******** A Love Written of by an Artist ********

Although I find it relatively easy to love people, it took me a long time before falling in love (at 20 years old, in 1988) for the first time, with Dominique. As is my nature, I fell head over heels, to the point of totally selfless adoration. Made all the classic mistakes, put her on a pedestal where she could not live. She left me about a year later for the first guy who told her how worthless she was...but let me start at the beginning.

2

I guess I was lucky to have reached the age of working at a time when there were big changes, as the markets in Europe, where I lived, became more competitive. Until then, the only way for a young person to climb up the corporate ladder was to wait for someone else to move up or die. Companies believed only experience and age counted and ignored such things as talent and ingenuity. Then in the seventies and eighties the policies changed. Now youth was seen as an asset. The fresh attitudes and the daring of the young was seen as the new way for companies, in all sectors, to grow faster than their competitors. Then the internet was born and it mainly became the province of the young. Programming became the new target for school leavers, each of them dreaming of writing a new program that would make them multi-millionaires, but, in the early years, relatively few who were artistically talented grabbed the opportunity to carve a niche of their own in a new market that would soon be desperate for them.

I had spent a large part of my latter childhood and adolescence in London. Luckily I developed a strong interest in computer graphic art, a natural extension of my love for sketching and painting. While in school I was a loner with few friends and no interest in sports. My fascination with painting led me to trying my hand at computer graphics and I discovered I love the freedom offered to my imagination, while also not being constricted by lack of funds for purchasing all the materials usually required for producing pieces of art. By the time my formal education ended I had already begun to make a bit of a name for myself among online amateur artists. I was also happy to help out the local small stores and businesses who wanted to have a site of their own, but could not afford the professional fees. I had thought I was being foolish and soft and did not tell my friends that I often did work for free.

Being ignorant of how the market works, I was surprised when I learnt that I am beginning to make a name for myself within the community and customers began to search me out. It was to be expected that a company created by young entrepreneurs would tempt me into joining them. They were small enough not to be rigid in their rules and I was mostly allowed to ‘do my own thing’. It was a wonderful environment for me to serve my apprenticeship, where I learnt some of the most important aspects of becoming an artist - how to look at my work with a critical eye and the self-discipline to reject what did not meet my own standards, even if I was in love with it.

Nearly three years after school, my only close friend Nicko, while visiting his family in Greece, showed some of my work to a friend of his father. Next thing I knew, I had a ticket with an all-expenses-paid trip. I met Mr Georgiades and we seemed to hit it off right away. Although of latter middle-age, his ideas were fresh and his dreams of creating a Greek multimedia company struck a chord in me. He did not patronise me and neither did he talk like a businessman, his enthusiasm for his projects captivating me. I loved the idea of being part of a new creation, seeing a dream brought into reality. Next thing I knew I was living and working in Athens.

Nicko, coming from a wealthy family, steered me into choosing an apartment close to Kolonaki, at that time an exclusive area where snobs congregated. He soon had introduced me to his friends and took me to the best night clubs and I felt I was living in a fantasy world. Because Nicko would introduce me as an artist, none of his snobbish friends ever questioned why I should be included as their companion or taken to their homes by Nicko. Nicko’s family regularly invited me to their home for a meal on weekends, knowing I would not have to go to the office in Piraeus, which is in the opposite direction, and then Nicko would take me with him to the clubs he favours or to the parties he was invited to.

It was at their home where I saw his sister again, who had grown into a very pretty teenager since I had last seen her. I’ll need to return in time to when I was still a schoolboy and Nicko was inviting me to spend the weekends with him and his family at their Mayfair apartment.

The father of Nicko had taken me with his son from boarding school for the long week-end to stay at their Mayfair apartment. Saturday was a wonderful day - just being out of school would have qualified it as a wonderful day. I was not used to eating in such expensive restaurants, so I was feeling a bit uncomfortable, but Nicko made jokes about the other patrons and soon I forget my awe and unease. When the meal was over the little daughter, Dominique, asked for a crème brullè. When she learnt that I had never even heard of this dessert, she insisted I order one also. Although I had talked with her before, the sharing and discovery of such a wonderful dessert soon had us chatting as close friends, despite the disparity of our ages.

3

On Sunday the father and mother had to visit Greek friends for business and for social reasons. Nicko asked to go with as he was friends with the son of the other family. As they would mostly be talking in Greek, I decided to stay at their home alone. Dominique did not want to go with and asked to stay with me. As her nanny was also staying, they agreed.

I watched a bit of tv, got bored and went to see what Dominique is doing and to ask the nanny whether I can make myself a sandwich. Dominique was pleased to see me and shyly asked me to play with her. She was so pleased, when I agreed, that it made me feel good. I soon realised that since she is the child (I thought of myself as more or less a grown up), I had to play the games she wanted to play and I actually had some fun as she so was so cute and so precise in every detail of her make-believe roles. We had lunch and the nanny told Dominique she was going to lie down for a while, and to call her if she needed anything. Dominique told her Roberto can get her anything she needs, he is very big. We grownups laughed and I returned to our games. We were sitting on the carpet and I was instructed to lie down and shut my eyes, as part of the game. I did so, waiting to be told to open my eyes.

Suddenly I felt Dominique lie down on top of me.

“I love you Roberto, thank you for playing with me. Nicko never does!” and she hugged my neck, half choking me. I was a bit embarrassed but I hugged her back, as I was also touched. It felt nice to be holding her, so I rubbed her back, massaging it as I used to massage my mother when I was a child, before she died.

She told me I am wonderful and that she loves me. Staring into her eyes I softly said I love her and then told her it must stay our secret or else I would get into trouble with her brother, who would think I am a sissy, if he hears. She hugged me and that was all the promise I felt I needed.

I had been so starved of love, that deep inside me, I felt, for many years, that what happened between little Dominique and me was very special and I never allowed the memory to fade.

From this time, to the last year of school, my father did not contact me once and none of my letters to him were answered. Feeling that he did not want me affected me badly, eroding my self-confidence. The older I became, the more aware I was of how unnatural his silence is and I came to believe that it was not him who is responsible, that I must have done something to make him not want me. What made it worse was that there was another boy from Kenya and he would return to his parents for the longer holidays. When he would return to school, he would confirm for me that my father still has his farm and lives there. During my last year at school, he gave me the news which upset me the most. He told me that my father sold the farm and has moved back to the U.K. The fact that he did not call on me proved that he really does not care about me, that he does not want me as a son. I could not understand why and it was this that hurt the most. I do not know why I did not confide to Nicko about my father moving to the U.K. without letting me know, and how I felt about my father. I do not recall it being a conscious decision, maybe it was because I felt ashamed.

If I had not had Nicko as my friend, and if he had not continued inviting me to his home for long weekends and holidays, I am certain I would have come out of my teenage years with far more damage. The truth is, it was not Nicko who helped me the most; it was the easy acceptance by his parents and the way they treated me as almost a son of theirs. They even wanted to take me with for the long holidays to Greece, but they needed my father to sign his permission and the school only had the address of solicitors, who claimed my father would not answer their requests for his permission. I grew to love both of them and whenever I felt the worst about my father not wanting me, when I was tempted to give in to the bitterness which waited just around the corner, I would tell myself that Elias and Claire love me and they are much more special than he is, so it means I must be more special than he realises.

Next Post 002

For those readers who have read some of my previous posts about Cherine and Robert, I thought this may be a good time to start from the beginning.
Being early days, during the first part of the book, Robert is still very much an artist and it strongly affects his thinking.
Though Cherine and her gifts change him, and his responsibilities vastly increase, weighing ever more heavily on him, till the last of my books that follow their lives, Robert in essence remains an artist.
Will this fact help him as a leader of a people who must break away from the past and find a new way to live?

I hope you enjoy reading this story of fantasy, adventure and love. Yes, most of all, always of love.