Last Reels - 6. Picking Up the Pieces

1982

Bill

Bill leaned down and picked up the coin from the wet pavement. It was only ten pence, not enough even to buy a bag of chips these days, but he couldn’t just leave it there. He remembered the smile on his dad’s face, all those years ago, when he’d spot a penny or even a halfpenny in the street.

‘Life always brings you something,’ dad used to say. ‘However small it seems, don’t ignore it.’

And these days every penny was needed. Inflation was through the roof and the mortgage rate kept going up. Neil was at senior school now and there was always something to be bought. The other two were growing out of shoes and clothes every few months. Lots of folk were unemployed with no hope of finding a job. At least he was fairly safe. Cinemas were still closing but the attrition of the past few years had slowed, probably because the least profitable sites had already gone. Everyone struggled to keep their heads above water. Big films still pulled in the crowds, but they were few and far between. Last summer they’d had Raiders of the Lost Ark but that was the only film that came anywhere close to being a blockbuster.

As he neared the front doors he made a quick check of the poster frames. Despite being padlocked, there were ways to lift a corner and extract a poster. It rarely came out in one piece, but that didn’t seem to be the point as the tattered remains were usually left on the steps. Why did they do that? It was senseless vandalism, almost as bad as the graffiti sprayed all over the side wall beside the fire escape stairs. He’d painted over it a few times, but paint was too expensive to waste on the outside of the building these days and he’d been told not to bother any more.

The budget for repairs and renewals was non-existent. Bill’s DIY skills were as prized – perhaps more so – than his ability to put on a good show. Keeping the building from falling apart was part of the daily routine; unblocking drains, fixing leaky taps, repairing seats and patching up the kiosk shelves. Anything the manager asked, he did, because not to do so was to put his own livelihood in jeopardy. Cinemas that overspent went to the top of that list no-one wanted to be on.

There was another closure coming up this Saturday. Mr Hooper, the manager, had requested his presence. Apparently there were some decent bits and pieces to be had. He’d also drive Hooper home afterwards, as he’d be in staggering mode. Bill himself wasn’t much of a drinker. A beer on a Saturday evening if he was at home was about his limit.

You always saw the same faces at those do’s. The unlucky ones drinking to try and forget they would be out of work the following day, the others celebrating their own good fortune at having escaped this round of cuts. Among the drunks, a few sober people like himself, there to pick through the bones for anything useful. He often ended up in the box towards the end of the night watching the final reels turning, the last few thousand feet of film running through the doomed projectors. In most of these sites, the projection equipment wasn’t considered to be worth saving. Old Westars, Supas, Kalees and the like. Once the lights went out and the front doors were boarded up they’d moulder away in the damp and darkness; sprockets slowly tarnishing, oil turning to sticky gloop. Sometimes scrap merchants smashed them, for the fun of it. Mostly they just came down with the rest of the building when the wrecking ball went through the box.

He let himself in to the cinema. The office was a mess as usual. It smelled of last night’s chip supper. Unfinished paperwork had been left strewn all over the desk. How did they work in such chaos? It was a good job, he reflected, that managers didn’t go near the projection box.

In the switch room, he flicked on just enough lights to see his way around. Most of the lights would stay off until nearer opening time to save electricity. As it was he’d dropped the brightness as low as he dared, replacing forty watt lamps with twenty-fives and twenty-fives with fifteen watt pygmies. It wasn’t a bad thing keeping the corridors dimly lit. That way you didn’t notice the damp patches and the cracks so much.

It had rained for most of the night. That determined his next job. Above the fibrous plaster ceiling of screen one was a huge void; the roof space of the entire building. And as the roof leaked in numerous places, he had carefully placed buckets to catch the drips.

He unlocked the plain black door and climbed the wooden steps into the void, turning on the light switch with the end of a broom. Sometimes it fizzed and sparked in damp weather and he didn’t want to take any chances.

There were five buckets to be emptied, which took the best part of half an hour. A few panicked starlings, disturbed by his unexpected presence, squeezed themselves out under the eaves. This time of year they’d be starting to nest. Sometimes you could hear their chirrups down in the auditorium. Patrons thought it was part of the effects on a film, not realising the cinema hadn’t been kitted out for Dolby stereo. And who was he to disillusion them?

That was another symptom of the decline. Not so long ago, upgrading equipment was considered important. Dolby Stereo had been around since the mid-seventies yet only a few cinemas had it installed. Nowadays people were used to decent quality sound from their hi-fi systems at home. You couldn’t fob them off with mono any more, especially with all these big action films that were made to be heard in stereo. They’d be watching it on dirty screens too. Smoking in auditoriums took a heavy toll on screens. Once they’d been replaced every three years, but now you’d only get a new one if it was vandalised. Add to that the discomfort from worn out seats and the sticky carpets that were an inevitable result of all the spilled fizzy drink and it was no wonder people were staying away.

He’d had long, serious talks with Maureen. She always knew when he was worried.

‘What’s up, love? I can see you’ve got something on your mind.’

‘Just the usual stuff. More closures. Wondering if we’re next for the chop.’

‘Have you heard something, then?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing specific. Just rumours.’

‘That Mr Hooper is a good manager, isn’t he? You said he had friends in high places; that things would be all right.’

‘So he always says. But sometimes I start to have my doubts. Sometimes I wish I’d got out a few years back, when there were still jobs to be had.’

‘But Bill, you love the cinema.’

‘I know, I know. And I don’t want to leave it, not if I don’t have to. Maybe I should learn a trade in my spare time. I’m not too old. Plumbing maybe?’ He did enough of that in the cinema even now, patching up the ancient pipework.

‘Well, if you want to. But I don’t think you’d ever be really happy if you weren’t in projection. We’ll get by, even if the worst comes to the worst.’

It was the uncertainty that bothered him. If he was told tomorrow that the place was going to close it would be a shock, of course, but give him a couple of hours and he’d be making plans. Maureen was right – he didn’t want to leave the business – but if there was no alternative then he’d retrain and start again.

If he could only keep the place running and his family happy, then things would – must – get better.

His next job was to get the kettle on. Bertie Arkwright, the Service Engineer was due for a visit. Because Bill kept the equipment well maintained, there wouldn’t be much to do, which would please Bertie. He’d probably stay for most of the day, drinking gallons of black coffee, smoking his way through a pack of cigarettes and telling Bill all the gossip from round the circuit.

He took the rubbish sack from the box staff room to the car park, down the wobbly fire escape stairs. There were always a few cars parked, even when the cinema was closed. Mr Hooper had cooked up a deal with the local used car dealer, letting them store some of their vehicles on cinema land in return for cash. Rumour had it that the money didn’t go through the books, but straight into the manager’s pocket. Today there were a couple of Cavaliers, a Cortina and a fairly new Datsun Sunny. Bill’s neighbour had recently bought a Datsun and was always boasting about all the extras that came as standard, so he took the opportunity to have a look round.

As he peered inside, someone spoke. It made him jump. He’d not spotted anyone about.

‘Do you work here?’ It was a youngish man, with messy hair. He didn’t look like a salesman, but you could never tell these days.

‘What if I do?’ Surprise put him on the defensive.

‘Nice car, eh? Bet you’d like one of those.’ He smiled in a friendly fashion.

Now he definitely sounded like a salesman. ‘I was just looking.’

‘And why not, eh? So, you do work here, then?’

‘As it happens, yes.’

‘That’s great. Does it pay well?’

Maybe he was after a job. ‘It’s not bad. You should wait for the manager to come in if you’re looking for work.’

‘Oh, so you’re not the manager?’

‘No, I’m a projectionist. Chief, actually.’

‘Right, right. You see, what I wanted to find out was if I can hire a film.’

Bill was puzzled. ‘What do you mean, exactly? You want to hire a screen for a private showing?’

‘That would be it, yes.’

‘Well, you’d still need to see the manager. He should be in soon.’

‘No, mate. What I mean is to, you know, hire… a film.’ He said the last words slowly, like someone trying to make a foreign language speaker understand English.

‘Sorry, I don’t get it.’

‘Look, let’s put it another way. Could you show a film for me and some friends? You’d be well paid for your trouble.’

Bill was getting tired of this. ‘Just ask the manager, all right. I’ve got work to do.’

The man followed him. ‘Don’t you want to earn a bit of extra cash?’

Bill rounded on him. ‘I’m not sure what you’re on about.’

‘All right, mate, all right.’

‘And I’m not your mate.’

‘Okay. If you don’t want the work, someone else will.’ He began to walk away.

Bill watched him, still not entirely sure what he had been implying. A car came down the track, bouncing over the uneven ground and splashing through the puddles. The man had to jump out of the way abruptly. The car pulled up next to the other parked vehicles. Smoke poured from the open driver’s window.

Bill made his way over. ‘Morning, Bertie.’

‘Who was that bloody idiot? He’s asking to get run over.’

‘I’m not sure. He was asking me all sorts of odd things.’

‘Like what?’ Bertie got out. He slammed the door hard. The car lurched.

‘Well, he said he wanted to hire the cinema – to see a film with some friends – but he didn’t want to speak to the manager. And he was offering me money. “You’ll be well paid,” he said.’

Bertie exhaled. ‘You know what that was, don’t you?’

‘No. I just thought it was strange.’

‘He’s a fucking pirate! A video pirate. One of those bastards who are killing this industry.’

All at once, the penny dropped. They’d been warned of the growing piracy industry. People videoed a film as it ran, mostly from inside the auditorium, which usually gave an amateur feel to the whole thing, with poor sound and other customer’s heads visible in silhouette. At the last union meeting, however, he’d heard of chiefs and managers taking money to allow the pirates access out of hours. ‘Bloody hell!’

‘Bloody hell is about right. Come on. Let’s get him.’

They ran along the track, towards the front of the cinema, but when they got there the pavements were empty, apart from a woman with a pushchair looking at the film times.

‘He cleared off sharpish,’ Bertie said. ‘Can you remember what he looked like?’

‘Well, he was young – early twenties I’d say. Slim. He had a London accent.’ The description would fit thousands of people. Bill realised he couldn’t even remember exactly what the man been wearing; only that it was dark in colour, probably black. He wasn’t even sure that he’d be able to identify him in one of those police line-ups you saw on TV cop shows.

‘Not much to go on.’ Bertie said.

‘I just didn’t think. I didn’t even twig what he was on about.’

‘It’s happened in a few places. No-one’s taken the bait yet, but it’s only a matter of time.’

‘They wouldn’t, surely. It’d be a stupid thing to do. Get some extra cash in your pocket, but help kill the industry. No projectionist worth their salt would do that.’

Bertie gave him one of his looks. ‘There are a lot of stupid idiots out there. Come on in and I’ll tell you about some of them. And I’ll make sure this gets passed on to the right people.’