Only when it had arrived and he had taken a large sip did he finally begin. ‘Well, I was an art school whizz-kid. I went early, taught myself to draw and, at first, followed the party line. At that time anything representational was considered naff. Only abstract or conceptual work was thought worth anything. Do you know what I’m talking about?’ ‘I am on an art appreciation course. I have heard of Tracy Emin.’ ‘Sorry. I was forgetting. Where I come from people mostly think an unmade bed is an unmade bed.’ ‘Go on.’ ‘Well, I did the conceptual stuff, the dustbins full of road kill, the giant aquarium with amputated limbs suspended in jelly. And I did the abstracts, great swirling balls of fuck-all, which I made out represented “anger” or “grief”. And I wrote statements about why I did what I did that would make you sick. Come the degree show, I did what I wanted. Paintings, drawings, of things you could recognise. I thought I’d be slated, but no, that came later.’ He took a sip of brandy and Thea sensed that there was a certain amount of pain in what he was about to tell her.
