VALENTINE EPISODE ONE VALENTINE'S DAY Valentine stood there. A lonely lover The last of the great romantics. The phantom of the opera. A lonely heart in a room full of cracked mirrors. A silly teenage crush. The drama queen of the disco scene. He wouldn't look twice in a mirror of madness? And suddenly isolation and loneliness left him and he felt warm again. He felt wanted, but more importantly, he felt used. He was enjoying the game. Hey man can you give me a lift home I've missed the last bus. Of course, no problem. The same pathetic answer which was becoming oh so predictable. Love was a game that you played until you won or lost. Valentine knew the rules. He could never get it right and was always falling far too short of what might be expected of him. He was a child in a man's underpants. Oh, grow up Valentine. What do you want from a relationship for Christ's sake? That was it. That was the problem. Sex, cheap thrills or everlasting? Love confused him and sounded far too complicated and messy. It meant commitment. And that was something that Valentine didn't understand or accept. The art of falling apart. Valentine couldn't stand the thought of it. It sounded like a dirty word. A prison sentence. So he ran like a baby couldn't commit and was always found wanting which is why they never seemed to last because he wouldn't put pen to paper. So they had a shelf life and so did Valentine. He stood at the lonely end of the bar, his half-empty glass glistening in the green spotlight, his crisps strewn all over the floor waiting to be crushed into the carpet. It's a wonder he hadn't been thrown out. He had been standing there for three hours and he hadn't finished his drink let alone the crisps. There was a comical predictability about it that was annoying. He was playing his role to perfection yet again. The romantic idiot with a codpiece for hire. He knew he was in for another lonely Saturday night. The sad-sounding violins were already playing in the background. He tried to look disinterested in the people who were standing around him but he kept overhearing parts of conversations, kept slipping in and out of earshot and hoped that one day it might be him. He didn't care if he was arguing about what happened in the bar the night before last or if he was being accused of spending far too much time talking to another woman or how lousy sex had been or planning which gig they were going to see Bowie or Roxy Music. Anything would be better than nothing at all. Valentine seemed to be destined for the dustbin of bachelor life. Takeaway meals and late-night porno films all seemed so predictable, so boring. He tried to remember the last serious relationship that he had. Oh my God, it was five years ago with a girl called Ruby who insisted on attaching herself to his left arm and at the end of the night when they were playing the pairing-off game Valentine was always left standing there with Ruby still attached to his left arm, so he had no other choice but to give her a lift home in his battered old red Ford Escort. Then she would politely give him a quick peck on the cheek, and get out of the car as quickly as possible to be met by her dad who was always waiting on the doorstep. And so any thoughts that he might have had of a great snog and rampant sex on the back seat of his car had been completely thrown out of the window. She was a devout Christian. Either that or she wasn't interested. It had to be one or the other. The relationship finally came to a rather abrupt end when Valentine tried to grope Ruby's left breast on the back seat at the cinema. That was the final straw. Valentine was always under the warped misguided opinion that groping was a socially acceptable part of the courtship ritual. What planet of the apes was he from for Christ's sake? Flowers and a box of chocolates might have helped but they seemed far too predictable. He was overdosing on too much porno. It would have to stop. After all was said and done he could never remember his Mom and Dad being romantic so why should he? When he came to think about it he couldn't remember them being romantic full stop. It wasn't in their DNA or at least not in front of him anyway. Saturday night was destined to end like a damp squid when somebody pushed his right arm and he spilt what was left of his pint all over the bar. What the fuck? He was about to say as he spun around to see who the gorilla was and he couldn't believe his eyes. It was the prettiest girl that he had ever seen. I bet you don't recognise me, Valentine. He racked his brains but he couldn't think. No idea, he said feeling like a complete idiot. Well, I remember you because I always had a crush on you at school. It's Marlene, don't you remember me, I was that spotty-faced girl that was always chasing you around on the playground. No, you can't be, he said in amazement. I was just wondering if there was any chance of a lift home because I missed my last bus. And before he knew it Valentine had uttered those prophetic words No problem and fate had taken a distinct upturn in his life and he knew that things were never going to be the same again. Thank you, God he kept saying to himself as he left the pub. Valentine drifted in and out of romantic relationships like the turn of a page in a cheap Mills and Boon. It was uncomplicated and always dramatic. He set himself up and he shot himself down like a kamikaze pilot. It was painful to watch with tiny honourable intention and usually self-inflicted. His training ground was school and college, he did it every time without fail. But he couldn't see it. He was a romantic failure, if only he could relax but he was like a runaway train too quick. Love was meant to be love, not a three-course meal or a Chinese takeaway. His plastic chopsticks kept breaking anyway! EPISODE TWO VALENTINE'S BIG MISTAKE. The sun was beginning to disappear by the dark clouds of the day as Valentine lay on the bed and twiddled his thumbs. It was obvious that it was going to be one of those days. You know, the ones where you can't think of anything useful to do except watch the television. And, throw a tennis ball against the bedroom wall. And then he spotted the faded wedding photograph of his mom and dad. He kept looking at the picture and he became transfixed by the images. They looked so serious and it was supposed to be their wedding day for Christ's sake! Valentine took a closer look. He wiped the dust off. They looked scared. So why were they doing it then? Is this what all the excitement is about? She was pregnant he thought to himself. That's it that's why. Well, at least the two bridesmaids were smiling he thought to himself. And then he suddenly remembered. Oh, fuck me! I was supposed to be meeting Ruby in the park today and she'll I've stood her up. It was raining cats and dogs and Ruby looked at her watch. He wasn't going to turn up, was he? She was so disappointed because he seemed so trustworthy and reliable but he wasn't was he? He was just like all the rest. He had said all the right things to her at the bus stop and he seemed such an interesting guy she thought they would make such a good couple for days out and going to parties and things but it wasn't to be was it? And worse still she had walked a mile and a half to meet him without a coat in the park and now she was stuck under an oak tree and it was pouring rain. Well, it wasn't just raining, it was torrential and she hadn't even got a coat! Ruby crouched down by the base of the tree and started to think about how bad her life was turning out. She was twenty-four years old, she had a warm and cosy flat, a decent job, a good set of friends, a rather eccentric seven-year-old cat called 'Whammy' who just turned up on her doorstep one day and made the flat his own but she had nobody to share it with? Ruby was trying to be patient and find the right person for her but it wasn't as easy as it seemed and her time clock was ticking. She took a deep breath and sighed rather loudly as if she wanted the whole world to hear her and know how disappointed she was. But all she could hear or feel was the cold drip of the rain down the back of her neck. The rain didn't seem to be baiting. If anything it was getting heavier and seemed to be set in for the rest of the afternoon, and she was starting to shiver and feel the dampness and the cold of the rapidly cooling late afternoon air. She knew that she would have to make some sort of decision. Stay under the tree and hope that the rain will eventually stop or just go for it and get soaking wet? It kind of summed up her life really because she never took chances and she always played safe. But maybe now was the time to just go for it and get soaking wet. She had always thought deeply about things before she had done anything in her life and thought about all the options. Ruby had always been so sensible, so predictable, so boring. The big copper coin had just slid down into that rather cavernous and sensible brain of hers and landed with a loud clunk! Oh my God, I'm bored! Ruby could see her whole life flashing right in front of her and knew straight away where things had started to go wrong. I should never have worn my Playtex bra that night to the party. I should have just let them bounce around. Ruby couldn't bear the thought of all those rabid oversexed guys staring at her and fantasizing about what MIGHT be under her heavy metal tee shirt. She had never really felt liberated. The rain had soaked through the top of the old oak tree that she had been sheltering under and she was soaking wet. She looked down at the heavy metal tee shirt she was wearing, pulled it straight overhead, and wrung out all the water. She unclipped her bra hung it on the lowest branch of the tree and set off for home oblivious to the fact that she hadn't put her tea shirt back on but she didn't care because, for the first time in her life, Ruby felt happy. EPISODE THREE VALENTINE'S BAD DAY AT WORK Charlie Valentine was having a bad day at work. He was spitting fire. He was in one of his more suicidal moods. He was capable of anything. Well, almost anything. He kept muttering to himself as he jumped off the number nine. He needed a pity party. That was it. He needed sympathy. Anything that would cover up his mistake at work. He was having a bad day. Not just a bad day. A very bad day. He nearly lost his job. He was heading for the Watering Hole as quickly as possible to drown his sorrows. As usual, the landlord had prepared Valentine's customary 'bad day at work' pint and a packet of cheese and onion crisps as usual. Sod off Mr. Landlord or I'll never come in here again then your profits will plummet. Only by a couple of quid you never buy anything, he muttered. The rain started to come down heavily outside and Valentine realized he'd left his coat at work. Fuck I'm always doing that. Language please, this is a public house. Valentine looked around, we are the only people here, so don't talk a load of bollocks. Ok, but mind your language if anybody comes in. Then suddenly the door swings open and in walks a slim-looking dark-haired woman soaked to the skin. I'm always doing that, said Lydia as she shook herself like a pet poodle who had scrambled in out of the rain. The speckles hit Valentine straight in the face. What the fuck are you playing at madam. Valentine had been cut short in mid swear word by a Mills and Boon romantic image of a pet poodle and a full-size orchestra breaking into the opening bars of Casablanca the movie. Valentine looked at Lydia. Lydia looked at Valentine. The lights dimmed in the bar as a crescendo of cymbals crashed in the background. Light! Action! They simultaneously looked at each other. Of all the places. Valentine checked himself because he suddenly realized he was starting to sound like Dirk Dickhead Bogarde. Lydia looked at Valentine and recognized him by his big nose and floppy ears. They were so distinctive, so unmistakable so big! The trouble with student reunions especially if you were a couple during your student days and the relationship ended badly can be very awkward and quite embarrassing affairs to coin a phrase and this was no different, especially the opening volleys of the conversation. And it was never destined to start well, especially from Valentine's point of view because he was the jilted party, and to make matters worse it was his best mate. I presume you're still with that bastard then after all these years. I would imagine that you've probably sired about ten kids by now. Christ you must be worn. Lydia! I always knew the pair of you would breed like rabbits because that's the only thing he ever knew. Who would have thought that eh? Shagging his best mate's girlfriend and he didn't stop there. Oh no! After you, he must have shagged half the university campus. If you think that's bad believe it or not he also liked men. I kept trying to tell you but you wouldn't listen to me. I only had your interests at heart and it wouldn't surprise me if you'd have caught some strange sexual infection. Oh no, that wouldn't surprise me because he'd shag a brick wall if it could have given him sexual pleasure. I always believed he should have been locked up for sexual perversion anyway! Lydia cut Valentine's rant short in mid-sentence Valentine! What, I haven't finished yet, I've been wanting to say this to that fornicating bastard for years he deserves every word of it, do you know I never trusted him from day one he was the most untrustworthy wanker that I ever met if I was being strictly honest, I only befriended him because I felt sorry for him and why you decided to shack up him heaven knows he was always as ugly as sin, you must have realized by now that I would always have much more to offer you than him, I don't know why you did that Lydia if it wasn't going to be me you could always have done better than that miserable son of a bitch where is he anyway! Valentine. What I've just come from his funeral, he's dead. I thought you'd received my letter. You were sent an invite to the funeral but it never arrived. There were quite a few of our old friends from our student days. Well, that's a shame. Sorry Lydia but that's not an excuse. Valentine opened his packet of cheese and onion crisps. You must be hungry Lydia do you want a couple of my crisps? EPISODE FOUR VALENTINE'S SCRAMBLED EGGS Sometimes Valentine had this terrible dream of loneliness and Isolation which almost overwhelmed him at times. He was starting to feel desperate, as he staggered around in the bottom of the empty beer barrel. All of a sudden he woke from a bizarre dream and realised his scrambled eggs were burning. He opened his eyes and it was the middle of the day. It's time to have my first pint of the day he thought. Valentine eventually sobered up and came to his senses, and realised he had fallen asleep revising because it was that boring. He was sitting at the table in the middle of the college library, and this geeky little girl with a brace on her teeth was sitting there smiling at him. Charlie Valentine of number 23 Knockers Avenue. It's time to go to your next lecture he thought to himself. And this geeky girl was still sitting there smiling at him. And then it hit Valentine like a ton of bricks. He'd left his fishing tackle out on the washing line and it was there for all to see. It was there for her to see. That was how he met Doreen Tonker from Chadsmoor. His first serious girlfriend was strangely at Cannock Chase Technical College. She'd been sitting there for a couple of hours while he was snoring his head off staring at the ferret that was dangling out of his trousers. As it turned out the afternoon lectures were a complete waste of time because Valentine was completely lost in love. So any chance of him concentrating on the Spanish Conquistadors and the Royal Hunt of the Sun had been thrown straight out of the college window. He was in the students' common room chatting up Doreen Tonker from Chadsmoor. For some inexplicable reason only known to William Shakespeare and the War Poets and of course Gandalf and the Fellowship of the Ring she thinks he's a good-looking chap and the sun shines out of his arse which is why Valentine is being so nice and paying for her to go to see the latest James Bond movie with him and buying her a couple of G and T's in the Royal Oak, and then stupidly he offers to pay her bus fare home from Cannock bus station to Chadsmoor which is in spitting distance and wouldn't have taken her five minutes to walk home. She gives him a romantic kiss as she climbs onto the last bus to Chadsmoor which is about thirty seconds away as the crow flies. And she gives him a romantic wave goodbye as she starts to snigger on the back seat of the bus. And Valentine stands there like some gormless moron with shit for brains and thinks he's doing what all good boyfriends are supposed to do until the bus disappears over the hill. And he realises that it's chucking it down with rain and he's soaking wet and even worse he's left his trench coat in the Royal Oak and they are just locking up for the night. How stupid is that? But Valentine reasoned with himself that every prospective knobhead has to start somewhere! But he didn't care because Charlie Valentine of number 23 Knockers Avenue was in love and it felt wonderful. Unfortunately, he had a really bad cold for the next two or three days so he didn't go out of the house because he felt like he was dying. Cannock Chase Technical College would have to wait until Valentine was feeling better and he had his trench coat back from the Royal Oak. After his sixth phone call of the day from the love of his life to tell her that he wasn't going to die from pneumonia and that he would make a complete recovery and would meet up with her again in the Ascot Tavern on Friday, Valentine lay back on the bed sneezed his head off and carried on listening to the Average White Band on his cheap hi-fi whilst reading page one hundred and thirty seven of the Fellowship of the Ring when he should have been reading about W.B.Yates and the war Poets but that was the last thing on Valentine's mind because as far as he was concerned he was one of the Romantics like Coleridge and all he could think about were pansies and daffodils or something like that of William Wordsworth and wandering about like a fairy in a lost cloud. But you have to keep in mind that this lovey-dovey thing had never happened to Valentine before so he was floating around on cloud nine somewhere and drinking too much Benalyn. And as much as his mates kept laughing behind his back it all seemed very serious and an important new step in Valentine's botched attempt at being a responsible adult. No don't laugh on the back row. The next step would be to sneak into the gents in the Royal Oak and work out how to use the Durex machine! EPISODE FIVE JOHNNY B. GOODE The trouble with being a lazy bugger like Charlie Valentine is that he's always thinking to himself at the back of that hyperactive sexually charged inept brain of his that eventually his lack of planning would lead to a rather embarrassing climax when he gets caught with his hand down the blouse of the cleaning lady at the college. Well, it's an interesting fantasy anyway. It was the hot summer of 1976 and most of the alpha male students in the college usually had the top three buttons of their shirts undone to show their chest wigs were growing as nature had intended, particularly the coal miners on the ground floor who insisted on taking their shirts off altogether and lying on the grass verge by the bus station opposite the college entrance to wolf whistle all the trainee secretaries coming out. That is until the senior lecturer of the coal mining section of the college threatened to inform their employers to dock the wages of any trainee miner who wolf-whistled his daughter. If you went to the college, you would have sunbathed on the grass verge next to the bus station at some point. That is unless you were a member of the student geek club who spent the majority of their spare time in the library revising for exams. This is what Valentine should have been doing but it was far too hot for revising so he decided to go and join the trainee miners and wolf whistle the secretaries coming out and then I suddenly remembered that the love of his life Ruby Lane from Tackeroo would be arriving soon so he'd better put my shirt back on and act normal. Valentine's experimental attempt with the Durex machine in the men's toilets of the Royal Oak was a complete and utter disaster because he put his money in and nothing came out so he started to panic and thump the machine in his utter frustration. And then just as Valentine was about to tear the Durex machine off the wall this Hell's angel the size of the toilet door walked in and started laughing at him and said You as well? well mate between you and me I don't think they put any Johnny in there. I think it's a fucking big con for the Brewery to make some easy money. And when you do get one out of there they're usually fucking faulty. I had one with a puncture and I was screwing this big fat Mama from Wolverhampton and it nearly cost me my livelihood because if I'd have got her pregnant she would have expected me to have done the honourable thing but I'd already asked three other girls for there hand in marriage so how would I have explained that to them eh! No, go and ask for your money back from the barmaid behind the counter and go and use the one in the Ascot tavern instead. They're bigger better and more reliable. You're big dangler has more room to move about and get comfortable. And you get them in different colours for every day of the week. I have sex seven times a week and I'm using my red johnny tonight because that's my favourite colour. Go on mate, go and ask for your money back or I will if you are too shy. It doesn't bother me one bit. But that was the last thing on his mind because Valentine wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible before anybody recognised him. Fortunately in the Royal Oak, there's a back entrance which leads to the car park at the back of the pub so as soon as the gorilla had gone he made his escape through the back door. And from that point onwards Valentine had a serious hang-up about using those damn machines until somebody explained to him that you could get them for free from the NHS. The rest of the day was spent looking after the love of his life but that's what a boyfriend has to do if he's serious, or at least that's what Valentine assumed anyway. Having spent most of his afternoon hand in hand with Ruby in Cannock Park Valentine had a history seminar to attend and it turns out that they're all going on a field trip to Coalbrookdale in the morning to learn about the Industrial Revolution and wander around some old brick kilns and railway museum but at least there was a decent pub where he could grab a pint and a game of pool. EPISODE 6. RANDY BUMMER. Valentine was sailing on the astral plane of student life like a rudderless ship on a pink fluffy ocean. He was the coolest dude in his Genesis tee shirt and his bell-bottom jeans. Or so he thought. The ultimate Cannock drunken beer-swilling party animal. And then something incredibly miraculous happened. He was walking home from a party when a crazy guy came flying around a sharp bend in his psychedelic love bug Morris Minor at high speed with Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze blasting out of his 100-watt woofer and tweeters and knocked him six feet up into the air in a cloud of dust. Miraculously Valentine survived. When he came to his senses all he could remember was this weird guy with star-shaped glasses and a long pointed nose poking him with a stick and sniffing around his face. And then he understood. He was dead and had been reborn in Middle Earth and Gandalf was poking him with his staff to see if he was still alive. When in fact he had just been run over by a fucking madman saying have you been smoking weed man I've got some in the back of my spaceship. To which Valentine replied you bastard you nearly killed me, But after a couple of beers and a packet of cheese and onion crisps, they'd sorted out their differences. And the Fellowship of the Ring had begun. They knew that it was a sign. Which is why Bummer and Valentine became partners in crime. It was meant to be. Randy was so cool because the Morris Minor was his spaceship that could fly him to the moon providing he had smoked enough dope! He slept in it and did virtually everything in it apart from using it as a toilet. He drew a line in the sand there. The one thing that he conveniently forgot to tell Valentine was that he bought the Moggy Minor from his uncle for fifty quid because it had failed its m.o.t. and he was driving around on a provisional licence but apart from that everything was cool. Randy was a coalminer of sorts because he mined for Mythryl. He loved his silver chains, bangles and beads, he had so many on his wrists and around his neck its a wonder he was able to stand up. The only problem was how he was going to explain it to Doreen. The funny thing about drinking over at the Royal Oak and not going back to lectures was that they ended up having a drink with the lecturers who were teaching them and very often they'd rock up halfway through apologize then a couple of hours later they'd be playing darts with the same lecturer after they had finished our lectures for the day. Where was the sense in that? But you don't see sense do you because they were enjoying themselves too much and more importantly they were learning about adult things and adult life, or at least, that's what Valentine and Randy were trying to do, but they were fumbling their way through life pretending that they knew everything but knowing very little. But it was serious stuff and Valentine was trying to act sixteen going on nineteen which was quite embarrassing really because the image did not fit the reality. To a teenage boy who thinks he is Robert Redford's twin brother every time he looks at himself when he looks in the mirror, life can be hilarious, especially as regards members of the opposite sex, and particularly if they are slightly older than you. You have to try and be one step ahead of them in the conversation when in fact you are three steps behind! But you don't realize it when you are trying to chat up an older girl in that more often than not, they have sussed you before you even uttered your first word! So what do you think is being clever, isn't clever at all because it's stupid? Do you see where this conversation is going? Well, it all becomes a little clearer when you listen to the story that I am about to tell you of the failed attempt by Randy Bummer and Robert Redford's twin brother to try to chat up two older girls in the Royal Oak in Cannock one night. Randy had this theory that you could get a girl to go for a night out with you if you could drop into the conversation that you had your car and that it was sitting in the car park waiting there right now to give them a lift to the nearest night club and get them back home again. Or so the theory goes. But the trouble is that you have to try and convince them that it's a Ferrari when in fact it's a clapped-out fucking Morris Minor with no Mot and the driver has only got a provisional license. Well, the thing is an older girl can see an arsehole coming from a mile away, and when they see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid walking towards them, then they know that they are in for an all-expenses-paid, transport included, hilarious night out! All they had to do was go along with the idea that Laurel and Hardy were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with a Ferrari sitting in the pub car park which was a Morris Minor, with no mot and a driver that hadn't even passed his driving test yet! I mean how stupid can you get! Well, needless to say, it turned out to be a very expensive evening and they didn't get a peck on the cheek or a phone number!