Valentine treats

Toby Young

Towards the end of last week, Caroline started dropping hints.

'Darling, don't you ever think our relationship is getting a bit stale?' she asked. 'Er, I dunno.'

She gave me a beseeching look. 'Don't you sometimes wish we could do something spontaneous and exciting instead of just going to the cinema?'

'Like what?'

'I don't know,' she said, trying to sound casual, as if she hadn't given the matter much thought. 'Something romantic, perhaps?'

The penny finally dropped. Valentine's Day was coming up and she wanted me to arrange a 'surprise' for her. In fact, I'd already arranged to do something but because she'd specifically mentioned going to the cinema as something she didn't want to do meant I'd have to rearrange it. Perhaps Hannibal wasn't the ideal Valentine's Day movie in any case. On 14 February last year she'd sent me to the video shop to rent a 'sexy' film and I'd come back with The Exorcist. That had gone down like a cup of cold sick — or, rather, green, projectile vomit. She'd forced me to go back to Blockbuster and pick up a copy of Runaway Bride instead,

I called my friend Sean Langan for some advice. Half Irish and half Portuguese, he's always prided himself on being the last of the great romantics. He must know something because he persuaded an incredibly beautiful girl to marry him last year. He agreed that Valentine's Day was a challenge.

'It's a no-win situation,' he said. 'If you do arrange something they're not impressed because it's completely expected, but if you don't they'll never let you forget it.'

Luckily, he had a solution. 'Here's what

to do. Buy her a really expensive present and give it to her the day before. On the card you write: "Why wait till tomorrow? With you, my darling, every day is Valentine's Day." Trust me. She'll love it.'

I asked him if he'd ever tried this on his wife and he confessed that he hadn't but it had worked a treat when he'd used it on his mother.

'You gave your mother a present on Valentine's Day?' I asked.

'On Mother's Day,' he explained.

It struck me as significant that when I'd asked him to come up with a really romantic gesture he'd recommended something he'd done for his mother rather than his wife. In a sense, the message on his card was accurate: for him, every day is Mother's Day.

'You could have someone come in and cook for you,' suggested Nell Butler, another friend. 'That's quite fashionable these days.'

When she thought about it, though, she agreed it was probably more appealing to her, a mother of two young children, than it would be to Caroline. There was also the size of my flat to consider. There would be nowhere for the chef to go while Caroline and I ate our meal. We'd have to sit there, whispering sweet nothings and gazing into each other's eyes, while the chef sat on the sofa a few feet away watching television.

'You could always cook her a meal yourself, and cut all the vegetables into heart shapes,' offered Nell. 'That would be quite romantic.'

It was an idea, but I wasn't sure how well it would go down with the fiancée. February 14 falls on a Wednesday this year and Wednesday night is 'boxing night' in our household. I don't mean we watch boxing on television, I mean Caroline goes boxing at a gym on the All Saint's Road. Indeed, judging from her right hook, her training's coming along in leaps and bounds. As she strides into the living-room, her gloves swinging from her neck, she probably wouldn't be all that impressed if I presented her with a plate of heart-shaped broccoli.

Then again, she might. You can never tell with modern girls such as Caroline. They have a tendency to become very traditional just when you'd least expect it. I don't only mean when the bill arrives in an expensive restaurant — I've yet to meet a feminist who objects to being taken out to dinner — I mean in completely unpredictable situations. For instance, when going through revolving doors Caroline likes me to spin them for her then step to one side, allowing her to go through them without making any effort. One minute I'm supposed to be playing Walter, one of the softies in The Beano, to her Dennis the Menace, the next I'm expected to behave like Sir Walter Raleigh. It can get a little confusing at times.

In the end, I decided on dinner at Kensington Place followed by a night in the Kensington Hilton. Twenty-four hours away from the bedsit in Shepherd's Bush won't do us any harm. I'm writing this on 13 February, so I can't tell you whether this was what the doctor ordered or not. I'm hoping she won't ask me to carry her across the threshold but she'll be impressed by the flowers and the bottle of champagne waiting for us in the room.