Two days after I'd telephoned the prison, I met the postman as I left for work. I tore open the one envelope he gave me as I walked to the car, and inside was a prison visiting form.

So Christopher had agreed to my visit, I thought as I placed the form in my briefcase, snapping it shut. He must have. ‘A prisoner has the right to decline a visiting request.’ That’s what I was told when I called. And they’d have let him know who I was, wouldn’t they? He must know that it was me; the father he'd no doubt forgotten.

I filled in the form at my desk during morning break. I wrote as requested in black block capitals: name, date of birth, relationship to the prisoner, signature. And I took the time to be neat, unlike the almost illegible scrawls I made when marking. I suppose I felt as if this was a first impression. Christopher would probably never see it, of course. But if he did, I wanted him to know that I took my time. I wanted him to know I was taking it seriously. This was a new start, I told myself as I folded the page in half and slipped it into an envelope. A time to right my wrongs.

When Samantha and I were together, she was always the far less organized of the two of us. It took my want and need for compartmentalization to maintain any kind of order in our lives. Throughout our marriage I kept a file of important documents and correspondence to and from any companies we dealt with, all labelled in different colours for ease of reference: insurance companies, pink; gas, blue; electricity, green; bank, red. If ever I sent a letter, I made sure to take a copy for my own records.

This was a habit that I became rather used to, and at lunchtime I took the form to the photocopying room.
The room is usually deserted at this time of day, so when I opened the door I was surprised to see Jane’s large frame at the copier.

She turned and smiled simply. 'Daniel, I haven't seen you at all today. How are you?'

'Fine,' I said. ‘Are you going to be long?'

'No, no,' she chirped. 'Two minutes. Two minutes.'

And for the next two minutes she chattered away about how she was convinced there was some illicit affair going on between Marianne, the airhead drama teacher, and Alan, the incompetent deputy head. It was a match that I dared not imagine.

'I came in here the other day,' Jane said, her voice a whisper I reluctantly strained to hear, 'and they were both the colour of tomatoes. I mean, I wouldn't mind, but he's married. Kids as well. Little ones. Just yesterday he was telling me about taking them on holiday to Florida.’ She shook her head and tut-tutted. ‘It's not right if you ask me.'

I nodded but said nothing. This is one of the things I despise most about working in the school. It isn't the teaching of children who couldn't care less about the subject, nor the fact that I've been pedalling the same syllabus for fifteen years. It's the idle gossip. If anyone hears anything about another member of staff, it's shared over coffee and biscuits almost immediately. ‘Wait till you hear this,’ they say, wide eyed at the thought of sharing of a secret. ‘Guess what I heard.’ Or my personal ‘favourite’, ‘I shouldn’t tell you this, but…’ No one confides in me, of course, but I overhear their hushed conversations and become infuriated by their indiscretions, sure that I will one day be the subject of their trivial tittle-tattle.

'Right,' Jane said as she picked up a stack of photocopies from the tray. 'It’s all yours.'

'Thank you.'

I waited for a moment, expecting her to walk out of the room and carry on with her lunchtime elsewhere. But, no, she stood to my side and started to tell me how she’d been overcharged for a sausage roll in Parsons over the weekend and the manager hadn’t believed her.

‘I felt like a fraud,’ she said. ‘I mean, I’m hardly likely to con them out of fifty-four pence, am I? I’m one of their best customers.’

I muttered in agreement, but her presence was making me uncomfortable. I didn't want to take the form from my briefcase for fear that she would see what it was. It was unlikely, of course, but it was possible, and when you value your privacy as much as I do, such moments become minefields.

'Have you more photocopying to do, Jane?' I asked.
She shook her head. 'But I'll wait for you. It's nice having a natter, isn't it?'

'I've a four-page test to photocopy for my year eights,'

I lied. ‘I might be a while.’

'Well, I can help you. I'll staple it together if you like.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘You know me, happy to help.'

'That's kind, Jane,’ I said, aware that my tone was curt, maybe even rude. ‘But it's really not necessary.'

I could tell from her frown that my words had smarted, and I felt a pang of guilt for the way I was treating her.

She cleared her throat. ‘Well, I suppose I’ll see you later then.' She stepped over to the door, then paused and cocked her head to one side. 'Is everything okay?' she asked. 'I mean, you've seemed a bit-, a bit distant these last couple of weeks and -,'

'I'm fine, Jane,' I said, cutting her short. 'Just settling back into a new term.'

She smiled sadly as if she knew that I was keeping something from her. ‘So long as that’s all it is.’

When she'd gone, I placed the form under the lid of the photocopier and as the machine whirred into action I thought how easy it had been to lie to her. 'I'm fine,' I'd said, when inside I was anything but. Though I suppose having told lies of the magnitude that I have in the past, little untruths like those feel like nothing at all. In fact, they can even feel like the truth for they trip off the tongue so readily. It is a side of myself that I deplore, but is now so deeply engrained that I can see no other way of being. And in time I’ve learnt to accept that. I’ve learnt to accept that completely.

That was Monday, and when I came home on Friday evening there was a note on the living room table in Mario's writing: 'Someone called for you. No name. He will call back this evening. I'm at the restaurant tonight. Luana will be come over about seven o’clock. Hope that is okay. See you later.'

I read the note twice, unsure as to what I wanted it to mean. Could it be Christopher? I asked myself. But why would he have rung?

I placed the note back on the table and walked into the kitchen. As I poured a glass of wine, I imagined the worst, thoughts tangling in my mind. Perhaps he was calling to say that he didn't want me to visit, perhaps he wanted nothing to do with me. And could I blame him? No. Had I expected too much? Probably.

Sitting at the table, I flicked through the free local paper, not reading anything, just staring through the black and white pages.

An hour passed, and the phone didn't ring.

Two hours passed; still nothing.

When I saw that it was seven o'clock, I walked into the kitchen to make myself dinner, more for the distraction than because of any hunger.

I threw together an omelette and had just sat at the table when the phone rang, breaking the familiar silence.
It rang once, twice, three times before I crossed to the other side of the room and picked it up.

There was a lot of noise in the background, and he said nothing for so long that I thought he’d hang up.
When he spoke, his voice was so quiet that I almost didn’t hear.

‘I saw the form you sent,’ he said.

I sat in the armchair beside the sideboard, stretching the phone cord as far as it would reach.

‘It must have been a shock. I’m sorry. How are you? Is that a stupid question? I don’t know.’

When I heard myself rambling, I stopped talking and stared ahead at my featureless reflection in the blank television screen, waiting for him to speak again.

Almost a minute passed before he asked, ‘Why do you want to see me?’

I was about to answer when the front door opened and Luana called a cheery, ‘Hello’ from the hallway.

When she walked into the room and saw that I was on the phone, she cupped her face in her hands and whispered ‘sorry.’ I held up my hand as a wave and hoped she’d go straight to Mario’s room, closing the door behind her, but instead she walked into the kitchen and I heard the clattering of plates.

‘Who was that?’ Christopher asked.

‘My lodger’s girlfriend.’

‘Aren’t you married?’

‘No.’

'How come?'

I ignored the question and waited until Luana had walked past and into Mario’s room before saying, ‘I’ll only visit if you want me to.’

There was a beep-beep at his end of the line. ‘I’ve got two minutes left,’ he said. ‘You only get half an hour a day and I spoke to-,’

‘How was she?’ I interrupted, knowing that he meant Samantha.

He didn't answer and I suppose I admired his loyalty.

‘Why do you want to come?’ he asked.

‘Because I’m sorry.’

There was a long silence and I thought our time had run out. ‘For leaving?’

‘ For everything.’ Hearing another beep-beep, though I know I shouldn’t have pushed him, I asked, ‘Will you let me?’

I heard him speak to someone else at the other end of the line, then to me, ‘Part of me wants to tell you to fuck off, but the other part-, I don’t know.’

‘I understand if you don’t want me to. Of course I’ll understand.’

Luana walked back into the room and to the paper rack in the corner, shuffling through the stack of newspapers and magazines. What the hell was she looking for? Couldn’t she tell this was a private conversation?

‘If you want,’ Christopher said, ‘you can come next Thursday.’