The Master Tailor – Part 1: The Fitting

The shop on the narrow street smelled of wool, chalk and hot steam. Bolts of cloth lined the walls from floor to ceiling, grey flannel, navy worsted, dark herringbone, and a tall three-way mirror stood in the corner, flanked by a low wooden block. A single lamp lit the cutting table. The blind was down, the sign turned to CLOSED.

Henrietta stood at the table with a tape round her neck and a row of pins pushed into her cuff. She was fifty, a bespoke tailor of thirty years, with grey-streaked hair twisted up in a pencil and a face that gave nothing away. Callum was forty-two, a clerk to a High Court judge, careful and correct in every part of his life but one.

"You have a confession to make," said Henrietta.

"I do."

"You told me last month that being measured was the most restful thing you knew."

"It is."

"Then we shall discuss it properly." She slid a sheet of cream paper across the table. Terms of the Fitting. His limits and hers, written in her small, exact hand. No marks, nothing painful, no real humiliation, nothing beyond the night, no one else in the shop. The word was Selvedge.

"Say it."

"Selvedge."

"If you say it, the Master steps down. I put the kettle on. We discuss the Tuesday football."

"Yes, Madam."

"Not yet." She unhooked a long black apron from its peg and tied it round her waist, and drew on a pair of fine white gloves. Her voice slowed and cooled, as it did when a customer insisted on the wrong lapel. "Mr Callum. You have been standing badly. I have observed it for months."

"I am sorry, Madam."

"You will be. Step onto the block."

He stepped up. The wood creaked softly. In the three-way mirror he saw himself from every side, shirtsleeves, loosened tie, the face of a man who was both afraid and relieved. She walked a slow circle with the tape trailing from one hand, saying nothing at all, and he felt each second stretch.

"Arms out."

He held them wide. She measured, one shoulder, the other, the length of his arm, the breadth of his back, writing each number with a stub of pencil in a thick ledger, with the dry concentration of a woman who had measured every kind of man and was not fooled by any of them.

"Chin up. Eyes on the glass. Do not look at me."

He looked at himself, and saw the line of his own body relax for the first time that week.

"Are you content, Mr Callum?"

"Content, Madam."

"Good. The fitting is long."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Selvedge.