Fridays at the Rialto

Annie woke from a doze as the front door slammed shut.  

-Ah, here she is.  

Fi bounced into the room with her usual restless energy.  She wore ripped jeans, biker boots and a faded grey Slipknot tee shirt, a nose ring, five earrings in one ear, four in another. 

-And wearing enough eyeliner to keep the sodding makers in business for a year. She was such a pretty little girl. Ah well, maybe this is how girls do pretty nowadays.’ 

Fi put a copy of the Racing Post on the table beside Annie’s chair.  

‘That all you got me?”

‘No, but don’t let mum find it, she’d fucking kill me.’ 

Fi rummaged in her rucksack and brought out a small bottle of vodka.  

‘That’s my girl. Fetch us a glass from the sideboard, darlin’, and one for yourself unless you want to pretend you don’t drink. There’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

She’d woken up at four o'clock this morning, knowing what she wanted and that Fi and Susan, her daughter and Fi’s mum, would try everything they could to talk her out of it.  

-Let ‘em.  I am doing what I want for once in me life.   

‘Is it about you going into hospital next week, gran?’

‘Yes, cos I aint.’

‘Aint? You mean you’re not going? You need the operation, Gran. Look, it’s okay to be scared, right? You always told me that when I was a little girl, like when I had to go the dentist and that and anyway…’

‘Save your breath to cool your porridge, darlin’, the operation won’t do any good. I saw Mr Chowdhury last week and my file was open on his desk. What he didn’t know about , what no one knows about, is a little trick I taught myself when I was a kid. I’d had chicken pox and weren’t allowed to get up yet though I felt fine. I was bored, so I learned to read upside down. That’s how I know the operation…  let’s just say the odds aint in my favour, if it was an ‘orse I wouldn't put a bet on it. If I gotta go then I don’t want to go on a operating table or in a hospital bed. I’m going right here, in my own home,where I’ve been happy for the last ten years.’

‘You’ve lived here thirty five years- Oh, I get it, ten years since Grandad died.’  

-She’s a sharp one,  my Fi, Reminds me of me when I were young. But she won’t make the same bloody mistake I did, girls have choices now, right and all.’

‘Why was Grandad so angry all the time? He was okay with me, but he was horrible to you and mum.’

‘Daniel Chambers, your grandad, was a grumpy old bugger, nothing was ever good enough for him.’

-And that’s all you need to know, my darling. Daniel led me a dog’s life but I never spoke about it and I never will. For Ruthy’s  sake.

 

‘There must be something I can do, Gran?’

‘You can put a drop more in this glass and sit down if you’re stopping. I’ll get me bets on for tomorrow and then we’ll watch a bit of telly.’

‘Isn’t there anything you want, Gran?’

The closer you get to the end of life the clearer the past becomes. 

-like seeing a jigsaw when it’s almost done and yeah,  there is something I want but it’s too late now.

‘What is it, Gran? You’re thinking about something.’

‘You won’t know the Rialto Cinema on Blackstock Road. We used to go there every Friday after work. I’d love to go in and sit there one last time, even if there aint a picture showing. But it’s all built up around there now, the shopping centre, the Laburnum Estate. It’ll be long gone.’

 

She reached for the remote control down the side of her chair and switched on the TV. It was time for a soap that Fi liked. But Annie didn’t follow the storyline, she was in the Rialto. 

-Two one and nines then sitting in the dark holding hands with my Jimmy.

Jimmy. The only man she’d ever loved. 

<<<<<<<<

-It comes to something when it takes so long to make a cuppa, it really does. I need two hands just to lift the bloody kettle.   

While she made the tea, one careful movement at a time,  

she wondered:

-How long now since I cooked anything, proper I mean, not just boiled a egg? It’s meals on wheels for me now, they’re okay, but that beef stew yesterday. The gravy was a bit thin, nothing like mine, you could stand your fork up in mine and I made it proper with the juices from the meat. That was just a Oxo cube in  hot water and don’t try and tell me different.

She carried the tea into the hall, put it on the telephone table while she leaned against the bannisters, her breathing coming slow and loud. She waited till it got easier then carried the tea through to the sitting room, set it down carefully and dropped into her chair, feeling dizzy, 

Susan was coming in an hour for what she called “a serious talk.”

-I’m still not going. What can she do about it? Can’t frog march me to the door like a kid that won’t go to school. 

But she wouldn’t need to.   

-I know my daughter. When she gets the bit between her teeth she’s her grandmother all over again. Ruthy Chambers, cor! She was a one. Husband built like a brick shit house, two strapping sons and her five foot nothing but she ruled ‘em. Never raised her voice nor lost her temper but in her house she was queen and we all knew it.   

Sit Ruthy’s sons opposite each other and they were enough alike that you knew they were brothers.  

-But so different in their ways.

Daniel was a brawler when he’d had one too many, never showed emotions and seldom smiled. But his brother was a  quiet, gentle man who loved to carve beautiful things out of wood and gave them away to anyone who admired them.

Thinking of the Chamber’s boys took Annie back to the days when she’d been a shop girl in Woolworths and from  there it was inevitable that she ended up back in the Rialto.   

-Clark Gable and Carol Lombard, Jimmy Cagney and Bette Davis, they always showed the best films at the Rialto. I can’t remember any of ‘em now, oh I see ‘em on telly sometimes and then I remember. But when I think about them days all I remember is me and Jimmy in the one and nines every Friday night and fish and chips afterwards. I always told him not to spend all his money on me, he didn’t have a lot after giving his mum his keep, but he’d say there was nothing else in the world he wanted to spend it on. 

She drifted off toward sleep, the tea forgotten and going cold beside her. She hoped she didn’t wake up.  

-Because that’d be the easiest way.  

She did not want to go into hospital and certainly didn't want to have a “serous talk”. But Susan did.  

-So there aint a lot more to be said. Just like Ruthy.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<

-We brought that Toby Jug on holiday in Margate when Susan were a nipper, she couldn’t’ve been more than four. Susan brought us the rose bowl for our silver wedding anniversary. We were supposed to all go out to a posh restaurant for a nice meal, but Daniel never turned up till we’d nearly finished,he’d had a skinful and got thrown out. 

She wanted to remember it all, the bad and the good, because she was going into hospital the day after tomorrow. 

-And I might not see it all again. It’s not been such a bad life. I had my Jimmy for a little while for one thing and Susan’s been a good daughter and given me Fi, up to mischief before she could walk that one. God, if you’re real and if I gotta go somewhere afterwards, then let me go someplace nice, hey? It’s not been such a bad life but it certainly aint been a easy one.    

‘Gran, Gran, wake up’

Annie reluctantly dragged herself back up out of sleep. She felt like she’d been there for hours but could see the clock on the sideboard, it had only been twenty minutes.

‘Hello, Fi darlin’, wasn’t expecting you today.’ 

‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’

‘Ooh, brought me something nice, have you?’

‘No, we’re going somewhere.  I’ll get your coat.’   

  

A battered old fiesta was waiting outside. A German Shepherd on the back seat had her head out the window, watching the street, pink tongue lolling. A skinny lad around FI’s age,with stringy ginger hair to his shoulders and tattoos up both arms, leaned against the car smoking a roll-up. 

‘This is my mate, Spider,’ Fi introduced him. 

‘Hello, Gran.’

‘It’s Mrs Chambers to you, you cheeky young bugger.’

He opened the door to the front passenger seat,. ‘Here you go - Mrs Chambers. Don’t worry about Stacey,’ he patted the dog’s head, ‘she’s very friendly, if you don’t upset her.’

Annie looked at the car, the dent in the rear door, the bumper tied on with string. ‘It ain’t the dog I’m worried about. You sure this old banger’ll even get us to the end of the street?’

Spider pretended to look hurt. ‘I will have you know a lot of people want to buy this car off me. I know at least four scrap dealers who’d be happy to take it off me hands.’

Annie got in the car, Fi helped her with the seat belt, 

‘Where we off to?’

‘You’ll see.’

The engine coughed, died, caught and they set off toward the town centre. Annie recognised the street as soon as Spider parked the car. Charlie Moore’s barber shop was gone, and Smith’s the greengrocers next to it. There was a Poundland there now. 

 

-But I recognise it alright and that’s where - Oh my gawd!’

It stood where it had always been, looking dated and out of place with its new neighbours of smart shops and glass fronted offices.  Its white facade was dirty and discoloured now. There was a drift of newspaper, fast food cartons, cans and broken glass before its double doors but above them it still flaunted its name in a flowing, right slanted, font - Rialto Cinema. 

‘They ain’t allowed to knock it down cos it’s got one of them ... whatchamacallit’s,’ Fi explained.

‘Preservation order,’ Spider supplied.’

‘Yeah one of them things, so that you can’t change it nor nothing,’

‘Somebody brought it last year, wanted to turn it into a bingo hall but nothing happened in the end, he run out of money, I think.’

Annie smiled.  ‘Thanks for bringing me to see it, Fi love.’

‘You aint just going to look at it, Gran. Spider’s into Urb Ex.’

‘What’s that? A death metal band?’

‘Nah, it means urban exploration. He gets into old buildings and places that’s closed down, just to look around like, he don’t never do no damage nor nothing.’

They got out of the car, Spider spoke to the dog, ‘watch, Stacey.’ She immediately sat up, alert and on guard.  He led the way to the back of the cinema. It was late Sunday afternoon, all the shops were closed  so one was around to see them.  Fi took her arm - ‘careful, Gran,’ -because the path was littered with more empty cans, fast food boxes and a rusting old bicycle. Spider had clearly been here before. He slid his fingers under the frame of the window by the back doors and pulled it open.  

‘Catch is broken,’ he explained before grabbing the edge of the window, pulling himself up and sliding through.   

‘The back doors aint locked, only bolted on the inside,’ Fi explained and after a couple of minutes the doors opened and Spider, grinning, welcomed them in with a sweeping gesture of his hand.    

Fi stepped back to let Annie walk in first but Annie didn’t move.  

‘Take me home, love.’

‘But I thought you wanted to see it.’

‘So did I. Just take me home, there’s a good girl.’ 

Fi helped Annie off with her coat and went to the kitchen to make tea.   

‘Here you go, Gran. Nice and strong, one sugar, just how you like it.’ Fi put the tea beside Annie and held her hand. 

-And she ain’t bombarding me with questions or telling me how I wasted her time, like plenty would. She’s such a kind girl, reminds me of her grandad sometimes - her real one.

Annie sipped her tea, her expression thoughtful and reflective.  ‘We pack the past up into a box and lug it about with us our whole life. Memories. That’s what’s in that box and, cor, don’t we wish we could put it down or throw it away sometimes? Course we do. We don’t even want to think about some of the stuff in there, but we do, and some of it we wouldn’t part with for all the tea in China, even if it does hurt to think about it sometimes.’

‘That’s why you didn’t go in, innit? All the memories you got of that place.’

‘It wasn’t just the memories.’

Again Fi didn’t ask questions but waited for Annie to speak again.  

 

‘He wasn’t there.’

‘You mean Grandad?’

Annie hesitated  on the verge of speaking 

-But then it might as well come out now. 

‘Anyone ever tell you about your Great Uncle Jimmy.’

‘Auntie Vi said something to me once.’

Vi Tattershall was Ruthy’s best friend from school days. She was always known as Auntie Vi to every one in the family.   

‘It was at her ninety ninth birthday party. She told me Grandad had a brother called Jimmy and he was killed in a motorbike accident. Then Grandad heard what she was saying and got really, really angry and said she wasn’t ever to talk about him. I s’pose he never got over it.

‘I certainly never did.’

A single tear rolled down Annie’s cheek.  Fi handed her a grubby tissue that she pulled from her pocket. 

‘Oh, it was Jimmy used to take you to the Rialto, weren’t it?’

Annie nodded. ‘We were ever so in love and about to get married, only four weeks to go before… it happened.’

‘So, why… ‘ Fi hesitated to ask the obvious question so Annie finished  it for her:

‘Why did I end up marrying his brother instead?’

“Well, yeah.’

Annie hesitated again before starting to explain.  

‘Your great grandma ,Ruthy, never had a daughter so she sort of adopted me from the time me and Jimmy started courting and I never had much of a mum so I was happy to let her. After the accident I stayed with her for a couple of months and she soon…’    

Fi waited again but Annie didn’t pick up the story.

-Susan’s got a right to know the truth. I always thought so but Daniel would never let me say a word. But why turn her whole life, everything she thinks she knows about her family, all upside down and inside out now? If Fi does a bit of digging on that phone of hers she’s always fiddling with, one of them websites and such, she might find something, or if Susan ever had one of them D.R.A tests that tells you who your mum and dad were, she might find out then.  But I don’t want to be the one to go stirring it all up now.’

‘You just let your old gran have a little nap now and we’ll maybe talk about it all later.’

‘Alright, Gran. I’ll see you in the morning, yeah? I’m coming with mum to help you get packed and that for the hospital.’

Annie almost called her back as  she opened the door. But the door closed and she’d said nothing.  

-They won’t understand what it was like back then, how hard it would’ve been for me if Ruthy hadn’t done what she did. I hadn’t got a clue why I started being sick every morning. Ruthy cottoned on straight away, asked me when I’d last had me monthlies and I couldn't tell her. She told me what was going on and that she knew what we were going to do about it.  Daniel was to get a job in another town, far enough away so nobody knew him, and say it was cos the money was better. Me, I had to say I couldn’t  bear to stay in the place with so many memories of Jimmy, so I was going away too.  She arranged a quick register office wedding, then stay away long enough and the baby could be Daniel’s, no one would know any different  He went along with it but he made me pay for it, every day of our married life. Every.Single.Day.

The woman next door started screaming at her kid again- -’Cheryl, you get in here now!’- their door banged shut and everything was quiet except for Annie’s breathing.  

-I wish I had gone in, taken one last look at the old place. Never mind, imagination’s better than seeing it all rotting away. Makes it’s just like it was. Holding hands in the dark, sometimes a little kiss, but we both liked keeping that sort of thing private. And afterwards, popping along to old Ma Donnely’s chippy that got blown to buggery in the gas explosion of 1957. Good days, my best days. There ain’t many more days left now. Maybe I’ll see my Jimmy again, wonder if he’ll know me?  

The sound of Annie’s breathing grew shallower as she slipped toward sleep. Shallower and slower, 

a last sighing exhale and then nothing broke the silence.