Savile Row

In one smooth move, he flicked his wrists and shot his cuffs - pink, bejewelled cuffs - the cufflinks alone worth as much as his entire outfit. The pin-striped suit flashy, the Thomas Pink shirt an eye-grasping cerise, the tie impeccably knotted, the shoes Lobb's finest. He stepped off the train with an air of minutely studied nonchalance. Not a hair unstyled, not a thread misplaced. His teeth were pearlier than white and his skin the colour of cheap old pine. Even his eyebrows were groomed to perfection.

Strolling past a group of office girls giggling, smoking and bursting with the previous night's gossip on the corner outside the station, almost imperceptibly he seemed to grow an inch, suck in his stomach, push out his chest, compose his features. His head struck a jauntier angle, his smile fixed in a fairly miserable attempt at seductive. Even the man-bag slung casually over his shoulder exuded affluence and attention to detail. He was a creative masterpiece, sculpted to the exact mould, perfected hour after hour, day after day, many a long year after many a long year.

His roots were humble; his determination to rise above them gritty, steely, already achieved. Seldom, to his parents' obvious distress, revisited. He was recreated, reborn, removed. It caused him as much pain to remember; he ached for the capacity to forget. An only child, there was little to tempt him out of the City, little to remind him of his provenance, as long as he could hold his memories in check.

Each and every microscopic facet of transformation dreamt of throughout his battle for adulthood had been realised: the penthouse flat, the Savile Row wardrobe, the Aston Martin (for fine weekends).

Why, then, was life so empty? He had become a parody. At home, where he could not bear to linger, he was what he so yearned to be: a success, a king amongst men. Here, where he felt he ought to belong, he was just another clone. The veneer had become the man.

No sign of life.

Who can love a shell?