At the Trafford Centre on that Saturday evening, she took me to Moss Bros. Not John Lewis I got the city wrong in my memory, because the Trafford Centre had a Moss Bros rather than a John Lewis in 2016, and the woman in front of me is about to correct me in three seconds if I get this wrong in my head.
She walked in ahead of me, found a shop assistant, explained that I needed a suit for a job interview, and when the assistant asked my size, she answered for me because she knew my size better than I did, because she had been paying attention for a year.
She picked out a navy suit. A white shirt. A silk tie in Crystal Palace blue she chose the colour deliberately, because she wanted me to walk into that interview looking like I already belonged. A pair of proper leather shoes. Brown leather belt. A navy pocket square that she spent four minutes folding until it sat right.
The total was three hundred and ninety-two pounds.
