Viva Brighton Issue #69 November 2018

COLUMN
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John Helmer
Tubs
Illustration by Chris Riddell
“Oh no.”
In the foyer of the Duke of York’s cinema,
pensioners queue to take advantage of their
midweek free coffee offer. It’s our wedding
anniversary, and Kate and I have decided to
celebrate with a good lunch followed by an
afternoon at the pictures; skipping pudding in
favour of the excellent ice cream they serve. But
now this grizzled horde of antediluvian cineastes
is clogging up the refreshments area. And the film
is about to start.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get the ice cream and see you in
there,” I volunteer selflessly.
Kate smiles and disappears through the door into
the already darkened auditorium.
Having purchased our tubs of dairy deliciousness,
I belatedly realise that I don’t know whether
Kate is upstairs or down. I plump for the balcony,
figuring that if she’s not there, I will have a good
vantage point from which to spot her down below.
Luckily there is almost nobody in the balcony
(perhaps the pensioners don’t like the stairs), so
I get a good front row seat. I place the two ice
cream tubs on the balcony rail in front of me and
start scanning heads.
The smell that rises in the popcorn-scented dark
triggers early memories of when my mother
would send my little brother and I with a few
coins to the local Mascot in Southend. Sitting in
the front stalls, we would eat ice cream from tubs
just like these, skimming their cardboard lids at
the rats who liked to run back and forth along the
back wall below the screen. Oh, the memories.
Before I really know what I’m doing I have taken
the lid off my tub and started eating the ice cream.
Double chocolate. Gorgeous.
Meanwhile, I am doing a very poor job of locating
my wife. Though her beauty shines out in any
crowd I always feel, from the back, her look is, to
be honest, not all that distinctive.
Distracted by the big faces on screen, another
memory comes to me – of the time when I
found myself, for a time, on the other side of the
camera. Turning up for a shoot one morning
with a whacking great cold sore, I appealed to the
makeup lady, who seemed to be able to perform
all sorts of miracles, for help.
“No problem,” she said, diving for her box of
tricks. Perhaps I expected some extra-heavy
panstick to be produced – instead of which she
surfaced with a pair of tweezers in one hand and a
bottle of surgical spirit in the other.
“This is going to hurt,” she said.
“Where have you been?” whispers Kate when I
finally slip into the seat beside her.
“Looking for you.”
“Where’s my ice cream?”
“It was melting,” I say, “so I had to eat it.”
“You ate both of them, mine and yours?”
“It seemed the only sensible course of action.”
She sighs heavily. “Happy Anniversary.”
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