the stalls of books which lined the embankment outside the lobby as Patrick squeezed my hand and hurried me inside the huge concrete building. All of mine were still in storage. No room for literature in the shed.
‘What are you doing Saturday night?’ I asked.
This was the best way to do it, ask him outright at the beginning of the night rather than spending the entire evening worrying about his response when you had no idea what he was going to say.
‘Not sure, why?’ Patrick replied, showing an usher our tickets and grunting quietly when she told us the cinema was still being cleaned and we would have to wait in the lobby for a couple of minutes.
‘At least we weren’t late,’ I remarked, trying to sound as frustrated as he looked. ‘Anyway, about Saturday night.’
‘Do you want to do something?’ He gave me a smile that made me ache. I hoped The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant wasn’t a long movie. ‘There’s an exhibition of collages on at the ICA from this young American woman who was just sent down for murdering her best friend and I’ve been dying to see it. Apparently she used the same knife to kill her friend that she used make the collages. It’s very intense. Let’s do that then make dinner at my place. I’ll show you how to make real pad Thai.’
‘While that sounds fascinating,’ I started, holding his hand tightly to stop myself from gipping, ‘it’s Sumi’s birthday and I’m organizing her party. Will you come?’
He stared over my head, mouth open, response not fully developed.
‘Patrick?’
‘Eesh!’
He let go of my hand and clapped another man on the back in an official buddy hug.
‘Here for Fassbinder?’ the man asked, giving me a polite smile.
‘We are, we are,’ Patrick confirmed.
His friend’s eyes skittered back and forth between the two of us.
‘I’m Ros,’ I said, sticking out my hand towards him.
‘Ishai,’ he replied as he gave it a good shake. ‘Big Fassy fan?’
‘Huge,’ I confirmed. ‘The hugest.’
He and Patrick both laughed and I smiled. It felt like passing a test.
‘Right, well, I’ve got to get some supplies before they let us in. Can’t make it through a Fassbinder marathon without snacks to offset the emotional trauma,’ Ishai said. My heart sank: so this wasn’t going to be a spiritual companion piece to Jurassic Park. ‘Monica’s running late but she’ll be here in a minute. We should all get a drink after.’
‘We should, definitely,’ Patrick agreed, raising his hand to wave him off. ‘Good to see you, mate.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ I called, wondering if we should also be stocking up on reinforcements. If I was going to be bored and/or offended, I should at least get a bag of Maltesers for my troubles. I glanced up at Patrick. ‘Do you want to meet them for a drink after?’
‘God, no,’ Patrick scoffed as the usher opened up the door to our screen. He rested his hands on my shoulders, walking behind me, leaving me Malteser-less. ‘Ishai’s fine but Monica I can’t deal with. She works in publishing which means she knows everything. She’s always trying to give me advice and it’s incredibly patronizing.’
‘Maybe she’s trying to be helpful?’ I suggested.
‘She’s edits children’s books,’ he replied. ‘She doesn’t understand literary travel memoirs in the slightest.’
It did, in fairness, seem as though Patrick’s chosen genre was somewhat niche.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness of the small screening room, following Patrick up to the second-from-back row, making our way to the two centre seats.
‘How is the book going?’ I asked as we sidled past the two men already situated on the end of the row. When someone approaches your row, you stand up, I fumed silently, you don’t shuffle your legs to one side and force me to slide my arse over your knees. Down with the patriarchy.
‘Ugh,’ he rolled his eyes and gagged. ‘Slowly. I really shouldn’t be out of the house. I should be chained to my computer until the end of time.’
‘Right, sounds tough,’ I agreed, wondering if he fancied being chained to me instead. ‘I got a date to record my first podcast with Snazzlechuff today. We’re recording it live at this thing called WESC in a couple of weeks.’
He took his seat and grinned as the screen glowed white in front of us. ‘I only understood about a third of those words and I’m a writer. You’ll have to explain it all to me on Saturday.’