During Crispin’s captivity, Joely devoted herself to transforming FATE from a small gang of highly strung friends to a viable underground political force. She began to put less emphasis on terror tactics and, after reading Guy Debord, grew interested in situationism as a political tactic, which she understood to mean the increased use of large banners, costumes, videos and gruesome re-enactments. By the time Crispin emerged from jail, FATE had grown four-fold, and Crispin’s legend (lover, fighter, rebel, hero) had grown with it, fuelled by Joely’s passionate interpretation of his life and works and a carefully chosen photo of him circa 1980 in which he looked a bit like Nick Drake. But though his image had been airbrushed, Crispin appeared to have lost none of his radicalism. His first act as a free citizen was to mastermind the release of several hundred voles, an event that received widespread newspaper coverage, though Crispin delegated responsibility for the actual act to Kenny, who was sent down for four months of high security (‘Greatest moment of my life’). And then last summer, ’91, Joely persuaded Crispin to go to California with her to join the other groups fighting the patent on transgenic animals. Though courtrooms weren’t Crispin’s scene (‘Crispin’s a front-line dude’), he succeeded in sufficiently disrupting proceedings to officially warrant a mistrial. The couple flew back to England, elated but with funds perilously low, to find they had been turfed out of their Brixton pad and-
Well, Joshua could take the narrative from here. He met them a week later, wandering up and down the Willesden High Road, looking for a suitable squat. They looked lost, and Joshua, emboldened by the summer vibe and Joely’s beauty, went up to talk to them. They ended up going for a pint. They drank, as everybody in Willesden drank, in the aforementioned Spotted Dog, a famous Willesden landmark, described in 1792 as ‘being a well accostomed Publick house’ (Willesden Past, by Len Snow), which became a favourite resort for mid-Victorian Londoners wishing a day out ‘in the country’, then the meeting point for the horse-buses; later still, a watering hole for local Irish builders. By 1992 it had transformed again, this time into the focal point of the huge Australian immigrant population of Willesden, who, for the last five years, had been leaving their silky beaches and emerald seas and inexplicably arriving in NW2. The afternoon Joshua walked in with Joely and Crispin, this community was in a state of high excitement. After a complaint of a terrible smell above Sister Mary’s Palm Readers on the high road, the upper flat had been raided by Health Officers and found to be sheltering sixteen squatting Aussies who had dug a huge hole in the floor and roasted a pig in there, apparently trying to re-create the effect of a South Seas underground kiln. Thrown out on the street, they were presently bemoaning their fate to the publican, a huge bearded Scotsman who had little sympathy for his Antipodean clientele (‘Is there some fuckin’ sign in fuckin’ Sydney that says come to fuckin’ Willesden?’). Overhearing the story, Joshua surmised the flat must now be empty and took Joely and Crispin to look at it, his mind already ticking over… if I can get her to live near by…
It was a beautiful, crumbling Victorian building, with a small balcony, a roof garden and a large hole in the floor. He advised them to lie low for a month and then move in. They did, and Joshua saw more and more of them. A month later he experienced a ‘conversion’ after hours of talk with Joely (hours of examining her breasts underneath those threadbare t-shirts), which felt, at the time, as if somebody had taken his little closed Chalfenist head, stuck two cartoon sticks of dynamite through each ear, and just blown a big mutherfucking hole in his consciousness. It became clear to him in a blinding flash that he loved Joely, that his parents were assholes, that he himself was an asshole, and that the largest community of earth, the animal kingdom, were oppressed, imprisoned and murdered on a daily basis with the full knowledge and support of every government in the world. How much of the last realization was predicated and reliant upon the first was difficult to say, but he had given up Chalfenism and had no interest in taking things apart to see how they fitted together. Instead he gave up all meat, ran off to Glastonbury, got a tattoo, became the kind of guy who could measure an eighth with his eyes closed (so fuck you, Millat) and generally had a ball… until finally his conscience pricked him. He revealed himself to be the son of Marcus Chalfen. This horrified Joely (and, Joshua liked to think, slightly aroused her – sleeping with the enemy and all that). Joshua was sent away, while FATE had a two-day summit meeting along the lines of: But he’s the very thing we’re… Ah, but we could use.. .
It was a protracted process with votes and subclauses and objections and provisos, but in the end it couldn’t really come down to anything more sophisticated than: Whose side are you on? Joshua said yours, and Joely welcomed him with open arms, pressing his head to her exquisite bosom. He was paraded at meetings, given the role of secretary and was generally the jewel in their crown: the convert from the other side.
Since then and for six months, Joshua had indulged his growing contempt for his father, seen plenty of his great love and set about a long-term plan of insinuating himself between the famous couple (he needed somewhere to stay anyway; the Joneses’ hospitality was growing thin). He ingratiated himself with Crispin, deliberately ignoring Crispin’s suspicion of him. Joshua acted like his best mate, did all the shit jobs for him (photocopying, postering, leafleting), kipped on his floor, celebrated his seventh wedding anniversary and presented him with a hand-made guitar plectrum for his birthday; while all the time hating him intensely, coveting his wife as no man’s wife has ever been coveted before, and dreaming up plots for his downfall with a green-eyed jealousy that would make Iago blush.
All this had distracted Joshua from the fact that FATE were busy plotting his own father’s downfall. He had approved it in principle when Magid returned, when his rage was hottest and the idea itself seemed hazy – just some big talk to impress new members. Now the 31st was three weeks away, and Joshua had so far failed to question himself in any coherent way, in any Chalfenist fashion, regarding the consequences of what was about to happen. He wasn’t even clear precisely what was going to happen – there had been no final decision; and now as they argued it, the core members of FATE cross-legged and spaced out around the great hole in the floor, now as he should have been listening to these fundamental decisions, he had lost the thread of his attention down Joely’s t-shirt, down along the athletic dip and curve of her torso, down further to her tie-dyed pants, down-