Until Barberio's cancer.

After loitering in the cramped foyer of the Movie Palace for twenty minutes or so, the young girl in the cerise and lemon print dress began to look distinctly agitated. It was almost three in the morning, and the late-night movies were well over.

Eight months had passed since Barberio had died in the back of the cinema, eight slow months in which business had been at best patchy. Still, the late-night double bill on Fridays and Saturdays always packed in the punters. Tonight it had been two Eastwood movies: spaghetti westerns. The girl in the cerise dress didn't look like much of a western fan to Birdy; it wasn't really a women's genre. Maybe she'd come for Eastwood rather than the violence, though Birdy had never seen the attraction of that eternally squinting face.

'Can I help you?' Birdy asked.

The girl looked nervously at Birdy.

'I'm waiting for my boyfriend,' she said. 'Dean.'

'Have you lost him?'

'He went to the rest-room at the end of the movie and he hasn't come out yet.'

'Was he feeling ... er ... ill?'

'Oh no,' said the girl quickly, protecting her date from this slight on his sobriety.

I’ll get someone to go and look for him,' said Birdy. It was late, she was tired, and the speed was wearing off. The idea of spending any more time than she strictly needed to in this fleapit was not particularly appealing. She wanted home; bed and sleep. Just sleep. At thirty-four, she'd decided she'd grown out of sex. Bed was for sleep, especially for fat girls.

She pushed the swing door, and poked her head into the cinema. A ripe smell of cigarettes, popcorn and people enveloped her; it was a few degrees hotter in here than in the foyer.

'Ricky?'

Ricky was locking up the back exit, at the far end of the cinema.

'That smell's completely gone,' he called to her.