Stormtrooper helmet and blue roses

You will not believe what Saturday brought us. The Palais had its usual crowd, the sweating boys from the docks in their Brylcreem and the girls in nylon, and then at half eleven the doors swung open and in strolled a Stormtrooper. Full white helmet, black eye slots, the lot. Nobody had booked a costume night. Mr Hollis at the door was ready to turn him away until he laid a pistol on the cloakroom ledge like a calling card and asked, very politely, whether the band knew any waltzes.

They did not. Dennis the drummer played something off the wireless instead, and the trooper danced with Mrs Pyke's girl Maureen, who has never managed a dance without treading on someone. He held her as if she were made of glass. Two blue roses had been painted on the sleeve of his white jacket, leaves stitched in green, and when he turned under the lights the petals caught the glitter ball and went the colour of a summer sea.

Near midnight the sign over the bar flickered on, the bone-shaped one that says Last Orders in yellow, and the helmet tipped back towards it as though it could read. Then he was gone, with the pistol still on the ledge and Maureen still smiling at nothing in particular.

I have the gun locked in the office. It is plastic and lighter than it looks. Come home at Easter and tell me what you make of it.

Love, Edie