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[title]If you can’t organise a decent date in London, there’s no hope for you!
That was what Pearl had put in her text.
Well, challenge accepted!
I’d give Pearl an absolute humdinger of a Valentine’s night.
One riddled with romance.
Because Pearl’s a keeper, that’s why.
I was quietly confident in the planning stages, let’s put it that way.
With London as my canvas, what could go wrong?
I affixed my tie and beret and met her under the clock at Waterloo as per.
We kicked proceedings off on the London Eye, Pearl’s favourite ferris wheel.
We took our usual capsule and I taped my bluetooth speaker to the window.
Lionel Richie filled our orb like a gas as we sipped prosecco from my Evian water bottle and pointed at various landmarks silhouetted in the setting sun.
Her face!
I then knocked Pearl sideways by whisking her off to a ‘lovers’ cinema’ in Soho.
The concept is that every seat is on the back row, which they’ve done by pulling out all the other seats and they run at a loss.
We watched ‘The Road to Perdition’ and canoodled a little and then it was off east for Pearl and I.
Deepest, coolest east.
I’d found a restaurant called Candle where not only were the tables candlelit but also they cooked by candlelight and, when you ate, the waiter illuminated your fork with a lighter as you moved it to your lips.
I kissed Pearl by the burning water wheel and then we went further east still.
We were lucky enough to get a late-night table in Last Rolo for dessert.
Only the best for Pearly.
We drank coffee and ate their famous deep-fried last Rolos and we paid the extra to go into the kitchen and see the porters binning the Rolos that weren’t the last ones.
We were fat with ardour by the time our Uber came.
I’d clicked yes to the romance option and the back seat was festooned with rose petals and honey, the latter of which ruined Pearl’s frock and also my rugby shorts.
‘What a night, Pearly.’
We shook hands at Pearl’s drop-off and I waited for her jet-black front door to shut before I tapped my own address into the app.
I frowned as my driver turned up his tunes and honey seeped into my cracked iPhone screen and ultimately we pulled out of Pearl’s mews.
My heart was churning with love, and my frown soon bucked its ideas up as we sailed back through the capital.
I gawped cheerfully out of the window and marvelled at the other lovebirds, walking on air amongst the great landmarks of London.
A couple were making out against the front of Hamleys and I bit my lip in approval.
‘Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush. An Anthology of Poems & Conversations (from Outside)’ by Tim Key is out on Feb 14. ‘Tim Key: Mulberry’ is at Soho Theatre, Feb 9-26.