Page 39 of The Words Beneath the Noise

“How was your shift?” he asked, which was such a normal question that it took me a moment to respond.

“Productive. Cracked a stubborn intercept.”

“The one you've been fighting with all week?”

He'd noticed. Had paid enough attention to my muttered complaints to remember which specific piece of work wascausing me trouble. That shouldn't have felt significant, but it did.

“Yes. Wehrmacht supply route. Same encryption error every time.” I took a drag, felt the smoke burn down my throat. “Their operator is either very tired or very lazy.”

“And now our side knows where to find them.”

“Yes.”

We sat with that reality for a moment. Him understanding without me having to explain that every success felt like failure from a different angle. That the work saved lives and cost them in equal measure.

“London's getting hammered again,” Tom said eventually. “My sister wrote. Said the V-2s are worse than the Blitz because you don't hear them coming. Just sudden noise and then half the street is gone.”

My stomach clenched. “Bea said similar. She tries to make it sound like an adventure, but I can read between the lines.”

“Rose does the same. All jokes about sleeping in the tube station and racing rats for dropped food. Like if she makes it funny, I won't worry.” He exhaled smoke, watching it dissipate into falling snow. “Doesn't work, obviously.”

“No.”

“Your London and my London are probably different cities,” he said, and there was something careful in his voice. Not judgment, but awareness of the class divide that ran through everything in England. “You grew up where, exactly?”

“Respectable suburb. Terraced house, decent garden, neighbors who kept their hedges trimmed.” I felt oddly defensive about it. “Nothing grand. My father's a solicitor. Comfortable, not wealthy.”

“Still a world away from the East End.”

“Probably. I didn't spend much time in London proper until university. Mostly knew it through museums and libraries andthe occasional theatre visit.” I glanced at him. “Where exactly in the East End?”

“Near the docks. Cramped streets, shared courtyards, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else's business.” He took a long drag. “Could smell the Thames when the wind was right. Could hear the ships at night.”

I tried to picture it. Tom as a boy running through those narrow streets, learning to be tough because the alternative was being a target. Growing up hard and fast in a world that didn't make space for softness.

“Do you miss it?” I asked.

“Parts. Miss my family. Miss knowing every shortcut and hiding spot. Miss the pub on the corner and the way the whole street would turn out for celebrations.” He paused. “Don't miss the damp. Or the rats. Or the way poverty sat on everything like coal dust.”

“I don't think I've ever experienced real poverty.” The admission felt shameful. “We had rationing like everyone else, but we never went hungry. Never wondered if we'd make rent.”

“Not your fault. You were born where you were born.”

“Doesn't make the gap smaller.”

“No,” he agreed. “But it doesn't make us enemies either. Just means we saw the same city from different angles.”

The snow kept falling, accumulating on our shoulders and laps. I should have been cold. Should have been shivering and miserable. But sitting here with Tom, cigarette smoke curling between us and his solid presence radiating warmth beside me, I felt almost comfortable.

Down by the lake, someone shrieked as they hit the ice. Laughter followed. The sound should have grated, should have been too loud, but from this distance it was just part of the landscape. Background noise that I could observe without having to participate in.

“Bona,” I said, the word slipping out before I could stop it.

Tom's head turned toward me. There was recognition in his eyes, a flicker of something that made my stomach tighten.

“Madam Fortuna used that word,” he said quietly.

Of course he remembered. He'd been there. He'd heard the Polari flowing around him like a river in a foreign tongue, and he'd stored it away the way he stored everything, cataloguing details for later examination.