Ed said, taking Patsy’s hardhat from her and dropping it inside the doorway with the others before Patsy locked the door, asking Ed to double-check that it was secure before they strolled through the park together towards Oliver’s.
’Do you live in Croftwood?’ Ed asked.
‘Yes, I’ve got a flat the other side of the park.’
‘And what do you do?’
