The Pompadour

Someone said more than once that the Pompadour Cinema looked like a bomb hit it but it wasn’t that bad, in all honesty; if you ask me, the building looked more like it had taken some badly aimed missiles to its door while a red-faced general stood outside lobbing unpleasantries in anger.  The property continued to cut a lordly shape in the town but the marks of age were there alright.  The high fencing around it was this pale orange rust like a terrible disease in a comic book with these prongs on top which looked eager to impale someone soon or they’d throw a hissy fit.  The long doors at the front of the building were slightly scratched by kids from the area, but still looked firm and secure.  The rest of the building however, judging from the boarded up windows, looked like it had been broken into and ransacked a good many times.  And of course it had.  There was a time when The Pompadour was full to bursting with wine and sweets and raiders of all stripes were predisposed to get in through a window and make off with all the Satzenbrau and Mars Bars they could carry.  That was long ago though.  Now the place was largely forgotten.  Even though it was right there in front of everyone, nobody knew it was there.  Some places, when never called upon or talked about, yet always existing within line of sight, ultimately steer clear of the mind seeing.

I remember the first film they put on, said Phyllis, as Lavery parked us outside the cinema.  Sorrowful Jones with Bob Hope and Lucille Ball.  Not that I was in the audience myself.   Stephen McQueen, I also seem to remember, was the man who set it up, a reasonably successful young pastry man who fancied a dabble in cinematics.  Now, don’t let that name distract you – he was no relation to the famous player who arrived on the scene a few years after.  McQueen frequently declared the name to be a common one in the business and that they weren’t the only ones.  Nobody really believed that.  Most were convinced he made it up to get the girls.  It was his real name though.  When they locked him up that was how the news referred to him.    

            I was only in the place a few times when I was younger, I said.  Never much of a filmgoer.  I’ve watched more of them in the house with you and Oran than I ever have in my whole life, I think.  I will say, in my teens, we used to break into this place from time to time.  Sorry – I don’t get up to that anymore . . .   

I stopped myself, suddenly conscious I was admitting to criminality, even if the behaviour was limited to my adolescence.  I swiftly offered apologies to both of my companions, first to Phyllis since her mother once oversaw the place and she could profess some claim to the premises, and then to Lavery, so as to quash any doubts he may have had about my ethics, and to discourage him from counting fountain pens in the office on Monday. 

Although The Pompadour’s fencing was tall, we discovered the front gate was in fact open, which gave us more hope of finding Oran in there.  Doing what though?  I had never seen him outside of No 15 Isolde Terrace, let alone in a huge old building like this.  Would he look the same?  Breathe the same?  You get used to the oxygen in a place. 

Phyllis guided us around the back of the building and to a flat door on the ground covered in leaves.  For a moment, it looked as if we were all going into hiding to keep away from a soon-to-arrive cataclysm. 

The door opened easily.  A small flight of stairs took us into a basement passage. It was very dark inside.  We left the door open for light but as we walked further along the corridor, this light fell away. 

I don’t like this one bit, said Lavery.

            Ah, live on the edge, will you, teased Phyllis.

            He was silenced at once by this and it occurred to me that Lavery might still have a crush on her from all those years ago, despite time’s inevitable dilution of romantic desire.

            Soon we came to some steps which would return us to ground level and bring us to another damp corridor.  We had to be careful as we went up them but we trusted Phyllis. 

There was a time long after mammy worked here when all they showed were skin flicks, she said.  Well, what we’d get back then were soppies or funnies which showed a good deal of skin and peppered with a couple of romps.  Often we wouldn’t watch the movies they were so atrocious.  We’d wait outside in the lobby and drink lemonade until they got to the sex doing and then we’d go in to watch.  An interesting time which mercifully did not last. 

You see much worse in the films these days, I can tell you.  Far more violent.  Far more sex too.  You’re better off with your videos and DVDs, you know.

It was only after saying this that I realised how insensitive it may have sounded, considering the recent destruction of their various collections.  But she didn’t seem to notice my blunder.  And just responded with:  Why would I want that?  I like to see a bit of fucking in my films. 

We came to a point of heavy darkness along the second hallway where it was not possible to see a thing.  I could hear Lavery behind me grumbling, stepping all over the empty crates and boxes which Phyllis had skilfully circumvented and which I, following her every move, had too.  At the point of stopping, Phyllis began wrestling with the handle of a door which I could not see but which I could hear shaking as she struggled to get it open.  It took half a minute but when finally she opened the door we were blasted with dusty grey light.  It was the auditorium.  The light came from a panel of windows on the far wall near the ceiling, the black shades which once veiled them, now ripped and pulled and dangling. 

It looked bigger than I remembered.  Seating for approximately four hundred.  Once upon a time you could imagine the whole town fitting in here to watch the new Pink Panther movie, or to see a popular showband that were passing through, or participate in one of the talent and variety competitions which were regularly held.   The projection screen was no longer there.  Someone somewhere now possessed a home cinema like no other.  For it had been a big one.  Occupied a space of about 50 wide.  Now all you could see was an empty stage.  Littered with the familiar crates and boxes.  Considering the screen had been swiped, it made you ask yourself what was in all these boxes and crates that these Cahier du Cinéma-enjoying vagrants felt was not upscale enough for them to take?   

I expected to hear a great commotion and flapping of birds up in the rafters, a preconception instituted by certain films which tended to make this a feature of large abandoned spaces.  But this cinema refused to behave like an old film.  Silence was quite satisfied here.  And then, we heard a sound up on the balcony.  A slight rustling.  And a strange crackling parp like a dolphin snoring.

Has to be him, said Phyllis.  He sounds like that when he’s asleep.

I agreed.  I’d heard it myself.  After a few mugs of wine, if it was late enough, Oran would nod off in his seat before the film ended and make a bizarre rattle like this in his mouth, signalling to me it was time to go home.

At the back of the theatre there was a stairway which was made of steel but still fairly rickety so we had to be cautious going up.  So rare were my visits to The Pompadour that I had no memory of there being expensive seats up the top.  Upon reaching the balcony floor, a pigeon which had been resting on the banister flew up in a commotion and flapped off across the auditorium proving a few (certainly not all) of the movies I’d seen right.   

Then a startled grunt to our side.  There was a mountain of newspaper in one of the centre front seats and it began to move.   

Ah, it’s you, came a dragged and sleepy voice from under the rags.  It was Oran Berrills.  He threw off the old newspapers which had been covering his head while he slept and stood up.  Perhaps because we were on the balcony he seemed an even larger man than he was to me. 

There was acknowledgment of the other and accompanying disquiet in the glances shared between Lavery and himself.

What do you have there?  I asked.

He'd held on to one of the newspapers.

It’s one of your old things, he said, addressing Lavery.  The Martlet.  From back in the day.  There’s a load of old stuff up there in that projection room.  He turned to Phyllis.  This one has a letter from mammy in it. 

You’re shitting me!

I am not, he said.

Letter from Assumpta Berrills, General Manager of The Pompadour Cinema, addressing Mr. J. Saunders

Mr Saunders,

Firstly, I would like to thank you for the matter you brought to the attention of this paper last week about our recent programming of films with adult themes and language and your unease regarding younger children being able to attend.  I am writing to ensure you that we are not ‘blind’ to these issues, as you so eloquently put it.  Currently we offer three matinee showings on the weekends which we are planning to expand to six for the summer months and these films have been selected expressly to cater for families and younger viewers.

There was recently an incident during an exhibit of The Big Heat, an undeniably adult picture, in which some young boys from the town had gained access through guile and subterfuge.  We share your concerns and have begun the process of training our staff in false moustache recognition and stilt detecting in order to identify the culprits quicker.       

Mrs. Assumpta Berrills,

The Pompadour Cinema