HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

 I received my last Valentine day’s present eons ago but it was definitely the best I’ve ever had in all of my life.

The doorbell that sounded like a broken carillon rung at around 2pm. He was standing at the door with his left hand hidden behind his back.

What was he hiding from me? Was it a bunch of flowers? Maybe they were the plastic variety that grows in DIY stores, like the ones he had given me a couple of years earlier and had made me lough so much, or was it a pot of yellow miniature roses, like the ones still timidly growing on my window sill? Not it was it the Japanese cake from Piccadilly Circus. I was trying to guess when suddenly an unnatural looking green stem with some red lacy petals on top materialized in front of me. I took the rose and jokingly put it under my nose, it had a strong and tacky smell, and thanked him. He smiled. I knew there was something else I wasn’t getting.  What was the joke? ‘Thank you’ I said ‘ I didn’t expect a present this year. We have broken up. You know. Don’t you?’ ‘Oh, I couldn’t resist’ he said with nonchalance  ‘such a brilliant present’ he added with a smile on his face. I looked at the rose again.  Slender, dark red, like those bleeding valentine hearts draped everywhere in town for about a week climaxing the arrival of 14^th February− inside restaurants, on napkins, in flower shops, on London’s buses adverts. 

Him and I never really bothered with Valentine’s Day, we were not the type to sit at a crowded restaurant surrounded by fake and sugary faces playing the ‘romance game’ every year. Oh no! Not us. But although we didn’t want to play the game we didn’t want to be totally left out, so we made our own rules and played our own game. After all a silly game cries out for silly presents and my ex had the knack for finding the most brilliant valentine’s presents in town.

Deep down I was happy that he had thought of me now that we were no longer an item. I wasn’t having second thoughts about splitting up (was I?) Oh no! but I had no doubt in my mind that I would never find someone with the same gift as him. After all he was a one off in everything.  Incredibly clever, a PhD dropout with an insatiable thirst for anything dangerous.

‘You might as well tell me. I am never going to guess’ I said while putting the kettle on. ‘Pull it’ he said ‘pull the petals’ and so I did. The lace, all rolled up in one piece, unfolded, and a pair of nickers took shape in front of me.

Wow I thought. This to my eyes was the most perfect of all Valentine’s presents. The true honest summery of what Valentine’s Day is all about.  Call me a romantic, if you wish, but I don’t think anyone is ever going to bit him on that one…and on many other things for all that matters.  

Today, while I am sitting here on my own writing my blog and eating roasted chicken from Budgens with my hands−I am having my flat redecorated and I can’t find anything not even knives and forks−I am thinking of the times when there was still romance in my life. So wherever you are I want to make a toast. You might have not been the perfect boyfriend but you were certainly the funniest one and as you know that has always been my weakest point.  Mimicking Richard III, I say: 'A laugh! A laugh! My kingdom for a laugh!'

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody.