Ian T. is a volunteer at his local Catholic church: a small, dark building in an urban street. The church itself is half-full with the props, sets and scenery for a musical he is writing: a strange, violent SF-themed production. A rehearsal is underway; I observe the bloody dematerialization of an organic-looking android figure at the end of a rousing speech. (Doubting, as I do so, whether this production will find much of an audience.) Ian tells me he wrotes Les Miserables, but sold the rights cheaply- 'for a song'- but I don't believe him... His father is also here: an alcoholic who lives in a coverted flat nearby. The walls of an old working mans' club next door have been knocked through to create a large rehearsal space, but they've run out of money to complete the renovation, and my family is thinking of acquiring the property instead.
As I leave his neighbourhood (at one stage via an Underground terminal) I find myself in the passenger seat of a car being driven by Pete Murray. We have left the rankness of the city behind us. Here, against a backdrop of green hills and open skies, are large homes with ornate and very eccentric features. Great stucco figures protrude from the roofs and walls like an English village equivalent of the Gothic follies and blimps of Gotham City. 'It's very expensive to live here,' Pete tells me; but I feel as though this is home. It's a model (at least) for a kind of reordered, aspirational lifestyle more suited to my personality.
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