'Then I had to go to a conference in Paris. I told him way in advance that I was going, it was a job I couldn't get out of. It was a three-day conference on fisheries. I was in the translators' box on the last day and I suddenly saw Francois walking into the hall. He looked lost and strange, he was like someone who had gone out of his mind. All I felt was anger. I ran down and grabbed him and brought him up with me and kept him there. I was really pissed off with him, and I realised that I couldn't handle much more. Back in the hotel, I'm afraid I let a few roars at him, which I don't think I'd ever done at anyone before, and I told him he would have to pull himself together. I remember that we went to bed without speaking. We got the train back to Brussels without speaking and I realised we'd lost it.

'I thought that maybe we'd split up for a trial period and I went around with this in my head for a few days, but it was a stupid plan. I was just letting him down, I wasn't helping him, and I knew that if we split up now we'd never get back together again. So I remember one night when things were at their very worst asking him if he loved me and he said that he did. I said that I loved him as well, and I knew he was afraid of being alone, and I told him I would do anything to prove to him that I would stay with him. I told him I would show I meant it. And I did mean it.' Paul stopped and wiped his eyes with his hands. He stood and looked at Helen.

'What did you do?' she asked.

They sat down on the hard sand under the cliff at Cush and watched the waves breaking softly and the haze on the horizon and the mild sky.

'I did two things. I brought him home and reintroduced him to all my family, including my brothers, as my partner and my lover. Only my sister knew I was gay before that, and it was all difficult and emotional. It was OK in the end, mainly because of my father, oddly enough. That was the first thing I did.'

'And what was the second?' Helen asked.

'Maybe I'm boring you with this. I'm worse than Larry.'

'No, tell me,' she said.

'So, we went back to Brussels, and every time Francois talked about me leaving, I just said the same thing: "I'll do anything to show you that it's not true." He still hadn't gone back to work and he was depressed, and I'd come home from the Commission and he would have been in bed all day, and he was on all sorts of pills, but I kept saying to myself that I had to try and help him. We had a photograph of his parents enlarged and framed. We selected a gravestone. We went through all their things. I just said to him all the time like a mantra: "I'll do anything to show you that it's not true. I'm not going to leave."

'Both of us were part of a group of Catholic gay men in Brussels who met on a Wednesday night. Declan used to fall about laughing at the idea, and even more when I told him some of the things that were said. He used to call it Cruising for Christ. He just couldn't believe that we went there. But anyway, we did, and we made good friends there, and I asked a few of them \a151 I had to do this very discreetly because there were some activists in the group who were angry with the Church \a151 I asked a few of them if there was a priest in Brussels or anywhere who would bless us. One of them was an ex-priest himself, and he told me he knew someone, and would call on him and find out and come back and tell us. He came back and said that the priest he knew was worried about being set up for a publicity stunt, so I should go and see him and tell him that this wasn't about politics or publicity.

'The priest in question was a grumpy little old man, badly shaved, with dandruff everywhere and huge bushy eyebrows. He lived in a big shabby house in a part of Brussels I'd never been in before. He was hostile, but I knew that I hadn't been sent to him for nothing. He asked me things like when was the last time I had been to Confession. I said it was years. And Communion? I said it was a long time. He let a big shout at me that I just wanted to use the Church. I had no intention of arguing with him. He said he would phone me and he hustled me out.

'A few nights later he phoned and said that he wanted to meet us in our apartment. He came and sat there and looked at the two of us. He never smiled once or was in any way friendly. He asked us questions in a really abrupt tone. And then he stood up and said he would do it on three conditions \a151 one, that we made good confessions before the ceremony; two, that we went to Mass and Communion every Sunday for a year; and three, that we told no one. We said to him that the third was impossible, we would have to tell two people, but we would guarantee that they would tell no one – and, in fact, within a few days, we had told Declan and my sister. He mumbled something and left, and a few days later he phoned with a date and a time.

'He came to see us once more and informed us that he had something very important to say. He spelt it out carefully: he was prepared to marry us rather than conduct a blessing. He said, "I am willing to perform the sacrament of matrimony, if that is what you want." And we said that was what we wanted but we didn't think it could be done. "It can be done," he said, "but it is a grave step, and you must let me know if you have any doubts." We assured him that we wanted this. One day he rang and asked us if we "were going on a honeymoon and we said that we had thought of it. "Leave a few hours free after the ceremony," he said. We booked a flight to Barcelona for later that day, which was a Saturday, and booked a posh hotel for a week. We bought suits and had haircuts. The only things missing were the photographer, the organist and the wedding guests. That morning we packed our bags and we got a taxi out to the priest's house. Francois couldn't stop giggling when we were waiting at the door. It was the first time he had giggled like that since his parents died and I couldn't take my eyes off him.

'The priest heard our confessions separately, and then he brought us together and asked us again if we were sure. We told him we were sure. He brought us into a small church by a side door which he then locked. The church was done in gold and when he turned on all the lights it was all rich and glittering. He changed into his vestments and said Mass and gave us Communion and then he married us. He used the word "spouse" instead of husband and wife. He had it all prepared. He was very solemn and serious. And we felt the light of the Holy Spirit on us, even though Declan thought this was the maddest thing he'd ever heard and I suppose you do too.'

'I don't think that at all,' Helen said.

'We felt that we had been singled out to receive a very special grace. All three of us knelt and prayed for a long time.'

'Why did the priest do it? What was his history?'

'We never asked and we never found out. He had a housekeeper who was nearly more dishevelled than him and just as unfriendly, but that didn't bother us after the ceremony because we were so happy. Anyway, the padre asked us to eat with him, and it was straight out of Babette's Feast. Have you seen that?'

'No,' she said.

'It's a film where the most sumptuous meal is made for the most unlikely people. This housekeeper brought plate after plate of pate and lobster and prawns and stuffed everything, and then meringues and amazing cheese and a wine that the padre had removed the label from \a151 we knew it must have cost a fortune – and champagne. Our priest barely touched it, he sat back with his hands over his little paunch like an old Christian Brother, and almost smiled. We ate what we could. He loved us cooing every time more food came, although the housekeeper who had cooked it didn't look at us once. At the end he raised his glass and said something extraordinary. He said: "Welcome to the Catholic Church." And we proposed a toast to him and his housekeeper, but he said the person to thank was not them, the person to thank was Jesus Christ. But we didn't think we could propose a toast to Jesus Christ, we felt we had pushed our luck far enough, so we nodded in agreement, and we went to the airport soon after that. When we got into bed in the hotel that night, I said, "This is our first night as man and wife," and Francois asked who was the man and who was the wife. "Turn off the light," I said, "and I'll show you." We laughed until we shook, and that was the beginning of a new life for us. Although Francois still has his bad moments, it was a turning point and we're very close now. He hates me being away like this, but he loves Declan and he understands.'