Writing for Fun
November 2022
Spooky - Circle in the theatre - Malcolm Fyfe
The radio was giving off its soft insistent beep. I sat in the car listening to the police radio traffic that handles the normal everyday incidents in a busy town.
I could see the shore end of the famous pier, built to last in eighteen sixty-seven, by the Victorians, over a mile long it stretched out towards the Kent coast. Over the years it had withstood storm, vandals, fire and collision. Now a grey oily swell slopped against its rusted pilings supporting rails that were carrying a yellow and green train, looking like a caterpillar, as it inched its way down the track to the end of the pier, its tiny lights glimmering in the gloom.
A couple of minutes later a familiar figure strolled round the corner and walked his way towards the car, his full-length thick serge overcoat buttoned up with a regulation blue scarf knotted around his neck, black leather gloves pulled up into his sleeves, boots making prints on the iron hard frosty pavement .
Reaching the car, he tapped on the window, opened the passenger door, and put his head in, having first neatly tipped his helmet into his hands. My mate Neil, Police constable 752 of the Essex Constabulary, all six foot three of him dropped with a thump into the front seat .
I reached to start the engine to get a bit of warmth in the car. As I did so, the controller checked in with me for my location for a call involving a local cinema not that far away.
Acknowledging the job, I glanced at Neil, ‘Fancy going to the cinema? the old Ritz top of pier hill.’ He grinned, ‘beats walking around in this but I’d better let m
y Sergeant know I’m mobile, got a point with him in a while and I’ll never hear the end of it if I’m not there.’ ‘Take me to it, driver but not too fast, got to finish this,’ taking a last drag of his cigarette whilst hastily brushing the ash from his trousers, at the same time passing a message to the duty Sergeant.
I logged him in as being with me in the area car and pulled away up pier hill, the cinema was near an early eighteenth-century flint-walled church. No doubt the last resting place for a few old town worthies judging by the odd massive head stones, some having fallen in uncared for disarray.
The road had very few houses along its length but, unusually, had a row of rather rusty wrought iron benches, probably set there for parishioners who had puffed up the hill for Sunday service, or just to while away an hour in the sunshine reflecting on the vicar’s wise words, or maybe not!
As we pulled up, the tyres crunching the hard frost, a smartly dressed figure emerged from the foyer. ‘Thanks for coming lads, got an odd situation, names Taylor, I’m the manager and I’d like your opinion on something.’
I liked that, the last time someone asked my opinion was when at a court hearing a sharp young barrister suggested I didn’t know one side of the road from another and proceeded to confuse me completely which showed that apparently, I didn’t.
The manager led us into the rather gaudy foyer, all red and gold with posters of coming attractions and locked the doors behind us, motioning to a uniformed doorman sporting a straggly moustache crooked teeth and shiny patent shoes standing near the door. ‘Bit of extra help if we need it.’
I noticed Neil stroke his chin thoughtfully at that as he pulled his leather gloves a little tighter.
‘Through here please.’ We walked into the waiting area, the sweet smell of popcorn peppering my nose. Two obviously agitated usherettes were standing by the wooden lectern normally used by them to check tickets.
The manager called out, ‘Mary, Karen’ the police are here to help, can you explain what happened?’
The younger of the two, a smallish woman of about fifty years of age – not married, if the lack of a wedding ring is any sort of guide – spoke up, ‘I’m Mary’, speaking softly with a touch of an Irish lilt.
‘I feel so stupid, and I don’t want to make a fuss, but I was so scared.’
‘Karen and I were checking for things people leave behind, bags and things under seats, we usually do it between showings .We were going to run a late night extra tonight. It’s a popular film. She paused, and I was struck by the intensity of her eyes, very round and deeply dark.
Karen chipped in, ‘We’d finished the circle; I was doing the last row and Mary had gone downstairs to check the freezer for deliveries of ice cream.’
‘I’d hung my jacket over the brass rail, I was in a rush just grabbed it and it nearly slid down into the stalls. I looked down and saw something odd, it was a dark shape about halfway along the front, in the aisle, I couldn’t make it out. It was like looking at somebody through a glass door, all fuzzy.’
‘Just then Mary came through the exit door by the screen. I called down to her, ‘what’s that Mary, I can’t make it out?’
Mary spoke up, ‘Well, as Karen said, I came through the door and heard her call down something, so I looked about and saw the figure of a man standing in front of the screen curtain. I couldn’t work out what he was doing, I moved a bit nearer, told him to go, ‘You shouldn’t be in here”. He just stood there, ignoring me, not a word. God it was creepy.’
‘Could you see him any clearer?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘he had a blue boiler suit on, you know the sort plumbers and workmen wear. It had a sort of bib thing with straps with square shaped buckles. His face was round with fair hair that waved around his forehead. Another thing, on his left hand he had a small pinkie ring, it caught the light and that’s why I noticed it. Karen was still upstairs by the rail of the circle, I saw him turn and look at me for a few moments, next thing he’d gone, vanished, the aisle was just empty.’
‘Karen ran down and joined me and we called Mr Taylor.’
‘Any other feature you can remember?’
‘Yes,’ she said slowly and thoughtfully, ‘definitely his eyes, so dark.’ Neil had come a little closer, as though in support and caught Mary’s arm as she started to sway her knees twisting. We helped her to a nearby seat and Mary at down holding the arms of the chair.
After a minute or two she started to recover. ‘I’m ok now, I want to go home.’
‘I’ll order a taxi to get you home,’ said her now anxious manager.
After they left, Neil and I searched the place from projection room to the basement but there was nothing although I did notice, Neill insisted, all six foot three of him, that we look around together carrying his hefty torch at the ready.
Plastic security staps sealed the emergency exits and they were intact, nobody could have got out of the building the front door having been locked since an earlier performance.
I walked down the aisle and looked around the empty seats and started to walk along the front row suddenly I felt a real chill in the air, I stopped for a minute or two sensing an atmosphere I really didn’t like.
Re-joining Neil at the front door, we said goodnight to the manager and the doorman as they turned out the lights and locked up.
Sometime later, I was doing a spell as the coroners’ officer, essentially dealing with court enquiries into sudden deaths, although who put me up for that job I do not know.
I was looking at some files and the case I was interested in was regarding a Miss M. Phillips whose occupation was listed as cinema usherette.
When I picked up the file, the name Mary Phillips didn’t mean much to me, but the attached Photograph did, those eyes with a direct look and pool deep, just as I remembered her at the cinema.
A Miss Phillips had been found dead at her flat apparently from natural causes, her few possessions including her handbag placed around her armchair.
A few weeks later I went round to the flat and knocked on the door to return a small purse found in her dressing gown pocket. The door was opened by Miss Phillips’s brother, he had flown over from Australia to attend his sister’s funeral and deal wither affairs. As we talked, I noticed a silver picture frame placed on an old gate leg table. The picture was that a smiling man waving at the camera with two small children in the background.
‘Do you know him?’
‘Yes, it’s my dad and of course, Mary and me.’
I picked up the frame, looked carefully at the photograph, the man was very noticeable for his workman’s clothes, curling fair hair and very direct dark eyes.
‘He was killed in the war around nineteen forty, he was a caretaker or handyman at a local theatre, but I don’t know which one. As he spoke, I thought to myself, I bet I do.
‘We think he was trying to get some kids out after an incendiary bomb set fire to the roof. It caved in and he was killed but he got the youngsters out, we were very proud of him although we were very small at the time,’
He looked at the picture. ‘Mum used to give him a right old time, she could never ger him out of that boiler suit. I think he liked the square buckles.’
‘Look, you can see a silvery ring on his left little finger, I can’t remember when, but he made four of them, his own, one for mum and one each for Mary and me,’ lifting up his left hand to show me a small, twisted silver ring, ‘I’ve had this all my life.’
As I left, I placed the little purse that had belonged to Mary and its precious item on the table next to the picture frame. What was in that small purse?
I’ll l leave that to your imagination but I’m sure Mary is safe in the arms of her dad.