admitted to the visiting room.
An ex-con who drank in Broganâs once told Danny prison smells like when you have shit on your shoe, but before you figure out thatâs where itâs coming from: thereâs a terrible, deathly smell, but you donât know what it is â
and itâs like that all the time.
And thatâs what the visiting room smells like: sweat and stale air and body odor and pungent cleaning product and tobacco smoke and cheap air freshener. And shit. The chairs in the room are mostly too small, little child-size plastic chairs that are hard to squeeze into and out of. They donât appear to help the smell either, because once you sit, your knees ride up and your face comes closer to your feet, so even if you donât actually have shit on your shoe, you think you do. Like a demoralized priest who has heard one confession too many, Danny had forgotten what the ex-con told him across the sanctity of the bar counter; now, as he furtively checks the soles of his shoes and finds them clean, thatâs when he remembers.
There are about twenty-five people waiting, adults and children, seated around tables. Some of the adults even have adult-sized chairs. Danny stands and his chair comes with him, making him feel like a trainee clown. He unsnaps himself and tries another chair, but itâs no better. He flashes on a visit he and Claire made once to a prospective, legendarily select kindergarden for the girls, where they were seated in the same kind of chairs while the âdirectorâ of the center, a humorless woman in a brocade coat and floral Birkenstocks and red-framed spectacles, talked at them about child-centered learning and wholeness and wellness and the vital need for full parental participation and Danny suppressed the urge to ask, if they were going to shell out so much money, why they had to participate fully as well, only for Claire to announce, when the meeting was through, that her career, such as it was (and at the time, it didnât even amount to teaching) couldnât justify her parking the kids in a creche, even one so dedicated to child-centered wellness. He remembers the moment because of the chairs, but also because it was emblematic of one aspect of their marriage: behavior on Claireâs part of which Danny disapproves (wishing to place the children in a creche when she has no job to go to) but tacitly appears to condone; and then a policy change where she comes around to his position, without his having argued his case. And so he feels triumph (that he will get his own way) and pride (that Claire and he are of one mind on so much) and a certain shame at his own passivity â what kind of man will not from time to time openly disagree with his own wife? The kind of man he is, it seems; the kind of man who would rather sit in a childâs chair than walk around the room until he has found one to fit an adult. The kind of man who, rather than ask his wife if sheâs been unfaithful to him, rather than tell her the extent to which their life is falling apart, will vanish with her children so he can try and put a stop to it.
When the prisoners enter, all dressed in spruce-green work shirts and pants, Danny stands, wriggling once more out of his chair. A blond-haired, pasty-faced prison guard weighing maybe three hundred pounds approaches, his breathing audible before he speaks.
âMr Brogan?â
Danny nods.
âOutside, sir.â
Danny follows the guard out, wondering what has gone wrong. Has he knowingly made a false declaration on his visitor application form? Maybe the cash in his wallet has been found to be counterfeit. That would be theater people for you. But now, here they are outside on a wooden patio stretching the length of the visiting room. There are four picnic tables fixed to the floor, and Jonathan Glatt in prison greens is seated at one of them.
âSaid he wanted the air. Said you wouldnât mind,â the guard
An ex-con who drank in Broganâs once told Danny prison smells like when you have shit on your shoe, but before you figure out thatâs where itâs coming from: thereâs a terrible, deathly smell, but you donât know what it is â
and itâs like that all the time.
And thatâs what the visiting room smells like: sweat and stale air and body odor and pungent cleaning product and tobacco smoke and cheap air freshener. And shit. The chairs in the room are mostly too small, little child-size plastic chairs that are hard to squeeze into and out of. They donât appear to help the smell either, because once you sit, your knees ride up and your face comes closer to your feet, so even if you donât actually have shit on your shoe, you think you do. Like a demoralized priest who has heard one confession too many, Danny had forgotten what the ex-con told him across the sanctity of the bar counter; now, as he furtively checks the soles of his shoes and finds them clean, thatâs when he remembers.
There are about twenty-five people waiting, adults and children, seated around tables. Some of the adults even have adult-sized chairs. Danny stands and his chair comes with him, making him feel like a trainee clown. He unsnaps himself and tries another chair, but itâs no better. He flashes on a visit he and Claire made once to a prospective, legendarily select kindergarden for the girls, where they were seated in the same kind of chairs while the âdirectorâ of the center, a humorless woman in a brocade coat and floral Birkenstocks and red-framed spectacles, talked at them about child-centered learning and wholeness and wellness and the vital need for full parental participation and Danny suppressed the urge to ask, if they were going to shell out so much money, why they had to participate fully as well, only for Claire to announce, when the meeting was through, that her career, such as it was (and at the time, it didnât even amount to teaching) couldnât justify her parking the kids in a creche, even one so dedicated to child-centered wellness. He remembers the moment because of the chairs, but also because it was emblematic of one aspect of their marriage: behavior on Claireâs part of which Danny disapproves (wishing to place the children in a creche when she has no job to go to) but tacitly appears to condone; and then a policy change where she comes around to his position, without his having argued his case. And so he feels triumph (that he will get his own way) and pride (that Claire and he are of one mind on so much) and a certain shame at his own passivity â what kind of man will not from time to time openly disagree with his own wife? The kind of man he is, it seems; the kind of man who would rather sit in a childâs chair than walk around the room until he has found one to fit an adult. The kind of man who, rather than ask his wife if sheâs been unfaithful to him, rather than tell her the extent to which their life is falling apart, will vanish with her children so he can try and put a stop to it.
When the prisoners enter, all dressed in spruce-green work shirts and pants, Danny stands, wriggling once more out of his chair. A blond-haired, pasty-faced prison guard weighing maybe three hundred pounds approaches, his breathing audible before he speaks.
âMr Brogan?â
Danny nods.
âOutside, sir.â
Danny follows the guard out, wondering what has gone wrong. Has he knowingly made a false declaration on his visitor application form? Maybe the cash in his wallet has been found to be counterfeit. That would be theater people for you. But now, here they are outside on a wooden patio stretching the length of the visiting room. There are four picnic tables fixed to the floor, and Jonathan Glatt in prison greens is seated at one of them.
âSaid he wanted the air. Said you wouldnât mind,â the guard
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