Last Reels - 11. Rise of the mulltiplex

Uncle Peter often told stories about the Palace cinema where he worked. He’d come round to the house a couple of times a month, usually close to meal time.

‘Scrounging again,’ mum used to say, but not unkindly. He was her older brother by several years and was a projectionist at the scruffy cinema close to the town centre. Dean had never been there. On the rare occasions his parents took him and his brother to see a film they went to the Cannon at the top end of the High Street. ‘Don’t mention to Peter we’ve been,’ mum always said. ‘He’ll want to know why we didn’t go to his place.’

‘A bloke from work took his girlfriend there once,’ dad put in. ‘She was bitten by fleas. And the film broke down. I don’t care how cheap it is, I’d rather go somewhere decent.’

Truth was, he’d rather not go to the cinema at all. Dad had recently bought a large screen TV and an expensive home cinema system. His collection of video films filled three of Ikea’s tall Ivar shelving units. ‘It’s much better to watch films at home,’ he said. ‘You don’t get any yobs disturbing your enjoyment. I can have a beer or two. You guys can eat as much pizza as you like. We can stop it whenever we want.’

‘And we can have it as loud as we like,’ said Dean’s older brother, Matt.

‘As long as it doesn’t disturb the neighbours,’ said mum. ‘These houses have such thin walls.’

On his journey home from school, Dean passed by the Palace cinema. It was just across the road from Woolworths, which was always worth a visit for the pick and mix sweets. A lot of the kids from his school did the same. The trouble was some of them stole things, which made the staff suspicious of everyone. Dean knew they sometimes pounced on any random school kid, even if they hadn’t done anything. Johnny Fowler was accused of taking a liquorice bootlace and ended up being brought home in a Police car. He’d got into loads of trouble. The ones who should have been caught got away scot free.

Starting at senior school had given him a new reason to avoid that crowd. From the first week, they’d seen him as an easy target, being slight and studious. He also had a secret he hoped they’d never find out. For a few years now, he’d known he was different. Friends from junior school had begun to take an interest in girls; feelings he didn’t share. Girls were fine to talk with, but he wasn’t attracted to them in the same way everyone else seemed to be.

Boys, though, were different, especially as some of them began to show the first signs of impending puberty. If anyone found out, his life would become a misery, like Luke Bradfield in third year, who had been forced to ‘come out’ the previous term. At break times and lunch, he hung around with a group of older students, all of them unconventional and despised. When they were together, they shared a sort of bravado, but alone, going to classes, they were often picked on. Dean didn’t want that kind of attention. He liked learning and just wanted to be left alone, unnoticed. It was his avoidance of the bullies that led to his first visit to the Palace one October afternoon.

He’d just turned the corner when he saw a big group of them go in to Woolworths. For a couple of minutes, he hovered uncertainly outside, peering in through the glass doors. Maybe he could hang around somewhere in the vicinity and get his sweets later after they’d gone? That was when he glanced over the road and spotted his uncle up a ladder outside the cinema. Chatting to him would kill some time, and there was the added bonus that if the gang came out they wouldn’t dare bother him if he was with an adult.

‘Hi, Uncle Peter,’ he said when he was close enough to be heard.

‘Where are you off to, son?’

‘Just home,’ he shrugged.

‘What’s for tea tonight? Did your mum say?’

‘Dunno. Think it’s fish fingers and chips.’

‘Fish fingers, eh. I might give that a miss. It reminds me of something that happened here a few weeks back. Pass us those pliers out of me tool box, will you?’

Dean did as he was asked and watched as his uncle expertly stripped a cable. ‘So what happened,’ he asked after a while, when it seemed Peter might have forgotten what he’d been going to say. Adults did that a lot, he’d noticed.

‘Oh, right. Yes. This young couple came in a few weeks ago. They’d stopped at the chippy on the way - not that they’re supposed to bring in takeaway stuff, ‘cos it stinks the place out. And it means they don’t buy anything from us either, so the manager gets annoyed.’ As he spoke, he twisted strands of wire together, joining two cables which he then fitted into a plastic block. ‘So there they were, sitting near the back of screen three, tucking in. All of a sudden, the usherette hears this unearthly scream. Thought maybe a rat had run across someone’s feet. That’s happened a few times.’

‘There’s rats in the cinema?’

Peter nodded. ‘Didn’t I ever tell you about them? And cockroaches, too. Mind you, we haven’t got them any more since the pest control bloke came in and dusted the place overnight. I was crunching dead roaches underfoot all the next day.’

‘Yuck.’

Peter connected up another pair of wires. ‘Maybe this bugger will work now. Held together with string and gaffer tape, this place is.’

Dean nodded. The plastic cover from the poster frame was criss-crossed with cracks and scratches. Graffiti too. THIS IS A DUMP! was scrawled in red marker pen across the front.

‘Anyway, where was I?’

‘There was a scream. Was it rats?’

Peter shook his head. ‘No. It was worse than that. Joanne – that’s the usherette - went down there to see what was up. And what she saw, she’ll never forget. See, this girl had been helping herself to chips in the dark and she’d got one that she thought was a bit too crispy. It was so hard that when she tried to bite it, one of her teeth broke – that was why she screamed. But it was when Joanne put her torch on that it really kicked off. You see…’ he leaned down from the ladder conspiratorially and lowered his voice, even though there wasn’t anyone around to hear. ‘It wasn’t a chip at all. It was a man’s finger!’

‘Whoa. Gruesome!’

‘See, the bloke who chips the potatoes had an accident with the machine that morning. They were supposed to chuck them all out, but the boss couldn’t bear the thought of losing money – just like the skinflint who runs this place – so he got them to rinse off the blood and fry them up as usual. Last time I ever get my supper from there, I’m telling you!’ He slid dramatically down the ladder, landing lightly. ‘Right-ho. Keep an eye on all this lot while I nip back inside and turn on the juice.’

He disappeared inside the cinema. Dean had enough time to wonder if there might be a bang and some sparks, like when dad drilled through a cable in the kitchen wall. He stood back slightly, just in case, but all that happened was that the long tubes flickered a few times, then burst into life just as Peter returned.

‘Blimey! It works,’ he said, sounding slightly surprised. He started to put the frame back together.

Dean’s attention wandered. He glanced over to Woolworths, where the group of boys were just being evicted by a member of staff. He might be in luck, once they’d cleared off, of course.

‘Fancy coming inside to have a look round? Bet you’ve never seen a projection box before, have you?’

‘No.’

‘Come on then.’

The foyer was dark and smelled stale, as if the air trapped inside had lain undisturbed for far longer than a day. There were big wire cages over the sweets on display.

Peter turned on some lights which made the foyer both brighter and shabbier at the same time. The carpet was stained and threadbare in places. Dean wondered if you’d spot the fleas jumping up before they bit you.

‘Not bad, is it?’ Peter commented. ‘Me and the boss gave the walls a lick of paint last April and I put up those new spotlights over the kiosk. Got ‘em out of a skip.’

The doors creaked as they were pushed open. Deeper inside the cinema, the prevailing smell was of air freshener overlaying something nasty. It became stronger as they passed the door leading to the Gents. Dean held his breath for as long as he could, all the way down some stairs and into a dimly lit corridor with walls and ceiling the colour of old meat.

Peter stopped and searched through a huge bunch of keys hanging from his belt loop, using one of them to unlock a door labelled PRIVATE. He led the way up some worn wooden steps into a tiny room.

‘See that.’ Peter pointed behind the projector at a giant reel. ‘That’s the film. It runs from this spool here at the top then back to this one at the bottom. When it’s finished, you have to rewind it. Whole thing takes about five minutes at full speed.’

The film was black and shiny, like an old-fashioned record. Dean had a thought. ‘Does every cinema still use film? Someone at school said it was all on video these days.’

Peter made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a snort. ‘That’s what they’d like, believe me. Then the manager could just put the cassette in and press play. But no, everywhere - from here right up to the big London cinemas - shows film. And that’s the way it’ll be for a long time yet. Making a video picture look good on your television is a lot easier than blowing it up to the size of a cinema screen.’ He looked thoughtful, then continued. ‘Plus it’d cost a lot of money. All of this equipment was second hand when it was put in and it’ll last another thirty or forty years. It was built to last, not like modern technology that’s out of date as soon as it’s out of the shop door.’

Dean knew this was one of his uncle’s favourite gripes. When he came round to the house he was always going on about how everything made these days didn’t last five minutes. But then, dad said that there was no point in making things that would last forever, because people wouldn’t want to keep them that long anyway. ‘When I bought us a new television it wasn’t because the old one was broken, but because this model is bigger and better.’

‘No, film will see me out all right,’ Peter continued. ‘Here. You can have a piece to take home, if you like.’ He dodged round the back of the projector and over to a tiny bench. Unrolling some film, he snipped it with a pair of scissors. ‘There you go.’

‘Thanks.’ Dean stuffed it into his school bag. ‘I’d better go now or I’ll be late.’

‘Go on then,’ Peter said, ‘Enjoy those fish fingers. Let me know next time your mum’s doing steak pie.’

Peter called in a few more times before Christmas. When he mentioned that Dean had popped in to the cinema one afternoon, mum picked up on it instantly. ‘You’re not to go bothering your uncle when he’s at work,’ she said.

‘It was no bother,’ Peter said. ‘It’s nice to see someone his age taking an interest.’

After his uncle had left, mum rounded on Dean. ‘That cinema isn’t a playground. I don’t want to hear about you going there again.’

‘It won’t be around for much longer anyway.’ Dad looked up from the paper. ‘It says in here there’s a new eight screen multiplex going up on that retail park they’re building.’

The bus Dean caught to school went past the site. Over the next few months he watched as tall steel frames rose up from the mud. By Easter, the buildings were taking shape. The supermarket was the first to open, followed shortly by a DIY store and several furniture and carpet shops. The cinema opened its doors in early May with a preview day inviting people to go along and watch films and trailers free of charge and even enjoy a complimentary soft drink and popcorn.

Dean went with some friends; the ones who he’d moved up with from junior school. He’d still not made any new ones. On the bus, they mostly talked about films, although once the conversation strayed into dangerous territory.

‘Hey, Dean. Talked to any girls yet?’

He shook his head. ‘Too much homework to do right now.’

‘Life’s more than schoolwork and watching films. Tell you what, Mandy Jones likes you and she’s almost as shy as you are. Maybe I could put in a word?’

Phil was trying to be kind, but he didn’t need that. ‘I’ll manage, thanks.’

Then there was some banter about who’d been found snogging at a recent party (he’d declined the invitation) but by the time they arrived at the leisure park the excitement of the first visit to the new cinema had put paid to all of that.

The first impression he had as they went inside was of light and space. Everything was new, shiny and bright. There were film posters and cardboard standees everywhere. The kiosk was huge and there was a pick and mix selection to rival Woolworths, although much more expensive. On one side of the foyer was a licensed bar, while opposite stood an arcade with loads of gaming machines. They spent an hour or so playing on these before venturing further inside.

As everything was free, they went in and out of all the screens. Some of them were showing trailers, while in others whole films were playing. The seats were really comfortable; the picture was wall to wall and the sound awesome. Dean was so impressed, he stayed to watch the whole of Wayne’s World, even though he’d already seen it on video. It was totally amazing. With a cinema like this to come to, even his dad might agree that it brought another dimension to the experience of watching a film; one that you just couldn’t match at home. He envisioned spending a lot of time here. In the dark of the auditorium, it didn’t matter who you did or didn’t fancy.