Holes for Faces Read Online Free PDF Page B

us.”
    Because they’re so insistent I seek support from the girl in the pay booth, only to be told I’m mistaken. She watches me ask “What would your parents say?”
    “They’d let us,” Geraldine assures me, and Gerald says “We watch fifteens at home.”
    Wouldn’t the girl advise me if the film weren’t suitable? I buy tickets and lead the way into a large dark auditorium. We’re just in time to see the screen exhort the audience to switch off mobile phones, and I have the twins do so once they’ve used theirs to light the way along a row in the absence of an usherette. The certificate that precedes the film doesn’t tell me why it bears that rating, but that’s apparent soon enough. An irascible grandfather embarrasses his offspring with his forgetfulness and the class of his behaviour and especially his language, which even features two appearances of the word I ignored most often on the train. The twins find him hilarious, as do all the children in the cinema except for one that keeps poking its head over the back of a seat several rows ahead. Or is it a child? It doesn’t seem to be with anyone, and now it has stopped trying to surprise me with its antics and settles on peering at me over the seat. Just its pale fat face above the nose is visible, crowned and surrounded by an unkempt mass of hair. The flickering of the dimness makes it look eager to jerk up and reveal more of its features, though the light is insufficient to touch off the slightest glimmer in the eyes, which I can’t distinguish. At last the oldster in the film saves his children from robbers with a display of martial arts, and his family accepts that he’s as loveable as I presume we’re expected to have found him. The lights go up as the credits start to climb the screen, and I crane forward for a good look at the child who’s been troubling me. It has ducked into hiding, and I sidle past Geraldine to find it. “You’re going the wrong way, grandpa,” she calls, but neither this nor Gerald’s mirth can distract me from the sight of the row, which is deserted.
    Members of the audience stare at me as I trudge to the end of the aisle, where words rise up to tower over me, and plod back along the auditorium. By this time it’s empty except for the twins and me, and it’s ridiculous to fancy that if I glance over my shoulder I’ll catch a head in the act of taking cover. “Nothing,” I say like Grumpo, if less coarsely, when Gerald asks what I’m looking for. I bustle the twins out of the cinema, and as soon as they revive their phones Gerald’s goes off like an alarm.
    In a moment Geraldine’s restores equality. They read their messages, which consist of less than words, and return their calls. “Hello, mummy,” Geraldine says. “We were in a film.”
    Her brother conveys the information and hands me the mobile. “Dad wants to speak to you.”
    “Bertie. Forgive me, should we have—”
    “I hope you know we came to find you on the beach.”
    “Gerald didn’t say. I do apologise if you—”
    “I trust you’re bringing them home now. To your house.”
    I don’t understand why he thinks the addition is necessary. “I’m afraid we’re in trouble,” I inform the twins as Geraldine ends her call. I have to be reminded that it’s Gerald’s turn to control the lift at the railway station. At least our train reaches the platform as we do, and soon it emerges into the open, at which point I recall how close we are to Beryl’s house. As the train passes it I turn to look. There’s nothing at her window.
    The tenant must have moved the window box. It does no good to wonder where the item that I glimpsed is now. I’m nervous enough by the time we arrive at the end of the line and I lead the twins or am led by them uphill. They seem more eager than I feel, perhaps because they’ve me to blame. I’m fumbling to extract my keys when Paula’s husband opens the front door as if it’s his. Having given each of us a