"Here In My Heart"

The light was already fading by late afternoon, the sky a dull slab of grey that pressed low over Romford Market. A raw wind swept between the stalls, snapping at the canvas awnings as traders packed away their stock. The air smelled of damp wool, coal smoke and the last few chestnuts roasting in a brazier.

Eileen waited by the bus stop, scarf pulled tight, watching a boy dart in to snatch a bruised apple from the cobbles before the trader’s broom reached it. The man pretended not to see. Everyone was pretending something these days.

The No. 86 bus wheezed to a halt. Tom stepped off, brushing a smudge of cigarette ash from his coat. He spotted her at once and raised a hand.

“You’re late,” she said, though her voice was soft.

“Traffic crawled. Rain earlier slowed everything.” He nodded toward the shuttering stalls. “Thought I’d missed you.”

“I said I’d wait.”

A wireless crackled from the tobacconist’s doorway. Al Martino’s voice drifted out: warm, smooth, impossibly American.

Here in my heart…

Tom grimaced. “That one again.”

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s all right. Bit… syrupy.”

“You used to like syrupy.”

He looked away. “That was before Korea.”

She didn’t answer. A woman nearby argued with a trader about the price of potatoes, a child tugging at her sleeve. A barrow clattered as a man folded its legs, the metal ringing in the cold air.

A polished black Morris Oxford rolled slowly past, its headlights cutting across the wet cobbles. As it went by, the same song floated from inside: clearer and richer, as if the driver lived in a different world entirely.

Tom watched it go. “Radio in the car,” he murmured. “Imagine that.”

“Probably cost more than the car itself,” Eileen said.

“Still,” he said, “wouldn’t mind hearing music on the way home. Beats listening to the smokers cough.”

She smiled faintly, but her eyes stayed on the street.

They walked toward the last open stalls. A fishmonger was packing away haddock, the smell sharp in the cold. A crate of cabbages sat half empty; a girl in a school coat hovered nearby, waiting for the trader to turn his back.

Tom stopped at the glove stall. “Yours are worn through,” he said. “You should get a pair.”

“I’ll mend them.”

“You said that last week.”

“And I will.”

He picked up a navy pair. “Try them.”

“I don’t need...”

“Just try.”

She slipped them on. They were warm. Too warm. She pulled them off quickly. “They’re nice.”

“So have them.”

“I can’t let you buy me things.”

“It’s gloves, not a ring.”

She looked down at the cobbles, where the day’s drizzle had gathered in shallow pools. “You know why.”

Tom’s jaw tightened. “Because of him.”

“Because it’s not fair on you.”

“He left, Eileen. Two years ago.”

“And I married him,” she said quietly. “That doesn’t just… stop.”

The wireless in the tobacconist’s doorway crackled again as the shopkeeper retuned it, the romantic music fading into static.

Tom let out a breath. “Flipping songs.”

“Nothing wrong with them,” she said. “They’re lovely.”

“They’re daft.”

“They’re hopeful.”

He looked at her then: the lamplight caught in her hair, the winter air reddening her cheeks. She seemed both near and impossibly far.

“Hopeful for who?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead, as they strolled around the corner into South Street, she nodded toward the Odeon’s glowing sign, blurred slightly by the damp air. “We’ll miss the start.”

They joined the small queue outside. A group of girls in New Look inspired skirts giggled behind them, their breath white in the cold. A man in a trilby lit a cigarette, the match flaring briefly before the wind snuffed it out.

Inside the foyer, the warmth hit them: damp coats, cigarette smoke, the faint exotic smell of popcorn. The 6 o’clock showing of The Crimson Pirate was about to begin. Burt Lancaster grinned from the poster, all teeth and Technicolor swagger, as if the world weren’t grey and rationed.

As they settled into their seats, Tom said, “After the film… maybe we could get a cup of tea?”

She hesitated. “All right. Tea.”

Not a promise. Just tea.

The lights dimmed. The projector whirred. On the screen, Lancaster swung across a sunlit sky, laughing as if nothing in the world could weigh him down.

Eileen folded her old gloves in her lap. Tom sat beside her, hands clasped, eyes on the screen but mind elsewhere.