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Troye got his first suit when he was fourteen. He had one before then, an uncomfortable navy blue thing he only wore when he had to because the knees were worn out from skidding across the dance floor at weddings and the trousers were so short his sister, Sage, would plead with him not to wear white socks.

It's not that Troye hated the suit, it was that he never gave it much thought. He only wore it twice a year, if that, so it was just there if he needed it, sealed so tightly in the dry cleaner's bag that every time he tore into the thin plastic it was like opening a time capsule. He'd find confetti in the folded up cuffs of the trousers and get a whiff of the aftershave he always nicked a splash of from the bottle his father kept in the bathroom cabinet. And Troye liked that, liked that somewhere under the heavy smell of Paco Rabanne it still smelled sweet, of marzipan and thick, white icing, even though, thinking back on it now, it probably never did. But when he put the suit on, it didn't make him special. If anything it made him feel awkward. First it was too big, Troye swamped in it as he grinned for photographs. Then it was too tight, threatening to tear every time he sat down or reached out to shake someone's hand.

Not that Troye cared. He grew up climbing trees and falling into ponds trying to catch frogs so he never showed much interest in clothes. He was a jeans and t-shirt kind of a kid, and while he'd started to think more carefully about the t-shirts (the blue Jack Wills one he was given for Christmas beginning to fade he'd worn it so often) getting him in a suit was still an effort. So the morning the invitation to his cousin's wedding arrived and his mother announced that it was time Troye got a proper suit, he didn't get what the fuss was about. But it was a big deal, apparently, his father agreeing then handing his mother a wedge of £10 notes so thick it was enough to distract Troye from his bowl of wilting cornflakes. He'd never seen so much money, nor had he seen his mother so excited. She kept sneaking looks at him in the rearview mirror as they drove to Crewe. But halfway there, the corners of her mouth began to droop and Troye felt that stab in his stomach again, the stab he felt whenever she got that look on her face. It was the way she looked when she thought no one was looking, when she was hanging the washing out or waiting for the cashier to ring up their shopping at the supermarket. A frown that got deeper and deeper until she caught herself the way Troye's grandmother did whenever she fell asleep watching telly and woke herself up snoring.

Troye assumed, as he always did, that it was his fault, that he should have washed up his bowl before they left or not fought her when she told him not to wear trainers because they would be a pain to deal with when he was trying stuff on. With hindsight, she was probably sad that he was growing up, her little boy suddenly not so little, or, more likely, because his father had barked at her before they left the house, telling her not to buy anything in the sale. But then that was Troye's fault as well. As was the argument his parents had the week before when he persuaded his mother to buy his father a Martina Cole book for his birthday because he thought he would like it or the week before that when Troye forgot to tell her that he was going to the library after school. So as much as he hated his father for it, the dotted line he drew between him losing his temper and his mother frowning like that always came back to himself.

What little enthusiasm he had for getting a new suit waned after that as Troye worried about getting the right one, something his father would approve of that wouldn't earn his mother another telling off. Sage, must have sensed that because when they approached Marks and Spencer she shook her head and pointed at Topman saying, 'He's fourteen not forty, Mum.' Until then Troye was annoyed that Sage had come, sure that she was going to laugh at everything he tried on, but he was suddenly grateful that she was there. 'This one,' she told him with a bored sigh as he trailed after her, taking everything she plucked off the rails. 'And this one. Try it on with this black shirt.'

Troye just nodded dumbly, trying not to drop the armful of clothes as Sage put her hands on his shoulders and steered him towards the dressing rooms. It was a Saturday so Topman was packed, Troye joining the queue between a guy deliberating over two equally awful shirts and a couple bickering about what club they were going to that night. Troye hated shopping at the best of times, but as his arms ached under the weight of all the clothes and the beat of The Black Eyed Peas song punching at his right temple as though he'd said something about it's mother, it seemed like an extraordinary amount of effort for a suit that he was only going to wear a couple of times a year. And it's not like he felt anything when he tried the first one on, no sudden thrill at the sight of himself in the narrow mirror, at how broad his shoulders looked and how much longer his legs looked. He didn't feel that until he walked out of the dressing room to show his mother and Sage and everyone turned to look at him.