The newly-weds drive off at about half past four, signalling the end of things. No evening bash. Naomi had been to too many weddings where everything seemed to drag into a drunken all-nighter. The reception had been fine, with good food and everyone on strict orders to keep speeches short. There’d been a lot of laughter. Robby had camped up a bit when he’d had the stage, but his contribution was polished and funny. He’d even learnt two sentences of Welsh, which were applauded wildly.

Back at the house Seth changes into jeans and a sweater and carries his few things out to the car. Mostyn joins him on the pavement in front of the house, ‘Thanks for making the family whole on this special day.’ He puts out his hand to be shaken.

Seth shakes his head; ‘The family wasn’t whole Dad, not when I’ve had to pretend to be someone that I’m not! How can the family have been whole when the person I live with and love is excluded because of yours and Mam’s misguided sense of what was right?’ Seth flushes, gulps ‘Goodbye’ and turns away.

Freddy Mercury’s The Great Pretender is playing on auto-repeat along the Mawddach to Dolgellau and beyond. Passing through Bala without a stop, Piaf’s Non, je ne regrette rien persuades Seth to leave whatever lingering doubts he harbours deep in the surrounding mountains. At Penyffordd, where the dual carriageway begins, Seth aches for Jude’s touch of reassurance. He begins to welcome the freedom that Liverpool, just half an hour away, has helped him claim.

Jude isn’t home. Alongside his note there’s an envelope addressed to them both. The card inside announces: Jude Canter and Seth Williams, Eli and Nina Canter request the pleasure of your company at the wedding of their daughter Louise, to Joshua Rosenberg.

Eucharist

Eucharist

Kneeling at the communion rail, I wondered if it had been a free choice. In as much as any choice could be free, I supposed that it was so, but then people are always influenced by outside forces. Social norms, religious myths and beliefs, the political breezes of the age…. But yes, loving men in that way, and loving Joel in particular, finally hadn’t felt right; out of tune, somehow, with the sacred music inside. The priest, Dafydd, was at the other end of the rail administering the Sacraments. I knew him professionally and we’d even met at a few social events, but our acquaintance wasn’t a friendship that could share such secrets.