The Valentine-Free Zone: A Love...Maybe Valentine eShort. Fiona Gibson

      I shrug. ‘Well, it’s obviously a sex thing, isn’t it?’

      ‘I don’t think so, Sal. I mean, I think it’s more to do with, uh …’ He frowns as I dip my hand absent-mindedly into the bowl.

      ‘Please don’t touch!’ the woman barks, snapping out of her spectacle-polishing reverie.

      ‘Sorry, I bluster, yanking my hand back out and sensing my cheeks burning. ‘I thought the card was part of the exhibit,’ I add, clearing my throat and striding towards a rusty old-fashioned pram piled high with plastic cutlery.

      ‘No,’ she woman says icily, ‘it means don’t touch.’

      ‘Sorry,’ I mouth.

      ‘Jesus,’ Michael hisses, ‘what were you thinking?’

      He exhales, giving the woman an apologetic look, and now I really feel like a naughty kid: the one who’s run amok in the supermarket and knocked over the tower of Quality Street tins. ‘I only wanted to feel them,’ I mutter, hoping we’re done with the art now and can head to the gallery cafe. After my telling off, I’m in urgent need of sustenance.

      ‘You can’t just touch things like that,’ Michael reprimands.

      ‘No one would know,’ I say huffily. ‘It’s not as if they were arranged. They were just tipped in any old way …’

      ‘For Christ’s sake, Sally …’ At least he’s laughing now, and shaking his head in a what am I going to do with you? sort of way. I squeeze his hand and kiss him tenderly on the cheek.

      ‘Shall we grab something to eat?’

      ‘Yeah, sure.’ He winds an arm around my shoulders as we make our way to the cafe. It’s a chilly, dismal affair, all white Formica tables and chrome chairs, and all that’s on offer is pea soup and rather beleaguered looking torpedo rolls. We sit opposite each other spooning green liquid into our mouths while Michael expounds further on the dreadfulness of Valentine’s Day. ‘What’s romantic about going online and clicking to order a bouquet? I mean, where’s the effort in that?’

      ‘None, I guess,’ I say. But you could have given me a sodding card. The thought takes me by surprise. Yet of course I’d expected a card from my boyfriend; I’m a normal woman, and I appreciate tokens of affection as much as anyone else. I can understand why couples who’ve been together for twenty-five years might not bother any more, but we are still new, or at least that’s how it feels to me. On and on Michael goes: ‘… and every restaurant tonight will be crammed with couples with nothing to talk about, ploughing their way through awful rip-off Valentine menus …’ Whereas we are having watery soup … He looks up at me and smiles. ‘I’m so glad you’re not that kind of woman, Sally.’

      I shrug. ‘It’d be nice to go out to dinner soon, though. I mean, I know we do a lot together, but it does tend to be going to see things …’

      ‘But you like seeing things, don’t you?’

      ‘Well …’ I pause, wondering how to put it. ‘I do, but to be honest that exhibition was a bit —’

      ‘You didn’t enjoy it?’

      Oh, for heaven’s sake. I must get over this thing I have of saying what I think I think I should say, rather than expressing how I truly feel. I mean, I’m attracted to Michael, of course I am. When my friend Lisa murmured that the good-looking sandy-haired guy at the bar kept checking me out, I glanced over my shoulder expecting to see the woman he was really interested in. Some posh, naturally blonde thing, perhaps. Someone who didn’t get excited by the shoe sale in New Look. But no: it was me, in my Primark dress and cheap, not-especially comfortable suede heels and rather over-enthusiastically highlighted hair. He came over and bought us drinks, and the next time I saw him – alone, of course – he literally charmed the pants off me in his tasteful city centre flat. However, I am conscious of not quite being myself when I’m with him. My laugh is less raucous and occasionally, when he quizzes me about my day at work – about the numerous waxings and pluckings, and the application of eyelash dye – I slightly suspect he’s taking the piss. ‘He treats you like a work in progress,’ my friend Kev joked, last time we spoke. ‘He’s trying to improve you, Sal. Don’t let him. You’re lovely just as you are.’