Thanks, it is great that you read it and have questions.

Art has nothing to do with the absence of his father; he sent him to boarding school in England when he was a child and never communicated with him again, just paying the costs.

He is what we call a cold fish, but the Irish lassie who married him thought she could sense a warm person inside, wanting to break out. They married, moved to Kenya, she had Robert, and when her husband forced her to stop teaching the boy to love, she had an affair.

Robert is told by his father that his mother died and then he is sent away. You could say, I suppose, that his traumatised heart used art as a way of expresssing himself because he was so alone. Luckily a Greek shipowners son comes to the school, as a boarder, and they become friends. He is Niko.

I have posted upto post004. I'll be surprised if you read beyond post 5 or 6, as he then is affected and his mind opens to extra-sensory gifts, and I think you are not fond of such tales.

I was just worried that to create/describe Robert, as an artist, I was drawing on what I think being an artist is like and was hoping, before you stop reading, you'll get a feel for him (by the way, many years later, in some next book, his daughter Jade becomes an artist and she is later on acknowledged by all Cherinians, non-Cherinians (including the alien Cherinians) that she is a far more talented artist than her father, which makes him exceedingly proud of her.

Whenever you decide to read, the link for the next post is above, just under the story.

A pity you do not read Greek, as I will be posting another two poems, but this time, I let a few local Greeks in South Africa read them and only once they reacted positively, did I decide to post them here. I will attach English translations, but translations are never as inspiring as the originals - or so I think