Aubrey Field, thirty-five, balding, and not exactly slim, daydreams of a rich future. "I want my life to bear fruit," he cries, but home is with his mother above a sweetshop in Whitechapel. They are among the few survivors of what was once a large local community and they live, surrounded by strangers, in the house where Aubrey was born. Suffocating but resigned, Aubrey cannot leave Whitechapel, and he cannot leave his mother. "It was useless, he...