Crushed though he had been by his father’s rebuke, John dared not to defend himself. Instead, he answered, in his most emotionally turbid fashion, that he understood his father’s position perfectly well, whilst he sheepishly collected the spurned papers and silently absented himself from the room.
Like many homosexuals, John had learnt, when very young, to lie very skilfully. Never would he acknowledge what he was attracted to but, rather, feign interest in that which bored him; never would he speak of the longing that choked his heart but, rather, muffle up in his mantle the cries that besieged him. As a child, he harboured the formless fear that his secret – and he knew he had a secret, even before he could name it – would be found out and that he would be severely punished for it, shun
