at all.”
Alex nodded and smiled cynically. “Yes, of course. You’re an actor, after all.” There was a long pause and she tapped her
pen on the table. “You are quite well qualified, I suppose.” She shrugged eventually. Had he won her over? She stood up abruptly.
“Well, thanks for coming.” She extended her hand. “I’ll be in touch.”
Chapter 5
E lla woke up. She rubbed her eyes with her fists and quickly wiped the drool from her chin, blinking rapidly. The lights were
on and everyone seemed to have left. Everyone, that is, apart from Chris, the cinema manager, who was standing right in front
of her, arms folded. Oh bloody hell.
“Oh! Erm, I was just… my contact lens. I was trying to—It’s gone funny again. You have to close your eyes to make it
… erm… all right again.”
Chris sighed deeply and shook his head. “Nice try, Ella. Nice try. But the film ended… let me see”—he consulted his watch
theatrically—“thirteen minutes ago. I’ve been standing here for the last five, and both you and I know you don’t wear contact
lenses. Don’t you remember telling me that time how genetically inferior people with bad eyesight were, and about how Marie
Stopes wouldn’t let her son marry a shortsighted girl? And since you told me you were descended from Marie Stopes, you couldn’t
betray your family traditions?”
She struggled to her feet from the upholstered comfort of the back row and laughed quickly. “Oh, I didn’t mean any of that.
You know I didn’t. It was just a joke.”
“Hmmm. I seem to remember you were in deadly earnest at the time. It was the excuse you gave for not going out with me, after
all.”
Ella coughed piteously to try to cover up her laugh. “Oh that! I’d forgotten that. Oh, Chris, I don’t know what’s wrong with
me. I think I’m coming down with something. My head’s just splitting. Would you mind if I went home for a bit and maybe came
back later if I feel a bit better?”
The tall, bespectacled man went through a pantomime of considering her suggestion, then replied in tones dripping with irony.
“Let’s see now. Would I mind if you went home? No, I don’t have a problem with that bit at all. The sooner the better, I think.
Would I mind if you maybe came back later? Mmm, well that’s the bit I’m not totally happy with.”
“What?!” Ella’s symptoms were pushed aside by her outrage and she pulled herself up to her full five foot three. “Are you
trying to tell me that you’re giving me the sack? Who do you think you are?”
Chris stepped back, looking faintly bored, and started to usher Ella out in front of him. “I think I’m the manager of this
cinema, and running it is quite hard enough without you falling asleep in eight out of the last ten screenings you were supposed
to be supervising, eating popcorn like it’s going out of style, and telling that Japanese student that
Citizen Kane
was Michael Caine’s first movie. I want you out of here now. And don’t bother coming back.”
They were halfway down the stairs now, squeezing past the queue of families waiting for the next showing. Chris addressed
the punters. “Sorry everyone,” he announced smoothly. “There’s going to be a bit of a delay before the next showing. This
young lady, an ex-employee, thought catching up on her beauty sleep was more important than vacuuming up before you, our patrons,
came in for the next film.”
At first Ella cringed before the disapproving stares and tuts that followed her down to the foyer, then she came around and
rallied. “Hang on a minute.” She turned and prodded Chris in the chest. “You can’t speak to me like that. I’m not having this.”
Chris stopped in his tracks, taken aback by her sudden recovery. She cleared her throat and addressed the crowd. “I’d like
to make an announcement, too. All right, so I
was
asleep in the film. So what? Lots of people sleep during films. I