THE RAIN MISSED MY FACE AND FELL STRAIGHT TO MY SHOES I’m looking for change in my pocket, flicking through the coins all two and one pence pieces. I’m trying to make up at least two pounds with all the spare coins because Faris said he can’t let me into the theatre any more for free. Otherwise his boss is going to get suspicious and Faris would maybe lose his job so I have to give him some change. I turn over everything I have, which is only eighty-seven pence anyway. He starts counting the coins and I can see it isn’t going to be enough. People are behind me in the queue getting impatient. Faris looks behind him in the booth, then to me, “It’s not even a pound, Samir.” I have to lean down to speak quietly through the gap in the glass, “I know. I don’t have enough. It’s ok for now, isn’t it?” “Just go inside, there are other people waiting. I don’t have time to argue now.” Faris is scowling, trying not to look me in the eyes. But there’s a familiarity we have that means he understands me by now, he knows that I always do this. Faris piles the coins next to the ticket machine and yells for the next person in line. I used to feel guilty when I tried to get into Faris’ theatre for free, but not any more since I started letting him on to the tube for nothing. Not even one or two pounds. I walk with my ticket into the foyer and look for someone else I recognised. I know it’ll either be Youssef or Hamza. Youssef is Egyptian so he gets along well with me. Hamza is I think from Somalia- we don’t have much in common; not much. He can’t speak English very well or Arabic so we can only have very simple conversations about his family. I can tell that Hamza doesn’t like me coming in to the cinema, and he’s worried about his job as well, but he doesn’t know that everyone lets their friends in for free- even the boss and the English people working here. That’s why I prefer it when Youssef is at the gate because he knows that there’s nothing to worry about. This time it’s Youssef and he smiles and puts out his arms for a hug when he sees me. His hairy arms tickle my neck when he leans in to hug me. He has a thin beard that pricks my face. The other customers in the queue turn to look at us, two men hugging, but Youssef doesn’t care. He’s a very private man, but somehow he never seems afraid if people notice him. He’s never afraid to let people stare at him and wonder who he is. I’m the opposite: I always get anxious when people look at me; I try to make out their reactions to everything I do. I worry they’re looking for something that isn’t really in me, but if they look hard enough, they might see it anyway. I’m smiling when Youssef hugs me because I haven’t seen him in more than two weeks. I’m usually at the cinema every day, sometimes a few times a day. “Samir! You son of a bitch!” “Don’t swear so loud, people will hear you.” Youssef is hugging me with one hand and tearing tickets with the other. People have to step around us to get through the gate. “Where were you, I haven’t seen you in weeks. Hamza says you haven’t been, either.” “No, I was visiting my mum, she was sick in hospital. I had to go stay with her in hospital.” “Your mum was sick? I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” he takes back his arm from around me and steps to the side to tear someone else’s ticket. I can see everyone else is getting impatient because he’s ignoring them and not telling anyone their theatre number. Some people are trying to listen to our conversation. Youssef smiles to his customers as he’s talking to me: “I hope she’s ok now, huh?” “No, she died.” Some more people get their tickets torn and walk past us through the gates. We both stand beside each other for a few moments in silence. Customers pass by. Youssef doesn’t look at me but puts one hand on my shoulder and is trying to say something sensible while he’s tearing the tickets. I finally have to move out of the way to let the other customers through, and his hand falls from my shoulder. I give him a few seconds to think of something to say, but I don’t want to make him uncomfortable, with the customers all standing around us, I don’t want to embarrass him. “I’ll see you after the film, Youssef…” “No, I’ll see you in there,” he says to me “ I’m coming in now.” Youssef looks over his shoulder to the far end of the foyer. The toilet door swings open, and I see Hamza clumsily pushing his way out carrying a mop in one hand and bucket in the other. Youssef tries to wave him over, but Hamza doesn’t see him. He’s just finished the day’s third cleaning, mopping up all the shit and piss and disgusting things people leave behind in cheap toilets when they don’t care about them. I used to do that job as well, anyone who works in the cinema has to do all the jobs- except Hamza who doesn’t have to sell or tear tickets because of his English. When he sees Youssef waiving, he carefully puts the mop and bucket into the service closet and walks over. His dark black skin shines blue under the halogen lights of the foyer, thin arms pressed tightly to his sides and hands forced into his pockets. Youssef asks Hamza to tear the tickets in his place, and Hamza says “ok” because Youssef has a personality that makes people want to do what he says. He doesn’t push, but he always manages to convince you that his ideas are clever or sensible. While I was working there, he always got me to count the money at the end of the night, which was the worst job and no one wanted to do it because it was so boring and you were always the last to leave. He also managed to convince me, every Friday night, to take a few pounds from the till and go drinking with him. I never wanted to steal and I didn’t drink before I worked there but Youssef made me want to do all of that. He takes my arm and walks me through the swinging doors and into one of the theatres, looking for spaces at the back right, under the balcony. That’s where you always find the people who got in for free or people who just snuck in or people who paid for one ticket in the morning and stayed in the cinema all day moving from film to film, sometimes sleeping behind the seats if no one saw them. Youssef and I take the empty seats behind two boys I recognise, two boys that I always see here. They sit next to each other and pass a mobile phone between them, sometimes both talking on it, sometimes just writing messages. Next to us, there’s one Arab or Iranian man who is a bit older than me and has a beard and looks like a religious man, but I always see him drinking cans of beer in his seat. He’s sitting next to the air conditioner vent. I see one black guy who once brought a prostitute in, or maybe not a prostitute but a girl who didn’t mind doing things in a cinema and that’s what they did. I also see a fat white man who usually sits a few rows ahead and at the end of the film always asks Youssef and I and anyone else I’m with, “What did you boys think of that?” Especially when it’s a film about war, “What did you boys think of that?” with his arms waiving and the loose skin billowing. There are some other people around but I don’t recognise them. Everyone else, the real customers, are sitting further up so they can see the screen. Back here no one cares if we talk because they’re not here to see the film anyway, so Youssef and I talk and he asks me what happened to my mother and I tell him. I tell him that she was in Cairo when she got sick and they wanted her to go to hospital there, but no one could pay for it. So they thought she could get treated in London for free, but of course they had to pay for the plane ticket and still no one had the money. My family tried to put everything they had together but it still wasn’t enough, and at the same time my cousin was having a baby so they needed that money. That’s when I stole the whole day’s till from the cinema, and with that I bought the plane ticket. The next day I lost my job. All this Youssef knew. But since my mum made it to London, that was 17 days ago, I hadn’t seen him or been to the cinema at all. I was staying with my mum in hospital. At midnight I would go to work in the underground stations until 8am, then I could go back to the hospital.Return to writing & journalism
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