Chapter 11. The fatherhood that wasn’t

From my forthcoming book, Death of a Gentleman'

Part II: Intimate masculinity

A Lee day

In 1995, in a small apartment in Guildford, a twelve-month-old boy I will call O learned that I was a person who turned up in the evenings. He learned this in the way twelve-month-olds learn things, which is by repetition, by smell, by which adult laughed at his jokes (technically, his attempts at jokes; comedic tim…