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.’

‘Child protection is what’s at issue here, Ben,’ Ifan Hopcyn spat out. ‘Like every parent of a child in this school, I’m concerned that no vulnerable boys are buggered by a sodomite.’

Ben was silenced by the affront of the Head Teacher’s allusion. Closing the door of the office behind him a pain in the palm of his right hand made him wince.

Ben keyed into the memory of the CD player the track numbers of the opera’s overture and Rienzi’s aria from the beginning of act five. They played alternately at full volume, for there were no neighbours on Ben’s hillside to be disturbed. He watched the colours of the sunset play on the river far below and the menacing clouds swirl around the giant’s throne high across the valley. Wagner’s music invaded the remotest recesses of Ben’s consciousness, its turbulence routing the recollected insults, its tenderness pacifying his spirit.