The Landlord's Tale

If you were to pick a month of the year to celebrate love, it would not be February would it? In fifth century Rome it was perhaps warmer. Perhaps the rosebuds were bursting and the goats were getting frisky and those Lupercalian romps on the Palatine Hill, flogging women into compliant desire, all made sense at the time.

I love my wife. I love her so profoundly that I hardly think of it as anything unusual. But on this one day of the year, beneath this unvisited mantle of sky when the tourists and the pilgrims are few, I have more time to observe my regulars: those with a blithe affinity with St Valentine and those who would rather eat a toenail sandwich than celebrate it in any form.

In its way it is much worse than Christmas. We harbour an instinctive sympathy for those who spend that day alone, and we are helpless in the face of the recently bereaved and their relatable lack of interest in the esoteric quest for a moist turkey or a cracker that still bangs. In truth, most of us view Christmas as an annual triumph of hope over experience. And yet while it reminds us that we all in the same boat, Valentine’s Day too often reminds people that they are not on a boat at all but a life raft on which they are the sole occupant - and that though captaining your own ship is a noble aim, without an appreciative audience there is a tendency to drift towards the doldrums.

So here am I, a willing curator of the stories of Valentine, an arbiter of what is true and what is absurd; who is stoic, who is heartbroken, who is boastful and who is merely kidding themselves.

The Miller’s Tale

Robin Miller, a carpenter, always has the same drink - a red and fruity local brew called Miller’s Ale. I am not convinced he likes it but he is as loyal to the patronymic as he is loyal to his young wife, Alison. She is an objectively beautiful girl, whereas Robin is more homespun. He has the face of a plain and honest grafter, the sort that once beamed out of old photographs and made the country great. Countless times he has been told that he is ‘punching,’ and he takes it all in good humour because he is so full of love for his wife it has blinded him to what is obvious: that she is free with her favours - a fact known to the entire town except for him.

He congratulates me on my decorations, bunting streamers of red hearts pinned to the medieval rafters, and of course I ask him what he bought his wife to mark the day. He can barely conceal his excitement when he pulls out an expensive jewellery box and shows me the contents, a necklace which must have cost him several months’ work. ‘I’ll give it to her later,’ he says. ‘She’s visiting her mum this afternoon.’

No she isn’t.

Then he told me a story, just a small snippet from the Valentine’s Book of Condolence, about a woman he once knew who bought herself an enormous bunch of red roses every year and then paraded around the town, smiling inscrutably and accepting all the usual comments: ‘Oh! They’re beautiful! Who’s the lucky man?’ - or, later in the evening, (the roses wilting by then), a chancer might say: ‘I suppose you’ll have to open your legs for those ..,’ and she says, ‘No, it’s fine, I’ve got a vase.’ Boom! Boom!

Robin Miller told this little story with the sympathy of a man in love, who could not imagine the pathos of such a desperate Valentine’s manoeuvre. I, on the other hand, thought it was enterprising of her. Without the flowers she was merely single and desperate. With the flowers she was writing the terms of competition.

Miller never stays long. Today it was clear that he needed to get home so he could pace the floors until his wife returned. In his nervous, fidgety wake, I was left wondering whether he would wise up before or after his heart was broken.

The Knight’s Tale

On this day and every other, Sir Roger Malfoy is the perfect customer. Having been tapped on the shoulder with the (then) queen’s sword for services to television, Sir Roger can legitimately claim the cloak of chivalry. He is perfect for the role in countless ways. He is generous with his money, for one. A simple word of acknowledgment his way will result in a free drink. He never discusses politics and he is unfailingly polite to everyone, regardless of status. He does, as Kipling put it, ‘Walk with kings yet keep the common touch.’

In all his long and illustrious life, Sir Roger has never attracted a hint of scandal, and I credit this to love.

When Roger was at Oxford he met a student called Emily. She was an ‘It girl,’ a woman possessed with a rare quality for which there is no suitable adjective. True to his chivalric backstory there was another rival for Emily’s affections, and so what had once seemed firmly in the bag was disturbed by the entrance of this better-looking interloper who excelled in sports and came from a superior family. Emily was at first bemused and then alarmed, and Roger decided to take a step back, leaving the field clear for the man he thought was the better candidate.

Shortly afterwards, Emily was involved in a traffic accident in which her left leg was severely damaged. At first the Lothario was attentive in his hospital visits, but when they told her that her leg would have to be amputated below the knee, he came no more. Incensed by this lack of commitment, this lack of love for Emily, Roger rushed to the hospital and held her hand before the surgery and in all the days afterwards, when she grieved the loss of her limb. During those long vigils, Emily confessed that she had always loved Roger more, and had been hurt by his refusal to fight for her. I don’t know what passed between them as conversation during that time, but I suspect that Roger had simply bowed to a latent inferiority complex - the same complex that keeps him so grounded and pleasant despite all his success.

Their’s is a true and uncomplicated love story. Even in his seventies, he was telling me what his plans were for Valentine’s Day and his voice still quivered with the excitement he must have felt on his wedding day all those years ago.

The Pardoner’s Tale

In medieval times the fear of burning in hell nurtured a gullibility that was ripe for exploitation. Conmen abounded, and few were worse than the pardoners, who would misappropriate the uniform of the clergy and travel the land armed with the bones of an animal, (or human booty from a charnel house), which they claimed to be the relics of the saints. For a few coins, the femur of St Tom, a phalanx from St Dick or a piece of St Harry's holy clavicle would buy you absolution and cancel your scheduled meeting with the infernal imps.

Simon Bragg is not a pardoner, but he is a conman. I will never understand how he attracts so much female attention, so I can only revert to an old suspicion that some women just like a wrong ‘un. He does not offer an easy afterlife but seems hellbent on making life a misery for women in this one. He exploits the empty vessels of the lonely, many who have been abandoned with children to care for and who spend their unsatisfactory days swiping right or left depending on some pre-determined preference of form. With his cratered complexion and lank, yellow hair I am surprised that he gets so much traction, which he gleefully proves to me at every opportunity. His M.O. is to run at least five women at once and boasts that remembering all the names keeps his brain sharp. Valentine’s Day was once a challenge for Simon, but in recent years he has slimlined the operation in order to save time and money. A week before Valentine’s he ditches four out of the five and turns his attentions to the one most likely, or available, to sleep with him on the night.

The man makes me queasy. I doubt he’s broken many hearts, but his complete lack of principle in matters of love is something I am not designed to understand. His shallow life appears to involve nothing more than an endless round of mindless rutting.

Before long Simon Bragg will be another seedy old man drinking in the snug in dirty clothes. His will pardon his own loneliness by maintaining that the right woman just never came along, but how could he possibly know? He was always too busy lining up the next one to find out.

Eventually he finished his drink and ran off to meet his surviving valentine, forgetting to collect the limp and sorry bouquet from the garage forecourt that he had left on the bar.

The Cook’s Tale

There is a thunderous clap from the kitchen as Perkin drops another pan. He has probably been drinking but I don’t mind it so much as people think. I’ve seen him sober and it’s no improvement. The way I see it, he’s out back, he cooks, he washes up and mops the floor before he leaves. As long as he doesn’t piss in the soup I’m prepared to forgive him his foibles.

It is hard to get a word out of Perkin, but today I suspect that the dropped pan was more to do with nerves than Special Brew. Tonight he has a date, an event as rare as snowdrops in July, and I am rooting for this guy. He could be, as my wife keeps telling me, a real keeper.

I want him to be happy. As I see it, there are those who are made for romance and those who are not. All I ask is that on this one day in the calendar year, put aside your cynicism and that old love-hate rhythm of your days and let us happy people be happy. Yes, we’re lucky, but somewhere down the line we’ll pay the price for it, just like everyone else.

If it makes you feel better.

The Wife of Bath’s Tale

Now here’s a one to end on, before I close the pub for the night and take my beautiful wife to our favourite hotel.

Rose is not from Canterbury. She claims to hail from Bath and boasts that she was once married in the abbey there. It is hard to keep count of how many husbands she has lived through, but it’s enough to earn her the nickname of the black widow. Like many women of her type, she is nothing to look at. Her success with men seems to spring from an imperative that she must always be somebody’s wife, and clearly there are men out there who find that level of insistence appealing.

She is currently wed to old Paddy McBain who has got twenty years on her, at least. He’s a frail old man who used to spend a couple of hours every lunchtime in here, counting out his coins and eking out his beer. He’s clearly got money otherwise the black widow would not have married him, but he was never forthcoming with it before.

Despite that major flaw I like Paddy, and I’ve been concerned these past few weeks because he never comes in anymore. She does, a couple of times a week, but never with him. When I ask her about him she just says he’s started a new jigsaw or something sarcastic like that.

When I asked her again today she said ‘Oh, he’s got stomach ache.’

It just seemed odd to me. Kids get stomach ache but old men like Paddy are Teflon-coated. Either way it seemed off that a wife would leave her husband alone on Valentine’s Day for any reason, and it struck me that Rose was the type of woman who loved to hate. I don’t mean love/hate, where you are often enraged by your partner but would still tramp over hot coals for them. I mean that she literally hates Paddy, and probably did when she married him. So if it was all about money and nothing to do with love, I figured that Paddy might be in some kind of danger. I told her that Paddy should see his GP and she said that he didn’t need a doctor. She seemed very certain about that. Her husband is eighty if he’s a day and she is trying to tell me that a visit to the local surgery would not be routine for a man of his age?

My father was 83 when he died at home from a heart attack. He was constantly in and out of hospital, but he hadn’t seen his local doctor for months and so his remains were sent for postmortem. If you haven’t seen your GP in your final six weeks, you get cut up on the table. Those are the rules, however many times you’ve been poked and prodded at the hospital, and despite the fact that deceased old people are not generally viewed as medical curiosities that would warrant a probe.

She was uncomfortable in my company after that, probably kicking herself for mentioning the GP. She left after the first drink, citing a meeting with a friend. Again, who does this on Valentine’s Day? I am almost certainly over-reacting but this stuff happens. An old man, a drop of poison and a quick cremation, no questions asked.

I told an old drinking pal my concerns, and after a quick call on speakerphone, where Paddy's incoherent agony was broadcast from floor to rafter, Dutty Maine swiftly finished his drink and raced out the door with the focus and urgency of a loyal brother in arms.

Paddy needs to get to hospital. He also needs to see his GP.

*****

Now I am nursing a brandy at the bar and waiting for Her Highness to come down from upstairs. The pub is empty, and so it’s just me and the comforting, ancient ghosts. All around town people are either celebrating love or cursing its black heart. People are strange, and nobody knows this better than a landlord. With my hand on my heart, it offends me that people do not love more, and I suppose that colours my judgement.

I raise my glass to the bunting hearts on the ceiling. I hope that the miller is not damaged by his wayward wife, I hope that the knight and his own wife die at exactly the same moment, hand in hand. I sincerely hope that the pardoner’s cock falls off, and that the chef has the best night of his quiet and apologetic life. The wife of Bath was always the best story, but as it stands I cannot offer her an ending. I can only hope that the rat poison finds a high shelf and her grifting ways meet a low retribution.

But mostly I hope that my wife comes down the stairs in the next two minutes because the taxi driver is getting antsy, and we cannot have that on Valentine’s Day.

When she finally appears she looks at me and says, ‘Do you have everything you need?’

And I look at her and say, ‘I do.’