Page 10 of The Truth About You and Me
‘Well,I’m not Jack’ – she grins at me, walking in front of the blue screen, dimples forming in both cheeks – ‘we could try calling for help, but?—’
I wiggle my phone at her. ‘No signal.’
‘No signal and the Wi-Fi is down. Must be the storm.’ She scoops up her hair then lets it fall back on her shoulders. ‘There’s a landline in the projection booth though. I’ll go and try calling Romy or Colin from there.’
* * *
‘Sorry about the smell,’ she warns, scrunching up her nose as she leads me along the corridor above the auditorium. ‘Colin’s diet consists of Pot Noodles and pork scratchings, but he’s a sweetie. He’ll come and let us out, or Romy will. Fear not.’ She grins as we come to the end of the corridor, a door with two words on it in gold glitter:
I don’t bother trying to take the time to sound out the letters like my speech and language therapist encourages me to do. Sounding out letters in the same way as my five-year-old niece is not something that raises my mood. I used to read Shakespeare. Now I can barely read the word ‘sit’. I managed the ‘s’ sound after following the letter six times with my fingers first. Reading is beyond exhausting.
At first I was determined to find my way back: to books, to me; I’ve never quit a thing in my life, but after Vicky left and after months of endless failures, it all seemed… pointless. I’d rather focus my energy on something else. Besides, I consider, as I watch Maggie switching on the light and looking at the small room; stories can be found in places other than books. ‘Here we are!’ Maggie’s excitement at the inside of the small room is infectious and I find myself feeling lighter than I have in months despite the embarrassment of my earlier confession.
‘This is where the magic comes from.’
On the walls are more film posters.
‘So how long have you worked here?’ I ask, leaning in at the originalJawsposter: red letters, the shark’s mouth pointing upwards beneath blue water, a woman swimming across the surface.
Maggie steps over the boxes on the floor towards a desk at the back of the room.
‘Three years. I came here for a late-night showing ofBefore Sunset. There was an advert for a cleaner and the rest is fairy-tale, popcorn and lemon-scented history. Are you a fan?’ she asks. I realise I’m squinting and drop the muscles in my forehead, focusing instead on her as she begins lifting magazines and coffee cups on the desk.
‘OfJaws?’
She nods.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen it.’
‘You’re joking?’ She stops searching briefly and laughs, shaking her head. ‘Everyone has seenJaws.’
Our eyes meet and I try to ignore the electric charge currently climbing up my spine. ‘I’ve read it though,’ I rush on, looking back at the picture.
‘I didn’t know it was a book. I don’t think a book could ever beat the film version.’
I laugh quietly. ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone say that.’ I run my finger down a stack of boxes piled on top of each other. ‘What are these?’
She frowns. ‘They’re the films…The Breakfast Club,Pretty in Pink…’
‘Ah, Mr Hughes?’
‘Yep.’
‘The films are played from here?’
‘Yeah. You load the film into the DVP, type in the passcode on the PC and away we go. Ha! Success!’ she announces, revealing a phone from beneath a pile of discarded McDonald’s napkins. She lifts the cradle to her ear and taps the button on the base. ‘Nothing.’ She lands her hands on her hips before tugging the phone line with her finger and following it around the edges of the room, finally crouching down in the far-right-hand corner, holding up the end of the line, which is three wires without an adapter.
‘Guess calling for help is out then?’
She drops it, blows her hair from her eyes and stands. ‘Yep.’
‘Windows?’
‘All top-opening.’
We’re quiet for a moment before I speak. ‘It’s not the worst place in the world to be trapped though.’
‘No. No it isn’t.’ She pulls her earlobe.
