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I&039;ll tell it exactly the way it happened
They were showing a love story at the Odeon, a classic frootten The first time I&039;d seen this picture had been with o? The picture had outlasted her, if not our love Maybe that&039;s why I wanted to see it again
I picked a rainy Wednesday afternoon No kids hooting and gibbering in the back rows, maybe a pair or two of lovers in the double seats back there, snuggling up to each other and blissfully, deliciously secure and secretive in the dark I&039;d been young myself, once But ith this ancient film and the middle of the week, and the miserable weather, the old Odeon should be just about empty; maybe a few dodderers like myself, down at the front where their eyes wouldn&039;t feel the strain
But not ods, in the next but back row Along with s that hadn&039;t faded onfor the doors to open, my collar turned up, a fifty-pence piece ready in et in cheap Cheap? Hah! I remember when it was thruppence!
And these two kids in front ofmaybe two pounds each! For a bit of privacy, if you can call it that, in a mouldy old flea-trap like the Odeon
Behind athered: Darby and Joans, soles
Most of the memories of their own, I supposed And we all stood there waiting for the doors to open
I had to look somewhere, and so I looked ahead of me, at these two kids Well, I didn&039;t actually look at them -I mean you don&039;t, do you? I looked around the of them stuck to my hteen, er I didn&039;t fix her face clearly, lowing, and a bit giggly, with a ht red plastic rain-mac White teeth and a stub of a nose, and eyes that sparkled when she s-Hood! And all of it in little ain they say nice things coes Da to him so close it was like he&039;d hypnotized her And you know, I had to have a little se!
About the lad: he was pale, gangly - or &039;gawky&039; as we&039;d say in my neck of the woods - hollow-cheeked; he looked like soood feed would fix him up no end But it probably wouldn&039;t fix the fishy, unblinking stare that cah those thick-lensed spectacles of his He wore a black mac a bit small for him, which made his wrists stick out like pipe-stems A matched couple? Hardly, but they do say that opposites attract
Anyway, before I could look at them more closely, if I&039;d wanted to, ent in
The Odeon&039;s a dowdy place It always has been Twenty years ago it was dowdy, since when it&039;s well past the point of no return The glitter&039;s gone, I&039; for it: they&039;ve never called bingo
there When telly came in and the cinemas slumped, the old Odeon continued to show filh it, but not without its share of scars
These dayswell, you could plaster and paint all you liked, and you still wouldn&039;t cover up all the wrinkles It would be like an old wo on her war-paint: she&039;d still come out mutton dressed as lahts up full, the place seeingand about ready to be pulled down Or ood after all, or perhaps there&039;s a layer of dust on the light-bulbs in the high ceiling
I went upstairs (taking it easy, you know, and leaning on my stick a bit) and headed for&039;uns were right there ahead of me, not in my row but the one behind, at the very back -all very quiet and coy, they were - where they&039;d chosen one of the double seats But I hadn&039;t noticed the sweets or popcorn at the kiosk in the shabby foyer, so h the show: nice and quiet
Other patrons ca for the front where there was a little any balcony and look down on the screen When the lights started to go down in that sloay of theirs, there couldn&039;t have been more than two dozen people in all up there, and most of them in the front ts Me and the kids, we had the back entirely to ourselves It was a poor showing even for a Wednesday; maybe there&039;d be more people in the cheap seats downstairs
In the old days this was the part I&039;d liked the best: the lights dian music (but only recorded, even inopen to reveal a dull, pearly, vacant screen Then there&039;d be The Queen and the curtains would close again while the lights died co film, a cartoon, the trailers, and finally the feature film Oh, yes - and between the cartoon and the main show there&039;d be an intermission, when the ice-cream ladies would come down the aisles with their trays And at the end, The Queen again Funny thing, but I can&039;t go back as far as The King I mean, I can, butwhat I can, I&039; old does to you Anyway, the whole thing fro out would last two and a half to maybe three whole hours! That was value
Nowadaysyou get the trailer, local advertisements, the feature filht be a short supporting picture And here&039;sI was surprised at the poor turnout
Well, the trailers weren&039;t much, and the local ads were totally colourless and not even up to date - Paul&039;s Unisex Hairdressing Salon had shut down hts came half-way up; and suddenly it dawned oncouple behind iggle or two Certainly nothing to complain about
The seats were stepped down in tiers from the back to the balcony, so that my row of seats was lance andthere very close, wasting half their seat, the girl crammed in one corner with the pale lad&039;s black-clad arhtly round her red-clad shoulders And his fish-eyes behind their thick lenses, swivelling to o away Then it was dark again and the titles rolling, andwith one or two old-fashioned -on in the back row Of course I had seen it colanced back at the their rain-h that old ploy It&039;s ao on - or come off- under a rain- way, one by one, to trearments would be loosened, warm, naked flesh cautiously exposed - but not to view
No usherette&039;s torch bea eyes of some old duffer in the row in front Indeed, the fact that I was there probably added to their excitement
It amused me to think of myself as a prop in their loveplay, a spanner in their orks, who that I wasn&039;t deceived
And all the ti the exploratory hand had nothing to do with hi to be co advance toward her nipples And they&039;d only be its first objective All of this assuinners Oh, yes - it&039;s a funny business, love in the back row of a cine Ah, but there&039;s heavy breathing and there&039;s heavy breathing!