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

Avon

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2015

Copyright © Fiona Gibson 2015

Fiona Gibson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © February 2015 ISBN: 9780008136079

Version: 2015–01–23

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Title Page FIONA GIBSON The Valentine Free Zone Part of the Love…Maybe Eshort Collection: The Funny One

Copyright Copyright Copyright The Valentine Free Zone Keep Reading About the Author Also by the Author About the Publisher Avon An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2015 Copyright © Fiona Gibson 2015 Fiona Gibson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © February 2015 ISBN: 9780008136079 Version: 2015–01–23

The Valentine Free Zone

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

‘I just think,’ Michael says, as we stroll around the gallery, ‘it’s a load of commercial twaddle.’

‘Yes, I know it is,’ I say, and he’s right: do couples who exchange Valentine’s cards and presents love each other any more than those who don’t? Of course not. While I don’t have any statistics to back this up, I’d bet that the vast majority of cards are sent out of duty or guilt.

‘I mean,’ Michael goes on, taking my hand, ‘a gift means so much more when it’s thought about, rather than being bought in a tearing hurry at five o’clock on February 13th because you’d thought, shit, I forgot, better rush out and grab any old thing …’ Okay, okay, you’ve made your point, no need to over-egg it, darling … ‘And there’s nothing imaginative about a box of chocolates grabbed from the corner shop,’ he adds.

‘No, I s’pose not,’ I say, my stomach rumbling due to the fact that I forgot to have breakfast before heading out to meet my boyfriend in the foyer of the new art gallery.

‘You don’t expect me to be Milk Tray man, do you?’ Michael asks with a grin.

‘Of course I don’t.’ A tinge of annoyance has crept into my voice as we browse the artworks on display. Is this why he hasn’t mentioned the card I sent him by old-fashioned post? I feel a bit stupid now. Maybe his failure to acknowledge it suggests that I’ve broken some kind of unspoken rule, and he’d rather pretend it hadn’t arrived. Or maybe he thinks it’s from someone else? He works as a producer at our local radio station, and is very handsome in an impeccably groomed, grown-up kind of way; I bet lots of the girls there have crushes on him. However, although I didn’t sign it Love Sally , I did write, Thanks for being so wonderful . So who else could have sent it?

Oh, I must banish these feelings of irritation and focus on the positive. My friends often complain that their boyfriends and husbands never arrange dates, never come up with anything new or interesting to do - but Michael is always suggesting stuff for us to see together. At 39, he is four years younger than me, but far more mature in the way he conducts his everyday his life. He drives a gleaming silver Porsche, whereas at present I am making do with a bike with malfunctioning gears. His stereo requires special atmospheric conditions (he won’t allow me to breathe near it, let alone twiddle any knobs) and he even owns cufflinks (I don’t know anyone else, apart from my dad, who has these). He also seems rather keen to educate me – to broaden my horizons , as he puts it – as if my entire life so far has been spent lying on my dilapidated sofa watching reality TV while stuffing Wotsits into my mouth … ‘You should be open to trying new things,’ he’s pointed out, in his rather teacherly manner, on several occasions.

But then, maybe he has a point. Bringing up Riley on my own for the past ten years – plus working full-time as a beauty therapist – has left me little opportunity to browse the arts pages of the newspapers for mind-expanding events. So I guess my ‘horizons’ have been pretty limited.

Michael’s fingers wrap around mine as we gaze at the enormous sculpture which sits in the middle of the gallery. From a distance I’d assumed it was a load of random stuff shovelled up from a scrapyard and arranged in a pile. Now, though, I realise it’s all to do with plumbing (my ex-husband, and the father of our son, is a plumber: there were always taps, u-bends and other bits of ridged plastic lying about the house). Here, they’ve been welded together and splattered with blood-coloured paint as if a terrible murder has taken place. I bite a nail and peer at it. ’What d’you think it’s all about?’ I ask.

Michael shrugs. ‘Well, I think you can probably take whatever you like from it …’

I laugh and whisper, ‘We’d better not. I don’t think that woman over there would be too pleased if we started picking bits off …’

He smiles wryly and rolls his eyes, as if I am small child whose ice cream has just plopped onto the floor. I glance at the bored-looking staff member who’s sitting on a plastic chair, exhaling on her glasses before polishing them with a hankie. At the moment, we are the only visitors. It was, of course, Michael’s idea to come here on this chilly Saturday morning. I suspect he deliberately chose it as the least romantic thing he could think of to do on Commercial Twaddle Day.