I’d seen it before. His face darkening. Glowering. I don’t mean in the theatrical sense. There were no histrionics involved. No actor could build the layers, manufacture the almost imperceptible tautness at the edges of the mouth, flex and purse the bottom lip in ways that suggested appraisal. Critical appraisal.
The eyes worked in tandem with the nostrils. The black, necromancer’s pupils pulsing in time to the sibilant breathing. The long mesomorphic levers – his arms – resting on the seat in front of him, somehow creating a perfectly balanced composition. He was both beautiful and dread in his stillness.
I’d seen it before. I knew what would happen. The first recognition of unbidden intrusion met with calm civility. A friendly smile and a suggestion of equanimity. All the while, the eyes appraising, the gestures encouraging.
Some time passes. Enough time for his words to be either heeded or ignored. He looks over at me. There is concern there but also resolve. And by now the darkening has wrought an almost metaphysical change. Then it happens. He’s out of his seat and turned to face his tormentors in a single movement. ‘I only ever ask once’, he says quietly to the man he holds in mid-air by his coat lapels.
I’m shaking – scared. But the man and his companions leave and they’re not waiting outside the cinema as I worried they might.
‘I think Bob Mitchum would have approved’, he says to me. ‘And Charles Laughton too.‘ He smiled as he guided me onto the bus home. ‘We won’t tell mum though, eh?‘
Author’s Note
When I was about 11 or 12 years old, my father took me on a long bus ride to a cinema to see ‘Night of the Hunter’ – a movie he had keenly anticipated seeing. Shortly after we had taken our seats, a half-dozen or so ‘teddy boys’ came and sat behind us. Dad dealt with the situation.
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