Photograph: Francesco Carta fotografo/Getty Images
This is the first time I’ve been single on Valentine’s Day since 1994. I didn’t give it a lot of thought – romance’s festival day has never been a great advert for the concept. In the best case scenario, it turns your real and important feelings into a commercial cliche, in the worst, it’s just a vivid and poignant reminder of how much you wish you were elsewhere, and at every point in between, it’s open season for restaurants to rip you off while you make dry conversation over drier chicken.
This year, however, I made a plan with two married friends. I did not anticipate how much I would enjoy bumping into their husbands around the place, going “guess where I’m going on Valentine’s Day? OUT WITH YOUR WIFE”, to see their astonished expressions, since, ensconced in long marriages, they can no longer remember what month it is, let alone if anyone has any plans.
Then my uncle, who was born on 14 February, broke the habit of a lifetime and decided last minute he wanted to celebrate. It’s a bit of a surprise because he’s not even 90, but I don’t think I’m breaking a taboo when I say it’s unwise to tell your favourite 89-year-old on Earth that you can’t make his birthday because you’re holding out for the big 9-0.
I always greet him the same way, “HELLO UNCLE RICHARD”, and he always greets me the same way, “HELLO ZO”, shameless, exuberant shouting, which is handy now because he’s deaf, but came about (in 1978) because I was just so happy to see him. In adolescence I had a choice whether to transmute to a more adult “hey, Richard”, and I elected instead to just stay the same, only ironic. And now I’m 52, and I shout “HELLO UNCLE RICHARD”, and it’s louder than ever, and I’m still so happy to see him.
If he were celebrating in a price-gouging restaurant, I would have no problem with that (although he would have a major problem with it – he’s very thrifty; and anyway, we’re going to the pub). There is no chance of conversation running dry, there being about a thousand Williamses-and-adjacents, and that’s just in Catford. The errant wives I had to reschedule are, unbelievably, free the next day. Best Valentine’s weekend ever.
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