Page 29 of Summer at Croftwood Cinema
Ed poured the drinks and joined her on the sofa. ‘Do you fancy watching a film?’
‘Yes, why not? As long as it’s a classic.’
‘Oh, the pressure.’ He frowned and moved to sit on the floor next to the television where he opened a wide drawer that was crammed with DVD’s.
Patsy stifled a gasp. She didn’t think she’d seen so many DVD’s all in the same place since HMV closed.
‘Don’t judge me, I’m single with a passion for films.’
‘I didn’t say anything!’
‘I felt the wave of shock. What about this?’ He held up a copy of Sleepless in Seattle, one of Patsy’s favourite movies.
‘Great choice but you don’t have to choose a romcom on my behalf.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ he said with a grin. ‘This is in my top ten.’
‘Really?’
‘No, not really. But it’s easy to watch and I’m guessing you’ve seen it before so we can chat around the good bits.’
He put the film on, settled himself into the corner of the sofa and then pulled Patsy into his side where she leant happily against him. Reaching behind her, he pulled a throw off the back of the sofa and laid it across them both.
It had been a long time since she’d ever felt so content.
13
SUNDAY WAS OLIVER’S day off and Patsy was working until 4 pm. It had been raining all day and the flow of customers was slow, even the Sunday morning crowd who came in to read the papers over a coffee had mostly stayed away.
Patsy sighed, pulling her phone out of her pocket and mindlessly scrolling through Instagram only seeing things she’d already seen the last time she looked, ten minutes ago. If she’d been thinking straight she would have brought her knitting with her and stashed it under the counter in case of extreme boredom but she hadn’t remembered.
She’d spent most of Saturday with Ed. He’d insisted on accompanying her back to Croftwood once they’d had a lazy breakfast at his and although Patsy was nervous about showing him where she lived because it was nowhere near as fancy as his place, he professed it cosy and charming, setting her at ease straight away. They’d spent the day sitting in the park, had a pub lunch and wandered on the footpaths at the edge of the woods before he reluctantly caught a bus back to Worcester so that Patsy could get a good night’s sleep before her early start at the coffee house.
Friday night had ended with both of them sleeping on Ed’s sofa after they drifted off sometime after the film finished. Patsy woke just before 7am to find herself in Ed’s arms with an extra blanket over her and spent the half an hour before he’d woken up revelling in the wonderfulness of it all. It was also pretty amusing how relieved Ed was that his housemate had stayed at his girlfriend’s place.
What she wanted now was to be texting back and forth with him instead of staring out of the window wishing for a new customer to serve, but he was busy setting assignments for his students and she’d promised not to distract him.
Idly, she checked her emails and found one from a buyer that had seen the newspaper article. They were interested in taking ten of the chairs for an office refurbishment and wanted to arrange collection that week. Ten in one go for their first sale was more than Patsy could have hoped for and she replied straight away to make arrangements to meet Marian, the designer, at the cinema the following afternoon. Marian had almost finished her project but thought the chairs would be the final touch.
‘Guess what,’ she said when Oliver called to check in. ‘I’ve sold ten of the chairs!’
‘Nice one Pats!’
‘This office designer, Marian, saw the article in the paper and she’s coming to pick them up tomorrow. Are you okay if I finish early so I can go and meet her?’
‘Yes, of course. That’s a brilliant start, well done.’
It was the boost she’d needed to get her through the rest of the day with a spring in her step. Aside from finding Ed to help them out she hadn’t had much opportunity to do anything yet while the building work was still going on. The chairs were her thing.
She pulled her phone out again to text Ed but decided against it, remembering what he’d said about her being a distraction. It could wait.
The following afternoon Patsy made sure she was at the cinema in plenty of time to meet Marian. She was excited because that morning there had also been a sale via eBay that she would need to pack and arrange to courier to a buyer.
There were a handful of builders working behind the cinema screen, renovating the huge sliding door that was covering the gaping hole in the back wall now that the brickwork that had blocked it up so long ago had been removed. Although the massive wooden door was still solid and would do its job, it was a long time since anyone had slid it across the rails that it wheeled along, top and bottom and it was taking some painstaking cleaning and oiling to wake all the moving parts from their prolonged hibernation. It was much the same as the projector, although on a larger scale.
Ed had been working on the projector that morning while she’d been working her shift at the coffee house. In fact, he could still be up there now. Knowing he was close by but not actually seeing him was so tantalising. She wasn’t going to see him until Wednesday evening, when they’d arranged to meet up and do some work on the projector. He was going to collect a Chinese takeaway on his way over from the bus stop and Patsy was looking forward to that.
While she waited for Marian, she checked over the chairs which had been in the back row and were now laid flat on the floor in pieces, the seats and backs separated now that the columns in between them had been unbolted from the floor. It was good that Marian wanted ten because every seat needed two sides and if they sold them one at a time, they would be left with lots of seats. The more someone bought in one go, the more they could sell because if there were two seats, they shared the middle armrest so that was three sides rather than four. If Marian had more projects like the one she was finishing now, that would be great for rehoming as many of the seats as possible.
