Here's a story for you:
A year or so after we moved to Norfolk, my friend Rosi came to visit from Germany. I met Rosi when we were both travelling in Europe, and since she'd grown up in Munich, I knew she'd pretty much seen history over and over. I wanted to find something new and different to share with her.
Around that time I saw a feature on television about a man in town who wanted to preserve the old cinematic ways that he'd made a tiny little cinema in his garage. I tried to locate him, but there were no listings anywhere. Finally I asked at the tourist information office. The man was very friendly, very kind, but he kept hesitating. He said that he was friends with the man who ran the cinema, and that he'd have a word with him.
I understood. I'd made a mistake. This was a private thing, a hobby, not a place for public screenings. I tried to bail out. I said I'd leave it. I wanted to walk away. But the man was so insistently helpful, we soon found ourselves with a booking. I accepted graciously, nervously.
The night came. Rosi and Ray and I walked across town, went through the gates, and were met by the man from the tourist office. He welcomed us into the little garage. Michael - that was the cinema guy's name - had preserved as may pieces of the town's original Regal Cinema as he could: there was a ticket booth from the Regal, we sat in seats from the Regal, in front of a section of the curtain from the Regal, wating for the camera from the Regal to start up. Half a dozen of Michael's getting-on-for-old friends had come along, and they sat in the rows around us, and made conversation. They treated Rosi like a celebrity, because she'd come all the way from Germany (one time zone away), telling her that Michael had researched and found trailers and adverts from Germany, from around the time the Regal was in its prime. When the lights finally went down and the films started, Rosi was laughing to herself - I reckon they were pretty un-p.c. by now.
And then the lights went up, and Michael came in, and all his friends appauded. Because Michael's disabled, and yet he'd balanced the original Regal tray on the two sticks he was walking on for balance, and came out dressed in the Regal hat and waistcoat, so he could serve us ice creams. Just like they used to do.
I was so embarassed. But it got worse.
Because after, Michael's friends had told us, they all 'have to' go into the house and sit with Mother. Mother was truly old, and also disabled, yet we found she'd spent the whole time we were watching whatever black-and-white movie, making little sandwiches, vol-au-vents, crudites, pastries... All served on doilies in a room so intensely decorated with trinkets and ornaments that there wasn't anywhere to set down our china cups of tea. It was funny watching Michael's friends with her; they were awkward still at their age the same as my friends used to act when trying to be polite with my parents.
Eventually we'd been polite long enough, and Rosi had talked enough about life in Germany, and whether she'd ever been to England before, that we were able to make our goodbyes and go. I sent a thank you card, and made a donation to the preservation of the Regal, but I still can't walk by that garage now, all these years later, without feeling a slight flush of embarassment.
I told my friend Julie about this as we walked that way once. She spent the next several months we walked together in town asking about every disabled person we saw, 'Is that him?'
I have seen him now in town, on his mobility scooter. I don't know if he remembers us. But I'm beginning to wonder if I should remember it as us giving him an opportunity to share his love, and live it out a little. Maybe it's time to stop being embarassed now.
