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Authors: Stan Barstow
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fast as though she's been hurrying.
'I'm sorry I'm so late. I couldn't get away sooner ... I ran all the way... I felt sure you'd have given me up and gone.'
'No.' It's all I can think of to say I'm so busy looking at her. Gosh, but she's a smashing piece, and she's run all the way to meet me. She just said so.
'I knew you'd come,' I say at last, when I've had my fill of looking at her for the minute. And when I say it it's just as though I really did know all the time. 'You're not the sort of girl to stand a bloke up.'
'Why should I do that?' she says. 'I could have said no in the first place if I didn't want to come, couldn't I?'
I give a nod, eating her up with my eyes again. I can't believe it. I really can't. There must be a catch in it somewhere for this to happen to me.
'Well?' she says, and I realize I'm embarrassing her a bit staring like I am. So I say, 'Righto,' and we walk along the road to the picture house where the lights are blazing and the com missionaire's leaning against the pay-box talking to the cashier because there's nothing else for him to do. I reckon he'll be for the push any time now, the way things are.
'It's very quiet,' Ingrid says. 'I thought we might have to queue.'
"Three or four years ago, mebbe,' I say; 'but not nowadays. Cinema owners are on their beam ends. Why pay to see a bad picture when you can see one on television for nothing?' I've read this somewhere but she laughs and I let her think I've made it up. I'm wondering where she wants to sit and I don't like to ask her for fear it's the best seats and she won't like to say. I get two tickets for the back circle, the next to the best. Now she won't think I'm showing off and I shan't have started something I can't keep up if this turns into a regular thing. When the bint with a torch sees the two of us she flashes us up into the back where the courting couples are snogging away among the empty seats. I'm surprised when Ingrid goes up past a lot of empty rows and leads the way on to the very back row. We push past a couple sprawled out holding on to one another and they take no notice of us. We sit down in a double seat with no arm rest between us, which I think is a bit of all right. Ingrid decides in a minute she'd like her coat off and I help her with it. I have to put my arm round her to do this and I wonder if I dare keep it there. But I think it'll be rushing things a bit and that would be a pity after we're off to such a promising start.
There's a snap like elastic breaking from the couple on the row and the bint giggles and wrestles with the bloke.
'I feel like the psychiatrist who went to the Folies Bergere and spent all his time watching the audience.'
'What?' Ingrid says, and I don't know if she hasn't heard me or not got the joke.
'Skip it.' I feel for my cigs. 'Smoke?'
'Here.' She fumbles in her handbag. 'Let's eat this first.' She brings out a bar of chocolate and breaks it into pieces and puts them on her knee. We munch away and watch the picture. Fruit and nut, it is, and I'm very partial to it next to coffee cream.
We've come in near the end of the feature and I can't make much sense of it. The stories of most musical pictures are pretty silly, anyway. You nearly always have a hard-up company hoping their luck will change and somebody will put up the cash so's they can do this terrific show on Broadway. There's always a nice young producer chap who's in love with the sweet young bint and doesn't know it because the second fern lead, who's a regular bitch even if she has got bags of talent, has her hooks in him. And you always come to the place in the picture where somebody looks round this barn or whatever dump it is they're holing up in and says, 'But say, why can't we put the show on right here?' And from then on it's all plain sailing because there's sure to be a stinking rich backer in the audience on the night and while he's busy signing the cheque the nice young producer is backstage realizing all of a
'I'm sorry I'm so late. I couldn't get away sooner ... I ran all the way... I felt sure you'd have given me up and gone.'
'No.' It's all I can think of to say I'm so busy looking at her. Gosh, but she's a smashing piece, and she's run all the way to meet me. She just said so.
'I knew you'd come,' I say at last, when I've had my fill of looking at her for the minute. And when I say it it's just as though I really did know all the time. 'You're not the sort of girl to stand a bloke up.'
'Why should I do that?' she says. 'I could have said no in the first place if I didn't want to come, couldn't I?'
I give a nod, eating her up with my eyes again. I can't believe it. I really can't. There must be a catch in it somewhere for this to happen to me.
'Well?' she says, and I realize I'm embarrassing her a bit staring like I am. So I say, 'Righto,' and we walk along the road to the picture house where the lights are blazing and the com missionaire's leaning against the pay-box talking to the cashier because there's nothing else for him to do. I reckon he'll be for the push any time now, the way things are.
'It's very quiet,' Ingrid says. 'I thought we might have to queue.'
"Three or four years ago, mebbe,' I say; 'but not nowadays. Cinema owners are on their beam ends. Why pay to see a bad picture when you can see one on television for nothing?' I've read this somewhere but she laughs and I let her think I've made it up. I'm wondering where she wants to sit and I don't like to ask her for fear it's the best seats and she won't like to say. I get two tickets for the back circle, the next to the best. Now she won't think I'm showing off and I shan't have started something I can't keep up if this turns into a regular thing. When the bint with a torch sees the two of us she flashes us up into the back where the courting couples are snogging away among the empty seats. I'm surprised when Ingrid goes up past a lot of empty rows and leads the way on to the very back row. We push past a couple sprawled out holding on to one another and they take no notice of us. We sit down in a double seat with no arm rest between us, which I think is a bit of all right. Ingrid decides in a minute she'd like her coat off and I help her with it. I have to put my arm round her to do this and I wonder if I dare keep it there. But I think it'll be rushing things a bit and that would be a pity after we're off to such a promising start.
There's a snap like elastic breaking from the couple on the row and the bint giggles and wrestles with the bloke.
'I feel like the psychiatrist who went to the Folies Bergere and spent all his time watching the audience.'
'What?' Ingrid says, and I don't know if she hasn't heard me or not got the joke.
'Skip it.' I feel for my cigs. 'Smoke?'
'Here.' She fumbles in her handbag. 'Let's eat this first.' She brings out a bar of chocolate and breaks it into pieces and puts them on her knee. We munch away and watch the picture. Fruit and nut, it is, and I'm very partial to it next to coffee cream.
We've come in near the end of the feature and I can't make much sense of it. The stories of most musical pictures are pretty silly, anyway. You nearly always have a hard-up company hoping their luck will change and somebody will put up the cash so's they can do this terrific show on Broadway. There's always a nice young producer chap who's in love with the sweet young bint and doesn't know it because the second fern lead, who's a regular bitch even if she has got bags of talent, has her hooks in him. And you always come to the place in the picture where somebody looks round this barn or whatever dump it is they're holing up in and says, 'But say, why can't we put the show on right here?' And from then on it's all plain sailing because there's sure to be a stinking rich backer in the audience on the night and while he's busy signing the cheque the nice young producer is backstage realizing all of a
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