Love Is Usually Where You Left It

by Gary Locke

  Clive and Gayle looked at each other a little puzzled before slowly getting up, walking around the corner and peeking out from their special place. Gayle was fairly thankful that her thoughts of sex had not resulted in the removal of any clothes just yet. As soon as they both looked across the field they could make out the sight of Jeremy moving quickly towards them, a torch in one hand flashing a light vigorously around as he moved in an almost comedic running style that John Cleese would have been proud of. He was still shouting something, but they still couldn’t make out what it was.

  “I also told him about the caretaker nearly catching us that night!” said Gayle, realising what was going on.

  Clive laughed.

  “He could have given us a few more minutes, don’t you think?”

  Gayle laughed as well.

  It felt like typical Jeremy. He had set something rather special up but had then spoiled it by doing something silly.

  As he got closer, they could finally make out what he was shouting.

  “QUICK! GET OUT OF HERE!”

  Clive and Gayle looked at each other, still laughing.

  “ARE YOU THE CARETAKER?” Clive shouted back as he got closer. “CAN YOU COME BACK IN A FEW MINUTES?”

  Gayle laughed as Jeremy finally got to where they were standing, slapstick run over and breathing heavily.

  “What?” he asked, in between taking in huge gulps of air.

  “Are you the caretaker?” Clive asked again.

  Jeremy looked confused.

  Gayle chipped in.

  “I told you that the caretaker had chased us away from here once..... you’re being the caretaker, right?”

  “No!” said Jeremy, at last understanding what they were saying. “Quick, get out of here, the police are coming!”

  Clive and Gayle looked back out over the field again and saw that there were some bright blue lights now flashing at the edge of the car park.

  “Someone called them” Jeremy said still panting heavily “reported three weirdo’s sneaking around the youth club….. quick, let’s get out of here!”

  Jeremy started running again; full Cleese mode reactivated, and headed off towards the fence by the main road.

  Clive looked at Gayle.

  “One weirdo and two gullible idiots!” said Gayle, preparing to run.

  If nothing more, this day had been good training in case she ever lost her marbles and decided she wanted to run a marathon.

  Chapter Thirty Eight: Saturday Night Sunday Morning at the Movies.

  Clive had just walked through the same stiff door (which required the same aggressive push to open), down the same side alley off the main precinct, that he had just two days earlier, and yet he had stepped into a room that looked completely different. Although the Love Is... “office” that he had encountered on Friday was somewhat sparse; there wasn’t a single trace of it to be seen. The “inspirational” posters had all been removed from the walls (including the “love is like an old boiler” poster and the old “3 pasties for £1” One Quid Bakery advert) and been replaced by black and white photos of movie icons. Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Julie Andrews, Tom Cruise, Miley Cirus, Harrison Ford….

  Wait a minute, Miley Cirus? On the same wall as these other, genuine acting “legends”? I think Jeremy would have been better leaving the “love is like an old boiler” poster up. Maybe even the “3 pasties for £1” poster?

  Also the front windows had been covered in black sheets and even the small sky light had been covered, meaning the only light in the room was coming from the overhead lighting. The office desk had been removed, replaced by two, comfortable looking, leather armchairs that were facing the side wall, where a large screen had been erected.

  The only other things in the, otherwise empty, room were what looked like an ice cream counter and a keyboard and stool over to the right hand corner. Gayle smiled as she looked around, realising that Jeremy had tried to set things up to resemble the old picture house on corporation street where she and Clive had shared their first real date; a visit to the cinema to see Jim Carrey in The Mask. And it wasn’t a bad effort really for someone who had never been there.

  As they both stood there taking in their new surroundings Jeremy, who had obviously heard the latest struggle and physical battle Clive had just had with the front door, emerged from the back / office / kitchen area of the shop, wearing a dark suit and what looked like an old fashioned bus inspectors hat.

  “Good, good” he said, checking his watch “Right on time, excellent. Are we both well this morning?”

  They both looked around to face Jeremy.

  “Yes thanks” they said in unison.

  “Nothing like a bit of burnt bacon to get you going on a Sunday morning.” Added Clive, smiling at Gayle as he said it.

  She aimed a playful punch on his arm.

  “Make it yourself next time.”

  Jeremy smiled. This good humoured interaction between them was something he hadn’t seen before and he took it as a good sign that he was making some progress.

  “Now then” Jeremy said. “If you have your tickets please, I will show you to your seats.”

  Clive and Gayle looked at each other.

  “Do you have the tickets?” asked Clive.

  “No I thought you had them.” replied Gayle.

  “Every time! You always…” Clive stopped mid-sentence and realised that the argument that they usually have about which one of them should be to blame for forgetting tickets to events was actually not relevant in this situation. They didn’t have any tickets.

  Clive looked around at Jeremy who pre-emptied anything that he was going to say by staring, wide-eyed, at the envelope that Clive was holding.

  “Ahh,” said Clive, opening the envelope.

  He pulled two tickets out and quickly read the printed, black writing on them that said: SEAT 14F and SEAT 14G.

  He showed them to Gayle who smiled and looked at Jeremy with approval: he had remembered what she had said to him about the seat numbers they’d had for that cinema visit all those years ago.

  “Sir?” said Jeremy, prompting Clive to show him the tickets.

  “Yes, this way please.” He said leading them over to the two chairs in the middle of the room that, also displayed the numbers 14F and 14G. What were the chances!

  “Here we go” said Jeremy gesturing that they should sit on these two (only) seats.

  Clive began to sit on the right of the two seats until Gayle loudly cleared her throat to catch his attention. That was 14G, did Clive not remember? She sat in 14G all those years ago because “G” obviously stands for Gayle. How stupid is he still?

  “Your refreshments sir and madam.” Jeremy added, passing them both a red and white stripy paper bag.

  They both immediately realised that, as they were at the “cinema”, they must be getting some pic’n’mix sweets.

  Gayle waited for a few seconds before being unable to resist opening her bag - with the zest of excitement that wasn’t appropriate for someone of her age. Clive was a bit cooler; taking even longer to see what was inside. Although he enjoyed these types of sweets, his excitement for them had waned in recent years thanks to two reasons. One, he found that too many sugary sweets tended to give him a headache and, two, he had read an article about how gelatine was actually made. The fact that most of these (admittedly delicious) jelly sweets are made using the unused parts of animal carcasses, namely bones, horns, skin, cartilage and, most alarmingly, testicles, had, shall we say, concerned him a little. There’s nothing that puts you off eating gummy bears like the thought that you will probably get a severe headache coupled with the fact that, at least some part of those bears, were once probably horse bollocks.

  Gayle squealed a little with joy as she removed a little red sachet of fizz wiz and a silver can of cream soda from her bag and showed it to Clive. He smiled at her as he now began to remember back to what snacks they�
�d eaten at the Apollo picture house during their first “official” date. He opened his own bag and saw that, he too, had some fizz wiz and cream soda. Further down the bag there were also some white mice, pink shrimps, cola cubes and a couple of those large red and green happy cherries that did, worryingly, already look like red and green battered and swollen horse testicles. He shuddered slightly before ignoring the pic’n’mix element of his bag and removing, just like Gayle, the fizz wiz and cream soda. They giggled at each other as they realised they would both soon be setting off explosion parties of sugar and e numbers in their mouths.

  All of a sudden the lights began to dim slightly and, from out of the back room, Jeremy appeared wearing a sparkling golden jacket. He walked over to the corner of the room and sat on the stool at the keyboard. Without any hesitation he began playing and filled the room with the nostalgic sounds of the cinema from a by-gone age. His keyboard was obviously set to organ mode and he, very impressively, began his way through a medley of tunes that you would be treated to / made to endure* (*delete as appropriate) at the cinema many, many years ago. As he played he swayed from left to right and, as he did, the sequins in his golden jacket were captured by the faded lights and danced around like tiny fireflies. As Clive smiled along to this really impressive performance from Jeremy he couldn’t help but wonder whether he had hired this jacket especially for this performance, whether he actually owned this jacket or whether he had somehow been able to borrow it from Elton John. He realised the smart money would probably have to be on him owning it – it was probably his favourite “going out” jacket.

  Gayle opened her fizz wiz and gestured to Clive to do the same. He did and, laughing, they both poured a large amount of popping candy into their mouths and together joyfully experienced those tiny detonations of delight along their tongues. To enhance things they both took sips of their cream soda making whirlpools of popping pleasure that couldn’t help but make them remember that first date oh so clearly. As Gayle took another “swig” of fizz wiz she couldn’t help but wonder where Jeremy had got it from, she certainly hadn’t seen it anywhere for ages. It did then cross her mind whether he’d maybe somehow got hold of some “old” stock and wondered whether at was actually in date, or was maybe a couple of decades or so past its “best before”.

  Instead of worrying about potential stomach upsets and / or horrendous fizzing diarrhoea, Gayle focussed on how Jeremy had taken those words she had spoken to him about her and Clive’s first date and turned it into this rather special moment. After spending most of Saturday disliking him and thinking he was a complete idiot, she was now beginning to think he was really rather clever. As she was thinking this, his organ playing began to fade in volume and, as he continued to play one last, decreasing melody with his right hand, he turned to wave with his left hand, just as that man from the Apollo had done during their first date. When his music had completely faded to silence he stood from his keyboard and quietly walked behind Gayle and Clive to where his projector was set up. They smiled at each other again, both a little numb-jawed and secretly relieved that they had finished the popping candy, as the faded lights faded even further into total darkness.

  Jeremy started his projector and the screen instantly turned blue and displayed the words: Pearl and Dean presents. Then the room was filled with sound, playing a jingle that neither Clive nor Gayle had heard for many, many years and yet was instantly familiar and pleasing.

  “Pa-Paa, Pa-Paa, Pa-Paa, Pa-Paa, Pa-Pa-Pa, Pa-Paa, Pa-Paa, Pa-Paa, Pa-Paaaaa-Pa”.

  What followed was at least ten minutes of “retro” adverts in “classic” low picture and sound quality. (From adverts back before anyone had invented cameras that could capture audio and visuals in anything like real life, and so they had that “fuzzy” quality to them.) And yet those words: “retro” and “classic” manage to make everything ok. Yep, it’s accepted that they were a bit shit but they offer that nostalgic feel about the way things were; and that’s the thing about nostalgia, it usually brings back any pleasant memories and feelings that you had from those days, as you are being nostalgiasised. (I know that’s not a real word, but I like how it sounds.)

  Those ten minutes didn’t offer exactly the adverts that would have probably been playing back when Gayle and Clive were in that cinema on their first date, but they still had the desired effect of feeling like they could very well have been.

  The two of them watched on in delight as a fat, semi-naked, orange man ran around slapping a man, two-handed, across the face as he took a swig from a can of orange pop, before the delightful catchphrase “you know when you’ve been “tango’d” was displayed. Of course the authorities banned that advert though, as children in playgrounds across the country were hospitalised after being slapped / tango’d. A few perforated ear drum injuries and those in charge go a bit overboard!

  Clive and Gayle also watched a group of well dressed cartoon crows singing “I’ll be your dog” as they followed a young man drinking Kia-Ora and then three frogs, with different croaks, eventually combining to promote “Bud-Weis-Err” (Did anyone ever check the mental state of, or do drug-testing on, the advertising “hot shots” back in those days?) They also sang along to that ludicrously catchy Potato Waffles song, as they were reminded that they were “waffly versatile”, before watching Gold Blend and Renault Clio (Nicole! Papa!) adverts that presented themselves back then as ongoing stories, which were like gripping TV series, that you couldn’t wait to see the next instalment. You don’t get that from adverts anymore do you?

  By the time they had Pa-Paa-ed along to that Pearl and Dean theme again, Clive and Gayle felt exactly like they did as teenagers in the Apollo picture house, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Jim Carrey and his mischievous mask of Loki.

  They heard Jeremy switching discs behind them and Clive reached across and held onto Gayle’s left hand. She reached over and cupped their two hands with her right hand and leaned over to him, gently placing her head on his shoulder. Behind them Jeremy smiled as Clive contently tilted his head against his wife’s whilst thinking to himself that, despite coming across as a complete buffoon (perhaps an Oscar worthy act?), it actually appeared like Jeremy knew what he was doing. He hadn’t felt this comfortable with Gayle for a long, long time.

  Chapter Thirty Nine: Belong Together.

  Clive sat there quietly and contently as his mind was pulled out of the Love Is “cinema room”. It wasn’t taken to one specific time or place though but rather took a little tour through his and Gayle’s history. This feeling of being comfortable and at ease with his wife, though sadly unfamiliar in recent times, was also something that was, in the past, completely natural.

  They used to sit, or lie, intertwined with each other for hours at a time. His memory reminded him of times on the beach, lying with each other on a small towel, or just in each other’s arms, gazing into each other’s eyes, on the blanket in “their place” on the school field. At a party, or event, where Gayle would happily sit on Clive because they had to share a chair; or at home sitting together downstairs on the sofa or upstairs lying, as one, in bed.

  They may have been dressed up in fancy party clothes, in comfortable, casual don’t-need-to-make-an-effort lounge wear or totally naked. In didn’t matter because they were totally happy and relaxed with each other. And the main reason for this was because they just fitted together. They both used to joke that it was as if they had been made for each other. Gayle just fitted perfectly into Clive’s arms. Her body shape fit naturally into his as if they were two adjacent jigsaw pieces; perfectly cut so they would snugly fit together.

  As he thought about it further, Clive remembered another one of the poems / songs that he and Gayle had written that was all about them belonging together, even if there were things about them that were different.

  It was incredible that, after all this time of not feeling that way, all it took was actually being close together again to completely feel the same way. Like those two jigsaw pieces, perha
ps lost under the sofa for years, when you try to put them back together again; they still fit.

  And the reason for that?

  Because they belong together.

  Belong Together.

  Your toothbrush is pink,

  My toothbrush is blue,

  But they belong together,

  Next to the toothpaste tube.

  You listen to pop music,

  I love the sound of guitar,

  But our CD’s sit side by side,

  In the glove box of the car.

  You are Five Foot five,

  I am Six Foot One,

  But you fit snugly in my arms,

  Because together we belong.

  You like a trendy cocktail,

  I’ll choose an ice cold beer,

  But we always drink together,

  Right until we can’t see clear.

  It’s like we’re always holding hands,

  Hearts side by side forever,

  We will never be apart,

  Because we belong together.

  Chapter Forty: The Mask.

  They sat there for a few more seconds, completely happy cuddled together, before Jeremy had prepared the film and it began to play on the big screen in front of them. It was Clive who noticed first; he had seen The Mask more times than it should be admitted and straight away knew there had been a mistake. For, as the movie-preceding film studio logo appeared on the screen in front of him, Clive knew that The Mask had been made / distributed by New Line Cinema and yet the logo appearing in front of him was that of Universal.