I arrived at midday today to the usual malaise and the lacklustre lotharios sprawled around, which today even included the tech guy, Pete, who had come in to fix the foyer lights. Usually I’d expect an outsider to force an uprooted-ness, induce an ebb and maybe even a flow. But no, he too has succumb to the bucket-chaired waning, to the mid-morning, mid-week mood that renders the complete team inert. Even the hot nuts seem despondent, as if they are being held hostage in a sauna and slowly realizing their glory days are over as everyone still prefers popcorn.

Talking of popcorn, I arrive to twenty enormous boxes piled high in the foyer, and I wonder if this is the reason everyone is sitting around as if they have received some bad news. “This is going to take some unpacking,” I offer up, blandly. Fortunately for them it is me who is given the task. The Assistant Manager reluctantly offers to help and slowly shuffles off his seat as if from a wheelchair and he is attempting to walk for the first time. He hands me a pair of serious scissors and then disappears into the after-shaved ether that is the staff room, looking for another pair. He doesn’t return so I take my frustration out on the gaffer tape.

Twenty minutes later I am still going and I am only grateful that this is all before the “official” opening time of 12pm because it would have caused incomprehensible chaos if customers had started arriving, finding themselves having to mount Hadrien’s Wall just to get to the Pick’n’Mix. But then someone does arrive. Let’s just say your classic late 60s type – grey hair swept back into a dishevelled pony tail, a fleece with the lustrous remnants of her malting wolfhound and a pair of mud-caked hiking boots. Standard. But kudos to her for not giving in to the shackles of Dorset haute couture, no, this particular lady had decided to punctuate her rather beige ensemble with a blindingly bright red cap emblazoned with the words “Henry the Hoover”.

Needless to say I saw her coming a mile off like the red warning light at the top of a crane. She marched up to the cinema entrance with verve and gusto – like an angry parent about to handle the Headmaster – and slammed her hand on the door. It was a scene worthy of Pegg and Frost’s imagination: suburban psycho. I was on my own amid these flimsy crates and considered getting inside one for security. She looked quizzically at me, head tilted, growing in intensity, unable to comprehend that the door was locked. I shook my head at her and then looked pointedly, cartoon-like at the clock. She ignored that and proceeded to try every one of the three doors as I stood there motionless, helpless, barricaded in by sweet and salty snacks.

The art deco doors rattled as she looked at me again, dead in the eye, as if I was doing this on purpose. I realised then that I was still clutching a very large pair of industrial scissors, which in retrospect should have warned her off. But still, she persisted. This was a woman on a mission. We both then took turns doing the silent, across-the-door conversation whereby we both pretended to be deaf and dumb and skilled in the art of sign language yet unable to communicate anything. My information that the cinema would officially open in five minutes was not understood, or was perhaps, again, ignored. And so I picked up the master keys that had been carelessly abandoned on the side by the Assistant Manager who could now be heard shrieking along to Paloma’s “I Just Can’t Rely On You” in the auditorium. I thought, no, I can’t rely on you either.

I picked up the keys and then jangled them up in the air at the woman in case she didn’t understand what keys were and then set about trying to pick one that looked suitable. I wondered what portals existed here that I had not been informed of, what wings, realms, what doors beyond doors beyond doors…because I was now faced with about 340 keys to choose from.

The woman looked stricken now and so did I. I could hear the beat of the clock, time ticking, taunting us. My palms began to sweat and I was unsure how I had found myself in this situation, how this stranger and I were currently, suddenly desperate, under siege almost and the stakes were unswervingly high. No key fit so far and I felt defeated and frustrated at this woman for landing me with this conundrum. There was nothing else to do but shrug my shoulders and await the team that no doubt would emerge in a matter of minutes as if from under rocks.

But then the banging started again: bang bang bang on the door, her knuckles landing on the fragile glass with rapacious thuds. I was sure her left eye started twitching so I considered screaming “Help” in a gentle manner, as if to suggest “Help” for both of us and then when the Manager emerged I would arrange my face into some secret signal that would allow him to understand all that had come before. But then even if I had screamed my inconspicuous S.0.S. it would have been drowned out by the heavy snort of Henry the Hoover that was now creeping around the corner. So loud was this old soul that his inner workings made him sound ill or just cantankerous, that he had been pushed and pulled for several years and now his plastic colon was clogged. The pounding on the door ceased and the woman’s knuckles slowly slid from the frame. Something had caught her attention. And then it dawned on me…this woman must be a co-conspirator of the Hoover dynasty. Quite why it took so long to register the significance of the red beacon before me I don’t know, perhaps it was the mania of the last three minutes but I realized now this must be the reason for this woman’s earnestness. Why else would she wear a “Henry the Hoover” hat? There could be no other reason. It could not be for fashion nor practicality, so her mission must be to seek out and rescue sullied Henrys from all over the country.

And at that Henry himself shot around the corner, dragged aggressively by 80 year old usher, Jack; two old boys together. The pace of the two clashed as Jack moved in slow, unrelenting motion across the foyer picking up imaginary crumbs as Henry was yanked, as if being throttled. He was pretty useless after all. I wondered if the two should meet, what this woman might do if she were to get her hands on Jack, his abuser. From afar I imagine it was a nefarious scene, as if Henry was chained up in some closet and only released to do his chores and we watched on mockingly, laughing, as he choked on stale hot nuts that people had spat out, wishing they had got popcorn. Yes, how we must have looked, we barbarians, to this woman and her localized cap.

Fearing she might break the door down, I tried to gesture to Jack to gallop apace and spin Henry swiftly out of view. But he was deaf and disinterested, and just when I thought I had lost my fight, The Manager appeared. It was 11.57am. I rapidly explained the whole drama, shaking the keys up to him like a giddy gaoler in days of yore. He stood tall and proud, his hazardous gut seemed to retreat into itself giving him a momentary prowess and he strode majestically like D’Artagnan towards the entrance and the suspicious visitor. I was the innkeeper, he was the master. He had pantaloons, I had a crooked back. He grasped the keys from my withered hands and like magic picked out the correct one and threw open the double doors and bellowed, “How may we help you, Madam?”

The woman shrank back, shocked. She spluttered, “She…she…she wouldn’t let me in. I just wanted to make a phone call in the warmth. My son…he lives in America…I just need to make a phone call in the warmth…”

Well I might as well have had a head of vipers. It was my turn to splutter now. “I…didn’t know…I didn’t know…” The Manager shot me a glance and nodded like Merlin, with great wisdom and understanding. His foot was still in the door, preventing the woman from entering. I thought, any moment now he is going to release it and this rabid civilian will headbutt me with her Hoover hat and the last thing I will see before I pass out will be Henry’s eyes looking at me, pay back for all the times I cursed him when he got stuck around corners, and all the times I impatiently yanked the cord so hard he had been turned upside down, wheels in air, humiliated.

But The Manager did not move his foot. Instead, he looked the woman in the eye and declared, “The cinema will officially open at 12pm. Please come back then”. And at that he closed the door and locked it up. This was a Titan Of A Man. He glided back into the staff room, casting a considered gaze at the clock as he passed. The woman and I shared one last, incredulous look at one another. She edged away slowly, defeated, walking backwards and retreating into red phone booth in the car park as if she was a creature and this red structure was her safe place, her nest. I turned and noticed Henry had got stuck around a corner again and Jack had given up so he was left abandoned, on the edge, his eyes gazing at his last hope of freedom.

This woman may or may not have a son in America, it could have been a cover, an “in” and once over the threshold, she may have seized Henry and completed her mission. Or she could have just been telling the truth and I had clearly been desperate for adventurous distraction. Either way, it was clear these were serious times, this was a serious place with serious rules and what I do know is that the madcap with the mad cap and I with the black branded polo shirt and suspicious mind, both learned a lot in those few, reckless minutes on that fragile threshold of Life V. A Small Coastal Cinema Chain.