During the quiet hour that evening Llŷr told them the story of Saint Beuno and the curlew; he’d watched the birds for most of the afternoon, breaking off the legs of small crabs before swallowing them. According to the legend, Beuno, in the years before coming to Enlli to die, had lost his book of sermons over-board on a stormy sea crossing; in some despair, he arrived back at his cell in Clynnog Fawr to find his sermons, pulled from the sea and carried back to him by a curlew. It was a story Gethin had heard every summer on the island, but then, of Enlli’s twenty thousand, Beuno was his father’s favourite. Gethin’s mind wandered to Bernd and to Seal Cave and now, before God, he wasn’t so sure that it was the ‘beautiful thing’ it had been that afternoon.

Later, feeling heavy with a guilt that only Welsh Calvinism could bestow, Gethin left Carreg Fawr in search of some distraction. Near Ogof Hir he looked for Shearwaters. Beuno came to him…. And then there were two others, perhaps Dyfrig and Padarn, but their faces were hidden under their hoods… and there were curlews; lots of curlews. Startled by the swiftness of their appearance, Gethin dropped his torch; the glass broke as it hit the rocks and the beam died. The blackness of the night wrapped itself around him and, through the curlew’s melodic ‘cur-lee’, Beuno whispered his wisdom. Gethin didn’t want to hear words of judgement and condemnation and he hit out at the three robed figures, shouting at them to leave him alone. Their robes and whisperings folded over and under him and, quiet in their embrace, he was carried back to Seal Cave. Beuno spoke through the whisperings of the other two in a babble of Latin and Welsh, Greek and Hebrew, and though it sounded odd, Gethin understood. Beuno wept for all the men down the centuries whose lives had been tortured by self-hatred because they had loved other men. ‘The glory of God is the fully alive human being,’ he’d said, ‘and as it is your providence to love men, love them well, in truth and faithfulness…. Where love is true and faithful, God will dwell…. Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est….’

The bell rang and as Gethin watched Mr Bateman pack away his books he decided that his need to talk might keep until another day. They both reached the library door together and with a broad smile, Mr Bateman asked, ‘Sut wythnos ges ti ar Enlli? – What sort of week did you have on Bardsey?’ Gethin said he had a lot to tell and agreed to help set up some apparatus in the lab during the lunch break. And so Gethin got to talk.

Mr Bateman listened as Gethin explained that he now realised he was gay and understood that he needed some support, but he interrupted Gethin when he started to tell him about Bernd and the Seal Cave…. ‘I don’t want to know if you’ve had sex with boys, Gethin; that would put me in a difficult position.’ And he explained about the school’s policy on sex education and the laws that guided it; ‘I’d be expected to inform the head if I knew that one of our pupils was having sex below the age of consent… and the school policy doesn’t really give me much guidance on how to talk with you about gay issues…. Can’t you talk about this with someone else?’ After a long silence Gethin said that he didn’t think there was anyone else, but that he didn’t want to put Mr Bateman in a awkward position either, and he left the lab feeling let down and lonely.