He finds Joyce, instantly recognizable with the huge scar on the right side of his face, running from his ear to his mouth. He is a short man, but powerful, with broad arms that he likes to keep folded. He is there with his wife, Margaret, who is pretty and has a good figure—apparently she was a dancer, even performing cabaret shows for the BUF in and around Lancashire. He’s always liked Mrs. Joyce—a blackshirt bride no less!

“Hello, Bill,” he says. “Hello, Margaret.”

They greet him, Mrs. Joyce very charming, Joyce very guarded, edgy as always.

“Isn’t this great news?” he asks.

“Great news indeed,” says Joyce. “I’m going to talk about it tonight.”

This is not what he wants to hear. He thinks that he should be the one addressing the British tonight, not Joyce. Why the hell have they picked him?

“What are you going to say?”

“I’m going to tell the British that now’s their chance,” Joyce says. “That it’s clear that Hitler’s doing the right thing, smashing the Commies once and for all. I’ll tell them that it’s time they came along and helped us to beat the real enemy.”

“Sounds good,” he says. “Have you already written it?”

“I’ll do so later, when there’s more news.”

He smiles, concealing his jealousy. The station vets his scripts thoroughly, taking a few days to make them worse, in his opinion. But it appears that Joyce is spared such editing, that Joyce is their star boy, the one who can go on air at short notice. He remembers Joyce from BUF days—they worked at the Black House together, and even then, Joyce was one of the stars, damn him. But Joyce left the BUF because the leader wasn’t extreme enough for him. He founded his own little party, the National Socialist Party, but it never got more than a hundred members.

It was a mistake talking to Joyce, but it isn’t a mistake seeing Mrs. Joyce. He turns his attention to her.

“And how are you, Margaret?” he asks.

“Very well, thank you. And how are you? How is Eileen?”

It is clear that Margaret isn’t very well at all. Perhaps, as with him and Eileen, she and Joyce are going through a bad patch. This may be an opportunity to find a replacement for Eileen.

“I’m well—Eileen is well too.”

“Not joining us here for the celebrations?”

“Er…no. She’s in bed still—a little poorly.”

“Do send her my best, won’t you?”

“I shall.”

He notices that Joyce is ignoring them; looking around the room. Then, without even a word, he walks off, presumably to look for somebody else to talk to. Mrs. Joyce looks embarrassed.

“Would you like a drink?” he asks awkwardly.

The question takes her aback, and then she looks defiant, determined.

“Do you know? I would,” she says.

The reply startles him. Normally women don’t ever accept drinks off him, but Mrs. Joyce can obviously see deeper than his skin.

AUGUST 1970