by Hayley Long
aND theY DleD sCreamING
The entertainment at the Ponty went downhill from there. Because as soon as the title for the main feature appeared on the screen, I just knew that it wasn’t going to be my cup of tea. Or coffee. Or anything. In fact, I had exactly the same sort of crappy cheated feeling that I get when I jump into a big full-to-the-brim bubble bath and find out that the water isn’t quite hot enough or when my PE teacher tells us we’re going for a nice long cross-country run in the rain. In front of me were the words . . .
‘What language is that?’ I whispered to Gareth.
Gareth frowned. Then, after a moment or two, he whispered back, ‘It definitely ain’t Welsh. Or French. Could well be Russian though. Or Irish.’ He crammed a handful of popcorn into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Then he said, ‘Mind you, there’s a good possibility that it’s Portuguese.’ After another pause, he added, ‘Or Dutch.’ Picking up his cola, he sucked on the straw, his forehead still creased in concentration. Then, with a confident nod, he concluded, ‘Having said that, it’s probably Polish.’ After that, he put his arm around me and said, ‘But to be strictly honest with you, Lotts, I ain’t totally sure.’
This is one of the things I absolutely love about Gareth. He always puts his heart and soul into everything he does. Even when what he’s trying to do is physically impossible or completely out of his knowledge zone, he will always try to find an answer. If he hadn’t decided to devote his life to the game of rugby, I think he could have made a pretty good philosopher.
I was still a bit bothered about the stuff written on the screen though so instead of telling him this, I whispered, ‘Oh brilliant. It’s gonna be one of those weird films where you have to read the subtitles just to give yourself the faintest clue what’s happening. I hate reading!’
Gareth laughed and poked me in the stomach. ‘No you don’t! You’re always reading!’
‘Oh jog on!’ I said. ‘I don’t mind reading books but that’s about as far as I’m prepared to take it.’ And then I poked Gareth back.
The film started. On the screen, a little girl with her hair plaited into two long pigtails was whizzing backwards and forwards on a swing in an empty playground that was surrounded by derelict concrete tower blocks. The whole thing was shot in black and white. I let out a noisy sigh and, poking Gareth again, I whispered, ‘I hate black and white films. They bore my brains out!’
Gareth removed his arm from across my shoulders and, taking hold of my hand, laced his fingers through mine. ‘Seriously, babe . . .’ he whispered, ‘. . . are you gonna moan all the way through this? Cos I ain’t being funny, Lotts, but you’re starting to make my ears bleed.’
In the early days of our relationship, Gareth was extremely sweet and seemed totally blown away by my very existence. I could have happily moaned through fifteen films in a row and he wouldn’t have uttered a single word of disapproval. I’ve been going out with him for a while now and I’ve noticed that the dynamic between us has shifted a bit. He’s still very sweet but nowadays he tends to tell me when I’m doing his head in. If anything, I think this makes him even more desirable.
I stuck my tongue out at him in the darkness and turned my attention back to the screen. The girl was still swinging. There was no sound at all except for that of the swing which was really, really creaky. Nothing else was happening. It was just this little girl swinging backwards and forwards all on her own in the middle of an empty playground in the middle of empty tower blocks. Backwards and forwards. Backwards and forwards. It went on and on and on. The only noise in the whole cinema was this:
Squeak
Creak
Squeak
Creak
Squeak
Creak
It was squeakily creakily freaky. I looked at my watch. Six minutes had passed and that little girl was still swinging.
I nudged Gareth. ‘Do you think the film has got stuck?’
Gareth frowned. ‘I dunno. She’s been on that swing a while, hasn’t she? It’s a wonder she ain’t totally dizzy. Perhaps that Tim bloke has nodded off in the projection room.’ And then he waved a piece of popcorn happily at the screen and said, ‘Oh no . . . look . . . something else is happening.’
Eager not to miss any dramatic development in the storyline, we both leaned forward in our seats but then slumped back again with bitter disappointment when we realized that the only thing that had changed was the camera angle. The little girl was still swinging but now we were viewing the scene from behind. Not for the first time, I let out a noisy sigh. ‘Where do you think Goose is?’ I whispered. ‘She said she was going to come and sit with us.’
Gareth nudged me and nodded towards the door. ‘I reckon this must be her now.’
Coming towards us through the darkness was the pale beam of a cheap torch and the occasional flash of an electric blue and yellow uniform. I lifted my feet so that my trainers were resting snugly on the back of the seat in front of me and waved the torch over.
The little girl continued to swing.
The torchlight halted by my chair. I squinted into it and said, ‘Goose?’
A voice – which was blatantly not Goose’s – said, ‘Mumble mumble . . . feet down . . . mumble mumble.’
Almost jumping out of my skin, I whipped my feet off the chair in front and sat bolt upright in my seat. Even though the cinema was practically empty and she could have sat anywhere, Pat Mumble plonked herself down directly behind me. For the billionth time I sighed. Gareth squeezed my hand and failed to suppress a chuckle. The little girl continued to swing. And then, in that weird language which definitely wasn’t Welsh or French but might have been Russian, Irish, Portuguese, Dutch or Polish, she began to chant. It sounded like a nursery rhyme and, as she swung, she chanted the same words over and over again. Subtitles came up on the screen to help us. Painfully aware of Pat Mumble’s presence in my very close rear proximity, I frowned at the screen and read . . .
The candle is burning, burning,
Don’t let it out,
Those who want to see the flame
Should all crouch down.
I shivered. Pat Mumble leaned forward so that I could smell her furniture-polish breath and said, ‘Mumble mumble . . . gets worse . . . mumble.’ And then I heard her rip the paper off a Cornetto.
Abruptly, the scene changed and cut to an image of chimpanzees in a jungle. There were loads of them sitting in the treetops and they were all making a truly horrible high-pitched shrieking sound. Some of the chimps were furiously beating their chests and all of them had their mouths wide open revealing massively sharp teeth. Usually, I’m extremely interested in film footage of monkeys and other swinging primates. I’m especially interested in orang-utans who – along with rabbits and chinchillas – are my most favourite animals on the planet. I didn’t like this clip of film though. Not one bit. To be honest, it was putting me really massively totally on edge.
Behind me, Pat Mumble was noisily sucking on her ice cream. To my left, Gareth’s body was shaking and I knew he was having another fit of the silent chuckles. Putting his mouth close to my ear, he whispered, ‘This film is nuts! I’m loving it!’ And then he clamped his hand over his mouth to stop himself from chuckling his head off.
I wasn’t chuckling though. ‘I don’t like it,’ I whispered.
Instantly, Gareth’s mood changed and his face turned serious. ‘It’s OK, babe,’ he whispered back to me. ‘I’ll protect you.’ And then he kissed me on the forehead and wrapped his arm around me. I put my fingers in my ears and snuggled up next to his body.
The shrieking chimpanzees faded away. Before I could breathe a sigh of relief, however, the film cut back to the swing. It was still going backwards and forwards exactly as it had done before – except that this time there was no girl sitting on it. She had disappeared. The swing was now moving all by itself. Backwards and forwards. Backwards and forwards. Backwards and forwards. On and on and on. Behind me Pat Mumble was demolishing her ice cream lik
e it was the last ice cream she was ever going to eat. Even though my fingers were still in my ears, I obviously wasn’t pressing hard enough because all I could hear was:
Squeak
Creak
Slurp
Squeak
Creak
Slurp
. . . over and over again.
I started to feel a bit ill.
The swing vanished and was replaced by the image of a fat butcher with a bushy grey moustache wearing a bloodstained apron. My heart sank. The butcher was wrapping bits of meat – they might have been pork chops – in sheets of greaseproof paper. Sometimes, before he wrapped a chop, he’d give it a little squeeze, making a few drops of blood drip on to his meat-splattered work surface. My heart sank a little lower. Gareth’s right hand stroked my right shoulder. Pat Mumble, evidently having finished all the ice cream, began to crunch on her wafer cone. My heart continued to sink and, little by little, I felt my stomach start to rise. Gareth’s hand stopped stroking my shoulder and began to drift downward.
I still wasn’t feeling too good.
The butcher slapped a juicy pork chop on to a pair of weighing scales. Pat Mumble let out a contented burp and said, ‘Mumble mumble pardon.’ I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
I really didn’t feel good.
And then three things which should never ever have been connected in my mind – but which now, tragically, always will be – occurred at the exact same moment.
1. Pat Mumble squeezed out another burp.
2. The butcher squeezed a pork chop.
3. Gareth’s right hand squeezed my right boob.
In a total panic, I stood up. ‘I’m sorry, Gaz,’ I said. ‘I feel totally hanging!’14 And then I rushed out through the back door fire exit.
The cinema foyer was still completely quiet. The shutters were down in front of the tills and nobody was about. I walked over to the kiosk where Pat Mumble stands our cups of not-Coke-and-not-Pepsi-cola and folded my arms on the counter. Then I lowered my head into my arms and stood there, slumped against the refreshments counter, and concentrated really hard on containing my inner vomit.
Behind me a door creaked open. A vision of the swinging girl flashed into my mind and made me groan. A voice said, ‘Lottie? What are you doing out here? Are you OK?’
It was Goose’s voice.
Without lifting my head, I twisted my face to look at her and said, ‘It all got a bit intense in there and I nearly puked!’ And then I said, ‘Where did you get to? I thought you were coming in to join us?’
Goose’s face flushed. ‘Oh yeah . . . sorry . . . I was helping Tim in the projection room.’
‘Well, you didn’t miss much,’ I grumbled. ‘Just a swinger, some pork and a bit of monkey business.’ And then, even though I still felt terrible, I chuckled because I’d effortlessly made that stupid film sound a million times more interesting than it actually was. I should get a job in advertising or something.
Goose came and joined me by the refreshments counter and sympathetically stroked the back of my head. ‘You poor thing,’ she said. ‘You look helluva green. Do you want a drink or something? I could get you a Coke . . . well . . . I mean more of a cola-flavoured carbonated soft drink?’
‘Yuck, no thanks,’ I replied. ‘My stomach is heaving as it is. That film totally messed me up.’
Goose nodded and continued to stroke my hair. ‘I haven’t had a chance to see it yet but Tim really rates it. He reckons that it makes more sense if you consider it as a piece of conceptual art rather than purely seeing it as an entertainment form. Tim is writing about it for his Film Studies A level. Tim reckons that—’
But I never got to hear what else Tim Overup reckoned. The door leading from Screen One swung open and we were interrupted by two more people fleeing the film. Too late, I noticed that one of them was wearing a pair of cyber-goggles around her neck. The other one was a skinny boy with long skinny hair and skinny dark trousers and the chunkiest pair of devil boots on his feet that I’d ever seen in my whole life. His legs and feet combination looked like this.
Those boots still didn’t make him taller than his lanky girlfriend though.
‘All right?’ said Lois to me.
‘All right?’ I said to Lois.
Lois sniffed and gave me a brief nod. Jerking her head back towards the screen door, she asked, ‘You couldn’t hack the film then?’
I shrugged. And then, realizing I still had my head crashed out on the counter, I smiled a bit and admitted, ‘Not much. Couldn’t you?’
Lois gawped at me like I was a freakoid in a cage. ‘We’ve seen heaps of films heaps more messed up than that! That one was too soft for us.’ Then she dipped her hand down the front of her top, rummaged around for a moment and magically pulled a mobile phone out from between her twin-peak personal regions. Raising it in front of her, she said, ‘I’ve sooooo got to put a picture of you up on Facebook. You look completely siiiiick!’
I stood up really quickly then and stretched my arm out in front of me in order to block her lens with my palm. ‘Er . . . no thanks,’ I said. ‘Call me weird if you like but I don’t actually like unflattering photos of myself being plastered all over the internet for any old freak to look at.’
Lois put her phone back down her bra. ‘Suit yourself. Loads of people would’ve poked you though.’
I was worried then that I’d come across as a bit uptight so I said, ‘I’ll add you as a friend if you like.’ This was a lie. There’s no way she will ever be my friend. Even in cyberspace.
Lois said, ‘Lucky lucky me.’ And then she and the little big-boot man started laughing all their spurs and studs off. Not with me. But blatantly at me. And just when I thought the conversation couldn’t get any more awful, Lois rummaged around in her bra again, produced a watch which was attached to a chain, looked at it and said, ‘Do you reckon my dad is still at your mum’s?’
I said, ‘How the heck should I know?’
Goose said, ‘What?’
I said, ‘I’ll tell you about it later.’
Lois laughed at me again and said, ‘Your mum fancies my dad. Deal with it!’
And I said, ‘Deal with your hair, why don’t you. Your roots are showing.’
Lois glared at me over her eyeliner. Then she dropped her watch back down her purple leopard-print top, pulled her cyber-goggles up into position and said to the little big-boot man, ‘Come on Morys, let’s ditch this dive.’ And with that, Lois and Morys left the building.
When they’d gone, Goose shook her head. ‘That was one helluva bad attitude! Who the heck was she?’ And then she added, ‘And what was all that stuff about your mum and her dad?’
I opened my mouth to explain but no words came out. Instead, I just stood there staring silently at Goose like I was some kind of stupid five-foot (and a fraction over half an inch) tall goldfish. I didn’t know how to even begin to answer Goose’s question. More to the point, I didn’t want to. Thankfully, before I had a chance to try, Gareth came crashing through the doors. He was holding my coat and the last of the popcorn. When he spotted me, his face lit up with relief. ‘Oh there you are!’ Then he paused and looked a bit embarrassed. ‘Sorry I didn’t come out straight away . . . I thought perhaps you might need a bit of space and . . . anyway, there was this really interesting bit where the film cut back to the swing and it had been all tied up in a knot and was just hanging there motionless and I wanted to see if anything weird was gonna happen but then it cut back to the screaming monkeys so I came out to look for you.’ And then he turned to Goose and said, ‘Is she OK?’
Goose said, ‘Yeah. The film made her feel a bit weird though.’
Gareth looked a bit worried and said, ‘Oh.’ He glanced at me anxiously and then, turning back to Goose again, he said, ‘Do you think she’ll be OK to walk home?’
Goose said, ‘I reckon so. You might have to carry her though.’
Gareth looked even more worried and said, ‘Oh. Do you think she—’
‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I am still here, you know!’
Gareth said, ‘Oh, right, yeah. Sorry, Lottie.’ And then he said to Goose, ‘Do you want us to hang around and walk home with you?’
‘No no no,’ said Goose. ‘It’s OK. Tim has just passed his driving test – he’ll give me a lift. Or Pat will.’
Something about the way she said this made me raise my eyebrows but I don’t think either of them noticed because my head was still flat out on the refreshments counter. To be honest, I was rather shocked by the idea that Goose preferred to be accompanied home by either Pat Mumble or Pure Vomit rather than by me and Gareth – but I was still feeling too spaced out to bother saying anything.
‘Suit yourself,’ said Gareth and then he helped me into my coat and said, ‘Come on, Biggsy, let’s get you out of here.’
Alone, on the pavement outside, we paused for a moment under the shelter of the cinema’s canopy and looked at the snow, which was now coming down quite hard. Gareth took my hand and coughed. ‘Look, Lottie,’ he began awkwardly, ‘I’m totally sorry I touched your jubbly. No offence like.’
‘None taken,’ I said.
Gareth looked relieved and smiled at me in the snow. ‘Tonight turned out to be fairly rubbish, didn’t it? Shall we pretend it never happened?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘You can erase everything about this evening from your mind – except for this bit.’ And then I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him. Really passionately. For fifty-two seconds.
When we finally stopped, Gareth gripped hold of my hand and said, ‘Wow!’ His eyes lingered on mine and – not for the first time – I was helplessly captivated in a highly romantic eye-lock. Without really knowing why, I held my breath. In a weirdly wobbly voice, Gareth said, ‘I love YouTube.’
And then he coughed and started frowning down at his K-Swiss trainers which were getting all wet and slushy in the snow, and the romantic spell was not exactly broken but definitely weakened a little bit.
