Charlie Muffin took the better of his two suits from the cleaner’s bag and laid it on the bed for comparison with the new shirt and tie; the trousers were still a bit shiny at the seat and there was a small fray at the turn-up on the left leg, but overall it was good enough. Poncy bugger, he thought, self-critically, conscious of the effort to impress. There hadn’t been many times when he’d bothered. Marks and Spencer, 1959, he supposed. Trainee manager,?3 a week, subsidized canteen, two weeks’ holiday a year and a guaranteed pension: his mother had a thing about pensions, just like she had about wearing clean underpants every day in case he was ever knocked down in the street. And the wedding, to Edith. Except that he hadn’t managed it then. He’d meant to, like he’d meant all the promises he’d made to her. Just slipped his mind, in the pub. So he’d arrived at the registry office with the jacket of the new suit still damp from sponging away the spilled vindaloo of the previous night’s stag party curry, a hangover that would have felled a bear, and had had to excuse himself halfway through the register signing to throw up in the vestry lavatory. Hadn’t done that successfully either, so he’d reappeared with fresh sponge marks on the suit. Edith hadn’t been lucky from the very beginning.