Your two-up two-down is in a row of terraces on a scratch of land between Manchester and Stockport: a molehill overlooked by high-rise concrete. A secret pleasure is flicking through channels while he’s out at his club. A hundred stations yet nothing on. Then you are held by a figure, grey hair, less a face than a tombstone resting on a neck. An air of gravitas in that stony apparition. You pay attention.
The figure, well-spoken, a smoker’s cough like brown smog, is talking about his ‘artistic evolution’. The Slade, the teachers and influencers, the bohemian friends: names are dropped like Pollock paint splashes. A commitment all his years to art and sculpture; up at six a.m., seven days a week. He mentions the well-off family he’d rebelled against. They’d come round when fame’s sprig had bedecked him. He could afford to rebel, of course. Opportunities in his palm like a purse of ducats.
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