Edge of Pleasure

Gilver had been precociously talented. When he was a very young child, everyone admired his skill, his ability to draw straight lines without a ruler. A painting he did (in powder paint) of a red horse when he was four aroused considerable admiration. At ten, a drawing of a cast of the Venus de Milo, the spoils from a school coach trip to a London museum, led to the opportunity to lift up Kate Seddon's pleated skirt and have a good feel. This early connection between possession of artistic skill and the granting of sexual favours was not lost on him. With a thick mop of golden hair and a physique that soon added muscles to gangling height, his manhood was swift. By the time he went to the Ruskin, where he spent a great deal of time drinking and f***ing interspersed with briefer periods painting and drawing, he easily consolidated the reputation of genius. The mantle was waiting. In the absence of other takers, Gilver slipped it on as if it had been put ready. At Oxford he took up rowing to build the muscles in his legs and arms, creating a leonine body and staying power to get through exams easily without limiting his social life. When, later, he arrived in London, after a few months' travelling on his own version of the Grand Tour, he was smugly ensconced in his talent. Everyone thought him talented and it was true, after all. He knew everybody who mattered, as far as he could tell, and everyone wanted to introduce him to everyone else. Gilver shared a flat with his friends Harry and Max in Cornwall Gardens. They had been at Oxford together, having made friends at the Wine and Cheese Society, an excellent place to get outrageously drunk and debate cricket and girls. Gilver was the most handsome, standing a few inches over Max's clean, rich looks and a clear head over Harry, who didn't seem to mind being laughingly excused as an intellectual misfit. When there were girls around they headed straight for Gilver, who over the years benignly passed a couple on to Max. He got away with it every time. Easiness; the impression that his skin fitted so well it had been tailor-made, along with a grinning generosity and devil-may-care attitude were alluring to young women and forgivable to young men. When Max called him a lucky bastard, which he frequently did, Gilver only grinned wider, showing good teeth with a slight space at the front. He called it his Solzhenitsyn smile, although he was not absolutely sure how to spell it. No one knew how true Max's words were but they all particularly Gilver seemed delighted. It was logical to move in together when they headed for London. They were used to each other and there were no arguments in Waitrose, at least. Gilver had the best room, which was big enough to paint in. Even though the flat was at the top of the stuccoed building it didn't stop him painting large canvases that had to be manhandled down the stairs with difficulty. His first one-man show took place when he was only a year out of Oxford and it was a tremendous success. There was a piece in Harpers and photos in Tatler. A girl he had a fling with wrote him up as a bright young thing. The Evening Standard called him a young Turk. The show sold out. He was invited everywhere. He had always valued his paintings very high on the inverted principle that no one believed you could be any good unless the pricStockley, Philippa is the author of 'Edge of Pleasure ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780156032100 and ISBN 0156032104.