Page 57 of Summer at Croftwood Cinema
‘That makes sense. To be honest, I’ve never fitted one before, I watched a YouTube video and they had it in some special container so that you’re not handling it. They could explode when you light it otherwise.’
‘Christ, Ed. Are you sure we’re going to be able to do this ourselves? That bulb cost almost two grand, we don’t want to have to buy another one.’
‘I think if we’re careful it’ll be fine,’ he said confidently. ‘Right, let’s do it!’
Patsy stood nervously behind Ed with his phone paused on the YouTube video until he was ready for the next instruction. Once the bulb was in he gently took the packaging out of the lamp housing.
‘Okay.’ He closed the side of the lamp housing and screwed it into place. ‘Let’s fire her up.’
Patsy retreated a bit further away and put her fingers in her ears, just in case.
Ed screwed his face up as his finger hovered over the button. ‘Actually, let’s lace up first. We don’t want to have to fire it up twice tonight.’
Patsy exhaled loudly. ‘I don’t think I can take this kind of pressure, Ed.’
He laced the trailer film through the projector with the deft hands of experience. He briefly pressed the button to run the projector to feed enough film through to reach the reel that was ready to wind the film onto the tower. ‘That’s a good start,’ he said as the projector whirred into life with the pleasing flicking sound that Patsy remembered from the Film Society.
Ed wound the end of the film onto the reel and switched the tower on to tension the film.
‘Okay, this time it’s the real thing. Ready?’
Patsy resumed her position. Ed faced away from the projector as he pressed the button to light the lamp. It gave a loud buzz and sprang into life, the light showing through the tiny darkened glass window on the lamp housing and leaking through any gap it could find.
‘I think we’re in business,’ Ed said, grinning. ‘You switch on the projector, Patsy.’
She moved to stand next to him, pressed the button and watched as the film began to move through the mechanism, gaining speed until it was at full pelt after a few seconds and Ed flicked the handle to let the lamp shine through the gate. They squeezed together to look through the window and sure enough, they could see the trailer for Star Wars Episode 1 playing on the screen.
Ed pulled her into a fierce hug. ‘We did it!’
‘You did it. You’re amazing!’
He pulled away to watch through the window again.
He fiddled with the lens until the picture was much sharper. ‘The picture’s a bit off centre and the screen needs a good clean and that corner mending but it’s not a bad start. Better than I’d expected to be honest.’
The trailer ran out, Ed closed the lamp off and switched off the projector and the tower.
‘Shall we run it again?’
‘Yes, go for it!’
It felt like a real milestone and she wished she’d asked Oliver to come. There had been some tangible progress today, not only with the projector but with the whole place and Patsy was buzzing. It was nice to see Ed so excited and she was pleased they were navigating their friendship well enough for him to have been able to see the project through. He deserved it.
25
ROSEMARY WAS ALREADY waiting at Oliver’s when Patsy arrived ten minutes early for their meeting the next morning. She had wanted to tell Oliver that Ed had got the projector working but that would have to wait until later now.
‘Morning, Rosemary. Can I get you a coffee?’ Patsy took her coat off and put it behind the door, automatically grabbing an apron and then realising she wasn’t coming to work.
‘I’m fine thank you. Oliver is making me a latte.’
‘Great. I’ll grab a drink too and we’ll go upstairs.’
Patsy laid her mood boards out on the table and explained to Rosemary what her vision was. ‘But it’d be great if we could add some things which speak to its past, before it was stripped out in the eighties.’
‘The one thing I remember is the magnificent chandeliers. They were similar to these,’ she said, pointing at one of the lights Patsy had dismissed as too traditional.
‘So we’re going for these lights, as a kind of nod to that type of thing but with a modern twist.’
