Give me some credit for trying… I was eighteen, and back in my home town, and bored. I’d moved to London as soon as I was legally able, and going home to visit my parents was an unpleasant reminder of why I’d left. Not my parents, but the joyless miseries of a small town an hour’s bus ride from Cardiff.
By the Sunday night of that bank holiday weekend I was bored to tears. And faced with Songs of Praise followed by All Creatures Great And Small I was willing to consider even the damp and mouldy surroundings of the local flea pit. And what was the Sunday night double bill? Emannuelle and Emannuelle II. Now I’m not giving much away about my age if I say that at the time all the porn shops in Soho had 50p coin in the slot video booths that offered films a little more spicy than soft focus Sylvia Kristel.
Beggars can’t be choosers though, and off I went, forsaking the pleasures of James Heriott with his hand up a cow’s arse. The fleapit was how I remembered it, right down to the damp and the feeling that the seats had not only seen better days but absorbed some of the consequences too. It was a typical valleys cinema, built on the side of a hill so the seats had a natural rake, the walls brick and the roof corrugated iron (quiet films and heavy rain usually meant asking for your money back because you couldn’t hear…) Even as a teenager I knew enough not to sit in the back row when there were porno movies on; it looked like the Abercwmbyhere branch of Macs R Us.
So I sat about six rows forward; there was no central aisle just long rows of seats about twenty seats wide. Once my senses had adjusted to the environment I could take a good look around. There were a few younger couples down the front, self consciously clustering together to prove they were there to see the films for their artistic merits and a smattering of single men who looked like they didn’t get out enough. (Yes, I got the irony of my thinking that but hey, I was exempt – I lived in London…)
To be honest I thought I’d chosen the coolest place in the cinema. If Sylvia’s charms did the trick I was far enough back to go for a five knuckle shuffle in privacy, but I was also well placed to watch the groups at front and back if the film got boring.
So when someone came into my row I was a little grumpy. They were a staid looking couple; her faux PVC mini coat dated back to 1967 at least, and he looked like a wannnabe car salesman in a sheepskin coat that looked as if the sheep in question had had a hard life. Sat three or four seats away, with the woman nearest me and I downgraded my options for the night to people watching. Ah well….
How wrong was I? Within five minutes of the first film starting it was obvious that they were both having a fumble in the play area. I was trying to watch them from one side while my mind worked overtime and my neck muscles protested at the pretence of sitting as if I was staring straight ahead while straining my eyes over my left shoulder to see what was going on. It took a little while, but when she slumped down in her seat and her skirt slid above her stocking tops I had to revise my opinion. This was the 1970s, when stocking tops were much more of an indicator than they are now that they’re a fashion item. I still couldn’t decide whether they were an adulterous couple with nowhere better to go or just, shock horror, the kind of adventurous couple I’d read about in Fiesta and Penthouse, but the view was absorbing all my attention.
