Hidden Secrets - 1. The Tower

Some people think the worst card that can be drawn in a spread is Death. In any film where a character goes to visit a Tarot reader, it usually foreshadows death or disaster. To be honest, in visual terms, there's no better way to signify an uncertain future than for the wrinkled, scrawny hand of the psychic - always an old woman; the crone syndrome, my mother calls it - turn up a card on which a skeleton armed with a scythe grins up at the querent.

Anyone who knows about Tarot, also knows that the Death card rarely signifies physical death, rather a symbolic passing of a stage in life; the need to move on. It might mean a divorce, losing a job, or having to face children growing up and leaving the nest. The main thing is that it is not an unexpected change. For that you need the Tower, a card I have always found bothersome and which has acquired new resonance in the last few years with its images of people falling from a burning building. The Tower means something unforeseen is going to strike, out of a clear blue sky and it will not be pleasant.

In the dream I had the night before starting my new job, I turned up The Tower. Not for myself, mind, but for the man who had come to ask advice. It was one of those dreams which combine both the commonplace and unfamiliar. I'd laid out the spread - a five card fan - on the violet silk cloth my mother always favoured, on her polished walnut dining table. Unlike in the movies, the room wasn't dark and close. Instead of candles, sunlight poured in through French windows. It was summer. I was wearing the same clothes I'd worn to the interview, three weeks beforehand; a decent suit left over from my foray into the corporate world. The man opposite me looked like the general manager of the cinema in which I was about to start work. However, as is the way with dreams, I knew he was really Cliff. In the dream, it was of no consequence to be sitting opposite a person who had been dead for nearly a year.

‘So what does it mean?’ Cliff asked. I remember thinking that his voice didn't sound quite right. He spoke in the ordinary London accent of Dan Perkins, the cinema manager, rather than Cliff's plummy middle class tones.

I paused, with The Tower under my hand. ‘It means change. Unexpected change.’

For some reason, I didn't want to tell him any more. If I did, he'd die for sure. Then came the moment when I knew I was dreaming. Dan’s features shifted, so he truly resembled the man I had loved. I looked at him and couldn't tell him anything more. I also realised the impossibility of the whole scenario. Cliff didn't believe in Tarot, fate, life after death or anything that couldn't be measured under laboratory conditions. He would never have let me - or anyone - read for him. Which was why I'd found it impossible to warn him.

He shook my hand and I showed him out. Scenes blurred. Outside the front door of my mother’s house was a motorway. He got into his car, drove off and was lost amid the flowing lanes of traffic. I felt utterly lost; powerless and desolate. Why had I let him go? Why hadn't I even tried to stop him? If I’d only said something, he might have been a bit more careful, whether he believed it or not. It was all my fault.

It was with that feeling I woke up, in the spare bedroom of my Aunt Cynthia's house. I had only been here a few days, so the noises of the house and its surroundings were still unfamiliar. The hot water gurgled through the pipes and the muted tones of the radio filtered up from the kitchen. Cynthia's dog, Nipper, was yapping as he often did. I heard her open the back door for him. When she closed it, the window frame in my room squeaked plaintively and the draught increased.

It was an old house. She'd bought it in the days when property was still cheap and many of the large Victorian houses in the town were being chopped up into flats. The house to the left had been converted into a dental surgery, while that on the other side was a hotel.

‘Terry! Are you awake yet?' Cynthia called up the stairs.

'No, I'm still asleep,' I replied.

‘Good. Don't forget to get up, then.’

The dream remained clear in my head as I showered and shaved. I didn't really want to think about it, although habit made me analyse everything. Dreaming of Cliff was my subconscious reminding me of what was lost. Dreaming of Tarot was brought on by living here, with Cynthia. The Tower symbolised everything that had happened, including a break with the past. You couldn't break much more effectively than by moving more than a hundred miles from your home town to start a new job. And Dan, the manager, had reminded me of Cliff a little, more in his mannerisms than in looks, but it was there.

I went down to the kitchen. Nipper yapped around my legs, waving his stumpy tail. Not for the first time I wished Cynthia had chosen the more stereotypical cat as a pet rather a Jack Russell, but she wasn't the sort of woman to follow anyone's stereotype. People might expect a psychic to be slightly ethereal, wearing floaty dresses. Cynthia was built in much more solid fashion, with short dark hair and a practical, outdoorsy quality. She jogged around the local park every day and had completed a half marathon the year she turned fifty. She was a member of the local WI and chair of the gardening association.

'Looking forward to it?' she asked, as I measured out cereal, dried fruit and yogurt. Her only concession to stereotype was her adherence to organic foods and a vegetarian diet.

'Sort of. Like I said, the place is a bit run down.’

'You know, I've not been to the cinema for years,’ she mused.

'I thought you said you were involved in that campaign to stop it closing a few years ago.’

'I was. But that doesn't mean I have to go, does it? That building is a classic example of thirties architecture. If they knocked it down they'd probably put up a hideous supermarket in its place.’

‘And in seventy years, people will probably be campaigning to save Tesco.’

'I doubt it. Anyway, the Regal has character. It grew with this town. Generations of children have gone there…’

‘To throw popcorn all over the carpets and spit balls at the screen,’ I finished.

She made a face. 'I don't even want to know about those. Not at this time of the morning.’

'The trouble is, everyone wants to go to multiplexes. I bet you most of the people who live round here get in their cars and drive out to that leisure complex on the bypass. Well, those who bother to go to the cinema at all, that is.’

'So why aren't you working there if that's the best place to be?’

'I hate multiplexes. Film factories, that's what they are. Fast food cinema. Get 'em in quick, get 'em out quick, slap it on screen. A lot of them don't even employ trained projectionists these days.’

'Good job I campaigned to save the old fleapit, then.' She buttered a slice of toast, broke off a piece and dropped it into the ever ready jaws below.

I started to eat, while reading the local paper upside down across the table. BODY DISCOVERED IN LAKE, the headline blazed. 'I thought this was supposed to be a nice town,' I commented, gesturing with my spoon.

'Oh, it is. But even the middle classes commit the odd murder.' She scanned the report. 'Actually, it's just the newspaper’s attempt at drama. The body was a skeleton and seems to have been in the lake for some years. They only found it because the water levels are so low at the moment.’

The lack of rain was a popular topic. Mum had been moaning about having to water all through September before I left and Cynthia had already told me how she had lost several established shrubs during the summer heat wave.

'So, was it a murder, I wonder? Or just some drunk who fell in and didn't have anyone concerned enough to report him missing?’

Cynthia looked at me with a touch of concern. People still did. It was as if someone who had lost their partner in a freak accident wasn't supposed to be able to comment on a totally unrelated death without suffering flashbacks, or bursting into tears.

'It's okay,' I reassured her. The only things that still affected me were images of car crashes. I hadn't seen the car, afterwards, but my imagination had filled in horrific details from all the films I’d shown and television programmes about real-life rescues.

‘I'm glad you're getting over it so well, Terry.' She squeezed my arm affectionately.

Well, what else did they expect me to do? Losing Cliff had been a blow, although we’d been gradually drifting apart and to be honest, if the accident hadn’t happened, we’d probably have split up by now. Perhaps that was one reason I still felt so guilty about it. If I’d really cared, maybe I’d have made more of an effort to try and warn him?

Breakfast over, I gathered my bits and pieces into a rucksack and set off. One of the best things about working in the cinema business is not having to get up too early. By the time you start work, the office slaves are on their second or third cups of coffee and children stare vacantly from classroom windows as the teacher drones on.

It was only a ten minute walk through leafy suburban streets. As I rounded the corner, the front doors of the cinema reflected the low-angled sunshine back at me like glassy, staring eyes. The rest of the building was dark, casting a long, cold shadow across the adjoining shops. Everyone round here still called it the Regal, even though the name had been changed years ago when the chain had been taken over by Crest Cinemas. The shops still bore the name 'Regal Parade' etched into the concrete coping above their red brick facades. Once they had supplied all the everyday necessities of life to the local inhabitants, but times change. Supermarkets now reign supreme, so they had become estate agents, mobile phone shops, hairdressers and takeaways.

Up close, the front doors weren't so clean looking. Small hand prints sullied the glass and the aluminium frames were tarnished and spotted. The pink and grey terrazzo flooring was cracked.
I reached up to ring the bell. Cinema bells are always placed high up to stop local kids endlessly pressing them to annoy the staff. The bell can never be heard from outside, either, so I couldn’t even be sure it was working.

I waited for what felt like an eternity and was just debating whether to ring it again when the door opened outward. Dan Perkins ushered me inside with a smile. Glad I’d turned up, I expected. The vacancy had apparently been advertised for a while before I found out about it. Not many people wanted to take on an old-fashioned three screen cinema in this age of the multiplex. The wages were lower and the job less prestigious.

The foyer seemed dark after the brilliant sunshine. A smell of lemon-scented polish overlaid that of yesterday's popcorn. Dust motes swarmed in the beams of sunlight that managed to penetrate beyond the standees for forthcoming films. The cinema had the poised stillness of an empty space waiting to be occupied.

'Morning,' said Dan. 'Lovely one, isn't it?’

I agreed. ‘Not bad.’

‘Have you settled in okay? Found somewhere to live?’

'Actually, I'm staying with my aunt for now. She lives in town.’

I followed him through to the main office. It had originally been two separate rooms and like many non-public spaces in an old cinema, was oddly shaped to fit the contours of the building rather than the convenience of its occupants. At least there was a window, albeit high and barred on the inside. Two ancient safes were tucked against the far wall. Above them were shelves packed with box files. The wall behind Dan's desk was emblazoned with newly printed spreadsheets showing retail spend per customer and monthly targets.

I’d found Dan slightly distracting at the interview. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, just a few years younger than I was. He was also gorgeous; still tanned from the summer, with dark hair and a faint hint of stubble even so early in the day. As the cinema wasn’t open to the public yet, he’d not changed into his suit, which hung on the back of the office door. He wore a simple white T shirt and dark blue jeans, both of which fit him very well. Now I wasn’t nervous about getting the job, the attraction was all the more noticeable. It was with some difficulty I forced myself to concentrate.

'Right then,' he said, evidently oblivious to all this. 'Colin should be here soon. He can give you the grand tour of the place. Think you'll be all right on your own after a couple of hours with him?’

I switched into work mode. ’I don't see why not. As long as I know my way around, I can get by.’

'Good. He's been moaning about the long hours ever since Maurice finished.’

Maurice was the previous chief, forced to retire early because of a medical condition. Colin had applied for the vacant position and been rejected. I wondered how he'd feel about my appointment. 'Is he all right about not getting the chief's job?’

'Well, he's not exactly happy about it. But I told him why he didn't get it and I think he's accepted I wanted someone with a more modern outlook. I'm sure you'll get along just fine.' It sounded as if that was what he was hoping for, rather than the reality.

I hadn't met Colin previously; on the day of my interview a relief projectionist had been on duty. He'd commented on the state of the place and told me Colin was a miserable sod, but I hadn't worried too much about it. My main concerns then had been making a good impression and landing the job. Now he was just another of the problems I was going to have to deal with.

Dan carried on talking. 'I've not been here long myself, of course, but the staff are a friendly bunch. I found it a bit strange at first, them all being so much older than me.’

'That's how it is in these places. People stay forever.’

'I know. I came from a multiplex myself. Started there when I was at uni, to pay the bills, then went into management after I graduated. Two years later this place came up and I was lucky to get the job. It's an ideal first cinema.’

I didn't think of it that way at all. I was intending to stay a while, but I knew his type. Ambitious and upwardly mobile. One reason he reminded me of Cliff.

'So, what about you?’

'I'm looking forward to the challenge.' It was the sort of thing management liked to hear. It was true as well. I'd been out of the cinema business for a while and I really was happy to be back. 'Old buildings like this certainly give anyone enough challenges to be getting on with.’

He smiled pleasantly and seemed about to say something else when the front door opened, then slammed shut with a ferocity that sent shudders through the whole building. 'That'll be Colin,' he said.

We waited for him to come into the office, but after a few minutes it became clear he must have gone straight to his own domain. I tried not to consider the possibility he was actively trying to avoid me and gazed blankly at the colourful charts as Dan attempted to track him down using the internal phone system.

'He doesn't always hear the phones,' he commented. 'We've tried to get him to carry a walkie-talkie, but he's not having any of it. Says the radio waves are bad for his brain or something...' He broke off as Colin answered at last. 'Ah, Colin, there you are. I've got Terry with me here in the office. Yes, the new chief. Can you come down?' There was a pause. 'All right.’ He put the phone down. ‘Says he’s busy. Probably best not to upset him if we can avoid it. He’s upstairs in the main projection box. I can show you the way.’

I'd been up to the top box before, but the last time I'd been here, this was just another old cinema. Now, it was mine, so I noticed things like the inaccessible lights over the staircase, a poster frame with flickering fluorescent tubes and a loose stair nosing. I also couldn’t help noticing how shapely Dan’s bum looked in those well-fitting jeans as he led the way up the stairs of screen one, the former circle. Stop it, I told myself. You should not be thinking about your manager that way.

Under the harsh cleaners lighting, the auditorium looked its sixty-eight years of age, although the Art Deco curves of the side walls and ceiling were as graceful as ever. No signs of damp, I noticed. The seats had been replaced fairly recently with refurbished old stock. They were a mustard colour, covered in velour. Unlike modern seats, they had no cup holders to contain the huge buckets of soft drink that were sold in the foyer and the inevitable result was a sticky mess of carpet between rows.

'It's a bit like climbing Everest, isn't it?' Dan paused at the top of the steeply raked auditorium. 'I don't know how Colin manages this, especially when he works all day on his own.’

'When you do this job, you never need to go to the gym,' I replied. Dan looked as if he probably visited the gym fairly regularly. I wouldn’t have described him as a dedicated body-builder, but the T shirt showed off well defined pecs, a trim waist and muscular arms.

'No, I guess not.’

The screen, hidden behind blue tabs, was a long way beyond the edge of the former circle. Unusually for a seventies conversion, some of the original stalls seats had been kept. Although most people didn't like being so close to the screen, it served as useful additional seating, convenient for customers who found it difficult to get up all those stairs.

We went through the double doors at the top of the flight, into an exit staircase with walls of a nondescript brown shade and red tile paint on the steps. I was surprised not to smell the usual stale urine. Either the cleaners here did a better job than in some other places, or people in this town didn't use the exits as public conveniences. A better class of customer, maybe?

Dan opened yet another door, this one with a Yale lock left on the latch. Beyond lay a steep set of concrete steps, also painted red with grubby white stripes marking the edges. Here, the walls were the same dingy brown, but with lighter rectangles marking where pictures had once hung. It was unmistakably the final ascent to the projection box.

We rounded a corner into a narrow corridor I remembered from my brief tour after the interview. The staff room and toilet lay through a door on the right, while straight ahead was the entrance to the box itself. I heard Colin before I saw him, coughing as if he smoked forty a day. As we arrived, he blew his nose equally loudly into a large white handkerchief, which he stuffed back into the pocket of his baggy grey trousers. He was somewhere in his mid-fifties, I guessed, with a round face and greying hair that looked as if it had been chewed rather than cut.

‘Hi, Colin,' Dan said cheerfully. 'Here's Terry.’

Just a bit too cheerful, I thought, like a breakfast TV presenter trying to jolly everyone up when they had just been told it was a rainy day and the M25 was nose to tail following three separate accidents.

'Morning,' he said gruffly. He looked at me briefly before turning his attention back to the Victoria 8 projector at his side.

'I'll leave you to show him around, then,' Dan said. With that, he left us alone.

I looked around the box, not quite knowing what to say next. Nice day, isn't it. No, that was just lame. Well kept projection box. Ditto, plus not true. It was an untidy mess. Wow, a Cinemation Mark 1 console. Too nerdy.

I settled for, 'Good to finally meet you. How's business been over the weekend?’

He shrugged. 'So, so. A few kids in for “Nanny McPhee”, but “Saw’s" done nowt. All that crowd go down the multiplex.’

'Oh well, can't win 'em all.'

This was followed by an awkward silence. Colin fiddled with the projector gate, opening and then shutting it several times. A drip hovered at the end of his nose. Every few seconds, he snuffled.

'Any problems right now? With the kit, I mean?’

'Not really.’

'Good, good.' There was another silence, punctuated by sniffs. I wished he’d blow his nose again. To distract myself from the annoyance, I flicked through the CD's in the box on top of the amplifier rack. 'So, what time are we on screen?’

Colin pointed at the time sheet, clipped to the wall above the viewing port. 'It's all on there.’

'Oh, right. Yes.' I was conscious of not doing very well so far. Perhaps it was best to tackle the root of the problem. 'Look, Colin, I know you applied for this job as well. I appreciate all the years you've been here and the experience you have. I hope we can work together as a team.’

'This your first chief's job?' he asked brusquely.

'Yes, it is.’

'Know how long I've been in the business?’

'A few years, I imagine.’

'Nearly forty of them, lad. That's a few more years than you've been alive, I'll wager.’

‘Yes.'

'So don't go trying to tell me how to do my job.' His face was starting to turn red. He'd obviously been bottling this lot up for a long time.

'I just said that I valued your experience. I mean that.’

'I've been doing the bloody chief's job here for the last few years, since Maurice started to go all forgetful. I covered for him. I did his bloody job, while he were getting the wage, and never complained, never said owt that would get him into bother…'

I let him rant on, nodding and generally agreeing. It was best for him to get all this off his chest.

'...then that young kid of a manager decides he wants someone "more up to date with his ideas..."'

'I'm sorry about all that, but there's nothing much I can do about it.’

'Well, enjoy it while it lasts. We've not done much trade since the multiplex opened up and there's no money being spent on the building any more. They'd close it tomorrow if they could get someone to pay good money for it.’

I had been assured by Dan that the company had no intention of closing the cinema in the foreseeable future, but then, he would say that. 'Most of the old town centre cinemas are in the same boat,' I said.

’I can't wait.’ He smiled for the first time. 'At least I'll be able to screw forty years of redundancy out of the bastards.’

There wasn't much you could say to that, so I didn’t.

‘I suppose I'd best show you around. Sooner I do that, sooner I'll be able to go home.’

'That'd be good. I just need to know where everything is, what to switch on in the morning and off at night.’

He nodded grimly and we began the tour. He wasn't very talkative, opening doors without much comment, speaking only if I asked a direct question. The sniffing continued.

’Boilers come on at ten in the morning, off at ten thirty at night. Just the one at the moment, as it’s not been too cold.’ The boiler house seemed like the warmest part of the building so far.

'You turn the plenum on half an hour before we open.' The plenum was a typical nineteen-thirties installation; a massive fan which sucked in filtered fresh air, heated it to a preset temperature then channelled it into screen one. The smaller two screens had their own, modern air handling units which were nowhere near as impressive.

Both the plenum chamber and the boiler house were backstage. The old Regal had been built in an era when cinemas often doubled as live show venues. There were numerous dressing rooms on too many levels to count, mostly filled with broken poster frames and long discarded pieces of equipment. They looked as if they had last been decorated around the time the Beatles allegedly played here.

I hoped I would be able to remember where everything was, as it was clear Colin wouldn't be much help. I tried to memorise all the doors and which of the numerous keys on the bunch opened each room. Both Colin's own bunch of keys and the set he'd given me were huge. There had to be at least thirty keys of different shapes and sizes on the ring. I’d noticed a few more hanging on little hooks in the downstairs projection boxes. From experience, I knew that most of them would have no purpose beyond lending weight and jangling importance to the projectionist who carried them. The locks they were meant to open had probably long since been replaced, but every key kept 'just in case'. I also knew that if I threw any of them away, chances are it would be the exact one I needed to open a seldom used room.

We entered the switch room, which was painted in the usual battleship grey. Remnants of the original installation were interspersed with all the additional breakers and switches put in as the retail area expanded while the auditorium was chopped up and reduced in seating capacity. All the switches to be left on at night were marked by a gory looking smear of red paint.

We looked in to the two small screens which were tucked in under the original balcony. They were very dark and claustrophobic, with low ceilings. Typical nineteen-seventies conversions, in other words. The partition between them was at a different angle than the outside wall, and cut the decorative plasterwork like a knife. That's how it was done back then, in the days when audiences were dwindling and it was the only way to keep a vast cinema viable. I knew that when the tabs were opened, the screens concealed behind them would be laughably small. Owing to the low ceilings, there wasn't usually very much that could be done to improve it, even if there was money available. Another reason why youngsters preferred the multiplexes, with their wall to wall screens and digital sound all round.

The Regal had Dolby Digital in screen one, at least. It had been installed the previous year. Downstairs, the sound was strictly analogue; good old fashioned Dolby Stereo. Putting digital into conversions often caused problems with sound breakthrough, as the walls tended to be a bit thin, so they would probably never be upgraded.

I noticed that the carpets down at the screen end of number three smelled a bit damp, and mentioned it to Colin.

'That's nothing. Wait until it rains.’

'What happens then?’

'Time to get your wellies out.’

The masking around the screen felt damp and had a musty smell to it. We'd had no rain to speak of for five or six weeks. 'So what's the cause?’

He shrugged. ‘No one knows. They've had a look a few times. So long as no one drowns, they won't bother.' He turned away. 'Well, you've seen it all now. Think you can manage on your own?’

'I expect so.’

'Then I'll be getting along. I've not had a proper day off since last Tuesday.’

'Go on then.' To be honest, I'd rather muddle along on my own that have mister doom, gloom and despondency looking over my shoulder. Particularly as I hadn't started a show manually for a while and knew I was likely to make a hash of it the first few times.

He walked back up the aisle, his keys jangling. I looked around the slightly shabby auditorium once more. This was my cinema now and I had to make a go of it.