Ben heard Catrin’s advice echo in his mind and without flinching he looked into Ifan Hopcyn’s grey eyes and asked, ‘Why do you want to know if I’m a homosexual?’

‘I’ve got the reputation of a school to defend and over three hundred adolescent boys to protect,’ he said, almost pleading. ‘Don’t you think that those are good enough reasons for me to know?’

‘But I’m not clear why the school’s reputation needs to be defended nor what the boys need protecting from,’ Ben replied firmly.

‘I’ve heard that you told your Year Ten tutor group you might be a homosexual.’

‘No,’ Ben interrupted. ‘We had a discussion about homosexuality which Iddon Jones and your daughter, Manon, introduced with clippings from today’s newspapers.’

Ben recounted the direction of the arguments and explained how, when asked if he was gay, he’d deliberately chosen to be ambiguous so that the class would think about the issue in general terms and not get caught up in personalities.

‘But I still need to know, Ben,’ Ifan Hopcyn said. ‘When parents start phoning me up worried about their children’s physical and moral welfare I have to be able to put their minds at rest either by telling them that you’re not a homosexual, or if you are, that I’ve taken all the necessary steps…’

‘What are you talking about, Mr Hopcyn?’ Ben asked, with an edge of disbelief in his tone. ‘We’re at the end of the twentieth century now… not the nineteenth!’

‘People in this community will not tolerate a homosexual teaching their children, damn it!’ Ifan Hopcyn banged his desk with a solid fist. ‘We’re not living in a left-wing London borough, Ben – this is cefn gwlad for God’s sake,’ he said, his voice raised.

A terse silence overwhelmed them.

When Ifan Hopcyn spoke again he’d regained his composure, ‘I won’t have homosexuals teaching at this school and I believe that the governors will support me in this.’

‘You’re going to put every teacher at Bro Meirion through this then,’ Ben said. ‘Some kind of purge, to cull the so-called morally unacceptable?’

‘Is that your admission?’ he asked.

Ben shook his head and smiling wryly he said, ‘No… no, it’s not an admission of anything. My answer to your question about whether I’m gay is the same as I gave to Year Ten this morning.’

‘I’m sorry that you’ve chosen to be so unco-operative and unprofessional, Ben,’ he said, strumming his fingers on his desk. ‘I’ll talk with as many of the governors as I can this afternoon and this evening; don’t be surprised if you’re suspended until I can call a full meeting of the board.’

Ben sighed and shook his head in utter disbelief. As he got up to leave he said quietly and with as much dignity as he could grasp, ‘If your bigotry, Ifan Hopcyn, extends to the board of governors, then my days at Bro Meirion are surely numbered, so let me say this. I’ve given fifteen years of my working life to build the academic reputation of the science department in this school, and I’ve worked pretty damn hard to turn out some decent, well-rounded young people. Consider me unco-operative if you will, but don’t ever call my professionalism as a teacher into question. If I am a gay man then think about this. Being gay wouldn’t be something that got switched on like a light this morning. Fifteen years suggest that it is not my suitability as a teacher that’s at issue here. Something far bigger is at stake.’