The Last Show at the Harbour Cinema – Part 2: The Final Reel

On Saturday night, the Harbour Cinema was full for the first time in a decade. Pensioners in their best coats, students with cheap wine in plastic cups, children who had been brought to see a film about a dragon, and a row of men from the shipyard who had come to see the old newsreel of the launch they'd helped build.

Kirsty stood in the booth and watched them come in through the little window. Her hands were steady on the reels. Her heart was not.

"They're all here," said Callum, from the stool at the back. He had a notebook on his knee and no intention of writing anything in it.

"They came for the last film," said Kirsty.

"They came for you," said Callum. "You were the one who kept the lights on for nine years."

She didn't answer. She threaded the last reel, a battered print of a comedy from the sixties, and checked the gate twice.

The lights dimmed. The projectors hummed. The white beam leapt across the room and lit up the screen, and the whole audience drew a breath together, the way people do when a story starts.

For ninety minutes Kirsty ran the film in silence. She watched the faces in the window glow and shift, watched the couple in row F hold hands during the slow scene, watched the old man in the front row wipe his eyes at the ending. When the credits began to roll, she turned away from the projector and found Callum standing right behind her, his face wet.

"I told you," he said. "I cried during the credits."

She laughed through her own tears, and he laughed too, and they stood together in the narrow booth as the audience applauded below and then slowly began to leave.

"Can I ask you something?" said Callum, when the room was empty.

"Yes."

"What happens to you now? When the cinema closes and the projectors go to a museum?"

Kirsty leaned against the wall, the warm metal humming behind her.

"I don't know," she said honestly. "I've been offered a job at the multiplex in Paisley. Digital screens, no reels, no booth. I've been saying no for a month."

"Why?"

"Because nobody will ever stand behind me and cry during the credits at a multiplex," said Kirsty, with a small, sad smile.

Callum set down his notebook on the shelf beside the projectors, very carefully, as though it were something precious.

"Then stay," he said. "Not the cinema. Me. I'll be the reporter who keeps coming up the stairs, with his terrible umbrella and his worse jokes, until you're sick of me. And then we'll find another old building to keep alive."

Kirsty's breath caught. "That's very presumptuous."

"It's very honest," said Callum. "Can I ask you something else?"

"Yes."

"Would you let me kiss you here, in the booth, with the last reel still warm in the projector? Because I've wanted to since you told me to keep the torch steady."

Kirsty laughed, her cheeks flushed. "Yes," she said. "But if I say stop, you have to watch the next film with me, alone, from the back row."

"Deal," said Callum, and stepped closer.

He kissed her slowly, carefully, one hand coming up to rest against her cheek, the other finding the small of her back. The kiss was warm and unhurried, tasting of cheap wine and the dust of seventy years. When they parted, the projector hummed on beside them, the last faint glow of the screen spilling into the room.

"Green?" he asked softly.

"Green," said Kirsty. "Very green. Now help me pack the reels, Callum. And tomorrow, we'll find a new cinema to fill."

"Whatever you say, boss," said Callum, grinning, and began to pack the last reel into its tin with the care of a man handling something he would never let go of.