‘Lipstick is only supposed to go on your lips, Grace. You’ve drawn an entirely new mouth on.’
‘Am I sleeping at Aunt Helen’s all night?’ she asks, putting brown eyeshadow on her cheeks.
‘Yes, honey. I don’t know what time this will end.’
‘But I’m going to Dad’s tomorrow. I’ll miss you.’
My heart sinks. ‘Look, how about we go to the cafe for breakfast before I take you to your dad? Then you’ll be back on Sunday night and we can watch a movie together before bed. Sound good?’
‘Can we watch Tangled?’ she asks with a massive grin.
‘Will you let me sing along?’
She thinks for a moment. ‘How about I let you mime?’
‘Deal.’
With the taxi en route to pick me up, I give Grace a massive kiss and send her across the hall with a bottle of wine for Helen as thanks for helping me out. When she sees me, Helen practically pounces on me.
‘Did he call?!’
‘What? Did who call? I have to run; the taxi will be here in a sec.’
‘TOM, OF COURSE!’
‘Jesus, calm down. Yes. We’re having dinner tomorrow. I’ll pick Grace up in the morning. Stop dancing, Helen. It’s only a date.’
She gathers Grace into a hug and I run down the front steps to catch my cab.
Kerry’s already waiting for me when I pull up outside the Filmhouse. She stoops down to peer in the window as I pay the driver, waving wildly as if she hasn’t seen me in weeks. Keeping my knees together, I gracefully exit the taxi, ensuring the fortified gusset on my body-shaper tights remains unseen.
‘I thought you’d never show up!’ she moans, hugging me hello. ‘I’ve been standing alone here for at least five minutes. Loads of people have gone in.’
‘You look amazing!’ I gush, looking her up and down. Kerry isn’t just wearing my mac, she is wearing it. It looks far better on her than it ever has on me – I know that by the end of the evening I’ll be telling her to keep it. She grins at me because she knows this too.
‘You’re wearing your red dress! I thought you’d be keeping it for your date tomorrow.’
‘I haven’t decided what I’m wearing for tomorrow. And if you give me shit about the white one again, I’m going to take back that coat.’
She smiles and zips her mouth as I pluck the printed invitations from my handbag and hand her one. ‘Right, hopefully this won’t be too painful,’ I say, looking around for familiar faces. I don’t recognize anyone. The journalists are easy to spot – most are still in their work clothes and all are carrying mobiles and leather bags. They have that look that says: ‘Please let the bar be open or this won’t end well.’ There’s a smattering of photographers and what looks like the entire cast of Hipster – the Movie. No sign of anyone from work yet, but Patrick is undoubtedly already in there, swigging Scotch and challenging the arts editor of the Evening Herald to a pissing contest.
Kerry pulls open the heavy main doors and we walk into the lobby, which looks exactly like it always did, except they’ve ripped up the old blue carpet and replaced it with marble-effect flooring, which makes my black heels clunk rather than clop. I take a press pack from one of the two women standing beside the ticket desk just as a small, smartly dressed man politely requests that we all make our way to Screen 1.
‘You’re not doing the rules tonight, are you?’ Kerry whispers.
‘Nope,’ I reply. ‘I’m here as me, not as Glasgow Girl.’
I haven’t been here since I was a teenager, and I’m feeling nostalgic as hell. The old two-screen Filmhouse closed in 1995 after the massive multiplex round the corner nicked all its business, but I used to come here often as a kid because they’d let anyone in to see anything, regardless of age. I saw my first on-screen sex as a twelve-year-old Doors fan and didn’t shut up about it for at least six weeks.
Through the glass to the left I can see they’ve built a small trendy bar area, replacing the old confectionary stand, formerly run by a sixty-nine-year-old woman called Maggie who was blind as a bat. It used to smell like popcorn, hot dogs, rank cheese and, occasionally, spilled booze from someone who’d snuck in some of their dad’s beer, but now everything smells brand new. Gone are the paintings by local artists that used to line the narrow walled corridor between screens – they’ve been replaced with oversized B-movie, world cinema and grindhouse posters, suggesting that this place is clearly for grown-ups and won’t be showing a Disney film anytime soon.
Kerry and I line up and slowly move through the hefty double doors of Screen 1, the larger of the two screens, and sit in the third row. The old grey seats I remember so fondly have been ripped out and replaced with huge comfy dark-blue velvet ones, with black cup holders and headrests. Whoever refurbished this place has done an amazing job, but I still pine for the old place.
The small but smartly dressed man introduces himself as Adrian and welcomes everyone before launching into a somewhat dull speech on why he and his business partner Dylan decided to reopen the Filmhouse. I want to shout, ‘BECAUSE OF MONEY!’ but I don’t; I just flick through the press information until it’s time for wine.
‘Dylan will be along directly,’ Adrian says, looking somewhat peeved that his partner isn’t here on time for their grand opening. ‘The information is in your packs, but also please feel free to direct any questions you have to him or me. In the meantime, if you’d like to move along to the bar, we have some refreshments waiting.’
Kerry is the first one standing and I giggle, but she’s quickly followed by everybody else. As we turn to walk along the row of seats, I spy both Gordon and Patrick near the back of the cinema, chatting. Gordon makes a ‘mine’s a pint’ gesture at me, and I nod, turning away before Patrick spots me and decides to place an order as well.
