"Hey Joe!"

The stairs up from the Shopping Arcade smell of damp coats and stale smoke. At the top, the Lucania is a long, low room of green baize under yellow light, the air thick with tobacco and chalk dust. Cues knock, balls click, men murmur.

On the far table, Joe leans over a shot, tongue caught in the corner of his mouth. During the day, he works in the stock room at the Co‑op on South Street, but here he moves like he owns the place. He pots the red clean, straight into the middle pocket.

“Have that,” he says.

His mate Eddie shakes his head as he optimistically chalks his cue. “You’ve been practising.”

“Got to keep my hand in,” Joe says. “Can’t let you lot catch up.”

He paces round the table, eying up his next shot, all the while humming a tune under his breath: “Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that girl on your arm…”

Eddie glances at him. “That your new theme song?”

Joe grins. “Too right.” He decides to play for safety and leaves the cue ball flush with the bottom cushion.

“You bringing your dolly here then?” Eddie asks as he steps up to the table. “Show her off to the lads?”

Joe snorts. “In here? She’d last five minutes before she walked back out.”

“What’s she like then?” Eddie lines up a shot, misses by a whisker. “Proper, is she?”

Joe takes his time on the reply, circling the table. “Name’s Jean. Works in the office at the brewery. Smart. Knows her own mind.”

“Thinks you’re a catch, does she?” Eddie says, half-teasing.

“Reckons I’ll do,” Joe says, but there’s a softness under his bluff.

Eddie watches him. “Where’d you meet her?”

“Dance at the Assembly Hall,” Joe says. “Couple of weeks back. Band was rubbish, but she wasn’t.” He hums again, words barely audible over the clack of the balls.

Eddie takes a long look at the table, then at Joe. “What happened to Liz then?”

Joe miscues and doesn’t put enough spin on the ball. “She’s all right.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Joe straightens, irritated by his muffed shot. “She’s in Chadwell Heath now. With her mum. Says she’s busy.”

“Right,” Eddie says. “Busy not talking to you.”

Joe shrugs, but it’s a tight gesture. “It’s done.”

Eddie pots a red at last, more by luck than judgement. “You told her about Jean?”

“Not yet.”

“You going to?”

Joe doesn’t answer. He watches as Eddie fails to sink a simple black, then walks over and brushes a speck of lint from the cloth.

Eddie rests his cue, watching him. “You like this new one?”

Joe nods, once. “Yeah. I do.”

“More than Liz?”

Joe’s jaw works. “Different.”

“Different how?”

Joe looks up, annoyed. “What are you, the priest?”

Eddie holds up a hand. “All right. Just asking.”

Joe resumes his humming as he surveys the table.

Eddie leans on his cue. “You know Liz’s brother drinks in the Ship now and then.”

“So?”

“So he’s not keen on surprises,” Eddie says. “If he sees you swanning round South Street with a new girl on your arm, he might have a word.”

Joe sniffs. “He can try.”

Eddie gives him an old fashioned look. “You sure you’re not just doing this to prove a point?”

Joe bristles. “What point?”

“That you don’t care,” Eddie says. “About Liz. About anyone.”

Joe laughs, but it’s too loud. “I’m not the one moping round the Golden Lion every Friday.”

“That was one time,” Eddie says. “And she married a bloke from Ilford, so that’s that.”

Joe’s shoulders drop a fraction. “I’m not moping.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Eddie says. “I said… just don’t muck this one about. If you like her.”

Joe looks down at the array of balls, at the pattern of colours and angles; for a moment seeing the connections with an uncommon clarity. “I’m taking her to the pictures tomorrow,” he says. “Mogambo. Odeon. Six o’clock.”

Eddie nods. “Big night then.”

“Yeah.”

“You nervous?”

Joe snorts. “Don’t be daft.”

Eddie smiles. “You are.”

Joe lines up another shot to avoid answering. He pots the red clean, but the white kisses the black and leaves it awkward.

Eddie watches the balls settle. “You going to tell Liz?”

Joe exhales slowly. “Might drop a word. Next time I see her.”

“When’s that?”

“Don’t know.”

Eddie nods. “Right.”

Joe leans on his cue, staring at the table as if it might answer something for him. The room hums with low voices. Snatches of conversation. Trouble in Kenya. Talk of a cold snap.

Eddie says, lightly, “Hey Joe.”

Joe looks up. “What?”

“Don’t let her get away,” Eddie says. “Either of them.”

Joe snorts. “You’re full of wisdom tonight.”

“Someone has to be,” Eddie says. “You’re useless.”

Joe almost smiles. They play on in the warm and smoky room.

Outside, the drizzle thickens over South Street, blurring the lights of the buses and the cinema. Tomorrow at six, Joe will be at the Odeon with Jean... and somewhere in Chadwell Heath, Liz will hear about it, sooner or later...