“Yes, I know them,” she said, like it mattered.
Dale came back the next day. I took him up to my bedroom. He said “Wow” when he saw the toys. There were dozens of little men, a couple of women, and some robots. And a big spaceship. They had been my dad’s. He found them in the attic when Granda Tom died and Granny Carol wanted somewhere smaller. The attic that he made an office when we took the house. I don’t remember very well, I was small. But he gave me the toys.
I explained all this to Dale. He picked up two almost identical figures.
“You’ve got two Boba Fetts,” he said.
“Two what?”
“Boba Fett,” he said. “The bounty hunter. He was in Episode Five. The Empire Strikes Back.”
“The what?”
“Star Wars,” he said, laughing like I’d said something crazy. “The films. You know, the movies?”
I shook my head. Fear crept up inside me, fear that I had failed some test, that he would walk out thinking me a fool for not knowing what he was talking about.
“You’ve not seen them?” he asked. “Seriously?”
I shook my head again, felt my eyes go warm, something thick in my throat.
Do. Not. Cry.
He smiled. “Look. This is Luke Skywalker.” He picked up one figure after another, showed them to me. They looked very small in his thick fingers. “He’s a goodie. He’s a Jedi Knight. But not yet, not in this outfit. And this is Darth Vader. He’s the main baddie. But he’s kind of a goodie as well. And this is Han Solo, and Chewbacca, and these are stormtroopers, they fight for Darth Vader. And you know what this is?”
He pointed to the spaceship. I shook my head.
“It’s the Millennium Falcon.”
We played for three hours. Space battles. Dale was good at the noises. Pew-pew-pew! Vvvooommm! Grraarrr!
He said I could come round to his tomorrow to watch Star Wars. Episode IV, he said, the best one.
I told Mum at dinner that night. I told her Dale’s house was just around the corner, number twenty-three. I asked please, could I go, please? Dad watched Mum across the table while she sat there quiet. After a while, he put his hand on hers.
“It’s just around the corner,” he said.
I wanted to get up from my chair and hug him.
“You can walk him round,” Dad said. “The film’s, what, two hours? Walk him round then go back and get him.”
I wanted to say I could go by myself, but I knew to keep my mouth shut.
Eventually, she nodded once and said, “All right. Two hours.”
Dad smiled at me. Mum’s hands shook.
I woke up early the next morning, my tummy full of scratchy things. I couldn’t hold a thought in my head other than Star Wars. Dale had said it was brilliant, told me the entire story, but I didn’t care if I knew how it ended. I wanted to see it anyway. I went to the toilet so many times, Mum asked me if I was ill. She picked out my clothes for me. She took a long time about it, crying when she couldn’t find the socks she wanted me to wear.
I told her it didn’t matter about the socks.
“Of course it fucking matters,” she said, her voice high and cracking.
We found them at the bottom of the laundry basket half an hour later.
At five minutes to two, the socks still warm and damp from sitting over the radiator, Mum closed the front gate behind us. We didn’t speak as we walked to the end of our road, and turned into the next street.
Number twenty-three stood at the far end. It looked like a nice house. A nice garden. Flowers and all. The gate didn’t have any rust on it, didn’t squeak when Mum opened it.
The doorbell worked. I heard it chime inside. I saw the shape of a woman through the frosted glass, and Dale beside her. I saw their hands moving. I heard them whispering hard. Then Dale walking away.
The door opened. Dale’s mum was pretty, like in television adverts. She looked at my mum, then at me.
“Hello,” she said. Her smile looked like it didn’t belong on her face.
Mum nudged me.
“Is Dale in?” I asked, even though I’d seen him through the glass. “He asked me to come round. To watch Star Wars.”
Her smile looked like it hurt. “I’m sorry, love, Dale’s not well today. Bit of a cold. Sorry.”
Mum took my hand in hers. “It was just for a couple of hours,” she said.
“I know,” Dale’s mum said. “But honestly, he’s got an awful dose. I wouldn’t want your lad to catch anything.”
Mum’s hand squeezed mine tight, squishing my fingers together.
“He was so excited,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Dale’s mum said, easing the door over. “Honestly.”
My mum said, “You bitch.”
Dale’s mum stopped the door a few inches from its frame, her pretty face suspended between. “Excuse me?”
“You fucking bitch.”
I started to walk away, but she kept hold of my hand.
Dale’s mum said, “Look, there’s no call for that kind of language. Not on my doorstep.”
“He’s not good enough to play with your lad. I know. He’s got a nutjob for a mother, and a failure for a father. You don’t want the likes of him around your boy. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Listen, Mrs. Chaise, I know you’ve had some problems, and I do sympathise, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to go around abusing people in their own homes. Now, I’d like you to leave.”
I tried to pull my mum away. She stood firm.
“You’re a fucking stuck-up cunt,” she said.
Dale’s mum stayed quiet for a moment, her mouth open, before she said, “Get out of here now or I’ll call the police.”
She slammed the door.
Mum let go of my hand.
“Please, Mum,” I said. “Let’s go. Please.”
Mum stood there, breathing hard. Then she looked around the garden until she saw a big green ceramic flowerpot. She picked it up, grunting at the weight of it.
“Please, Mum, don’t.”
She threw the pot at the door. Bang. Compost and green ceramic fragments scattered. A crack in the glass.
Mum grabbed my hand, hauled me back home.
The police came half an hour later. A man and a woman. The woman did the talking. Small voices. Kind voices.