THE SUIT

THE SUIT

He has become his suit. Few can resist the role the suit demands. You can become any set of clothes. Sometimes they are bigger than you.

The weather is fine this morning but he takes his umbrella anyway, it's like a third leg as he strides past the post box. The small one in the wall where you post little white letters, like bills. Where girls write to their friends in frilly pink envelopes. Where doomed job applications get twisted and caught on the wire braces. He uses the stand-alone one on the corner of Dunster Avenue for his important mail. His A4 manilla envelopes, too macho for the puny mouth in the wall. The Dunster Avenue one is a proper pillar box, big and meaty. Wide, open-mouthed, you hear your letters being swallowed whole, not just a delicate tickle in the back of the throat. The Dunster Avenue box is where he posted off his successful job application. The job which led to the Suit.

At the train station, he queues at the ticket office. He can smell last night's onion on the breath of the man behind him as he checks the clock on the wall. The woman in front of him can sense his impatience. She makes way for the Suit. "You go ahead of me," she says. "I've got twenty minutes before my train." He pays by plastic, his card and ticket are swivelled round to him. On the platform, passengers watch as the digital clock clicks on the minutes. Those with cases shuffle closer to the edge to be first on the train. He buys the Daily Telegraph and a cup of coffee with a lid. You have to buy a paper to match the Suit.

On the train he sits in one of those few seats in a confrontational arrangement, with a table. Most of the other seats are packed in rows, like on buses. Opposite him is an older man, leaning his elbows on his brief case which stands on his knees. His small son's brightly-coloured lunch box is similarly placed on his own small knees. The father's suit is grey, his shoes huge and black with lots of polish and few creases. There's a lot to this suit business. His own is navy blue. He brushes a few specks off his lapel and looks at his paper. The train judders into action. He hears threads of conversation cutting across his snatched reading about the state of the NHS. 4 Across is blank blank T blank blank. What time will we arrive at - ? He folds his newspaper and pops open his briefcase.

"Is this seat taken?"

He shifts his open briefcase onto the table so the young girl can sit down next to him. In the corner of his eye, he can see her crossed denimed leg swinging in time to the hiss on her ipod. The typed documents feel important in his hands. But it's full of errors. Why do so many people put an apostrophe in 'its' or anything ending in an 's', to that matter, where there clearly shouldn't be one? He gives furtive glances over his neighbour's shoulder every so often, to see the kind of book she's reading. To see if there's any juicy sex. He catches a line. I love men in uniform, says Judy. A woman's book. A mobile phone rings. His. It's Leonie. She's going to be late again she says. She's recovering from one of her migraines. He shakes his head.

At work, he feels the tone change as he enters the office. Sort of deferential. It's the Suit. Mary Potts makes him some coffee. She wears a suit too. A cream suit. But it doesn't have the same effect. Not here anyway. Because she's too old now to climb the corporate ladder. "How many spoons of White Death would you like today?" she asks. "Three," he says. The Suit gives him a sweet tooth. The White Death and the lunchtime beers are giving him a slight paunch under his vest under his white shirt.

He chairs the meeting this morning. Leonie flusters in during Apologies, clutching her head. She's yawning by Matters Arising and positively nodding off by Correspondence. Mary Potts has to elbow her awake in Any Other Business.

In the middle of the day, after a hard morning's work, he wanders across the road to the sandwich bar which caters for Suits like his. He looks like an executive on his lunch hour. Few concessions to the warm weather except his jacket is still in his office around the back of his leather chair which swivels. Whenever he sits in it, he becomes that important chair. He hurries back with his heart-attack sandwich, no time for beer today.

His diary is on his desk along with the picture of his fiancée and the pot plant. He used to know about different plants. He used to water them. Now he leaves that to Mary Potts. He looks at his watch. He's insecure if he doesn't know the time. He picks up the phone. "Mary? Can you tell Leonie I'd like to see her in my office, please?"

"Sit down please." He gestures to the smaller leather chair, the one on the other side of the table which doesn't swivel. He flips up the top page of a two-page report which is paper-clipped together, giving a fleeting glance at the under page.

"Well? It's happened again, hasn't it?"

"I'm sorry," says Leonie. "But I felt really awful this morning. I think I've got a bit of a virus."

He frowns. He can't afford the inconvenience of illness and so he never is ill. He assumes other people are ill because they want to be.

"I did try and get in as soon as I could," she says. "It won't happen again."

"How many times have I heard that?" He spins his gold pen in his hands. "I'm sorry but you've had your last warning." It's the Suit talking. "We're going to have to let you go."

"Let me go?"

"Correct." He looks down. He's finished dealing with her. He's surprised to find her still there when he looks up. "You can collect your P45 from personnel on your way out."

He feels a slight irritation as she makes her way to the door, her leather duffle bag gaping open-mouthed. Watched, she trips a bit on the carpet as she reaches for the handle. The door closes behind her. He rocks back in his chair, hands behind his head, and blows out. Not so difficult, though his face feels red. But it'll get easier. The Suit will see to that. He looks at his watch. There's never enough time in the day when you're wearing the Suit.

"Nice day at the office?" his fiancée asks when he gets home.

"Usual," he says, through a satisfying fatigue. "I'll go and run a bath,"

"You won't be long, will you? I'm going out in twenty."

Upstairs, he feels the power draining from him as he takes off the suit and hangs it up. He briefly catches sight of his flesh in the mirror: pale and defenceless without its armour. In the bath he tries to recapture the feeling the suit gives him. Did he really fire Leonie? But in the suit he's the office king.

He hears his fiancée rapping on the door. "Come on, hurry up in there. I need to spray my hair." There's a definite change to her tone. "And don't leave the bath a scummy mess."

Obediently he hoicks out the plug and calls over the snoring bathwater. "Where is it you're going again?".

She tuts. "Another interview. I did tell you."

"Oh good luck."

But as she swings into the bathroom he realizes she won't need luck. Her double-breasted red suit, starched so stiff you wouldn't want to cross it, will surely out-perform its rivals.

She applies the finishing touches to her appearance and leaves the bathroom with a note of authority.

She is becoming her suit. Few can resist the role the suit demands. Sometimes it is bigger than you.