The Great V-Day Card Mystery

As anyone by now familiar with this blog knows the only mail I ever receive is usually a final demand or a letter suggesting I am liable to have a stroke. It therefore came as no small measure of astonishment that I should receive a Valentine’s card – albeit delivered to my desk, thanks to our office ‘systems’, two days late.

Valentines Day has almost always been something that happens to other people and, thanks the late receipt of the card upon my desk, that remained the case this year. Still, two days or two years late I’m hugely flattered and intrigued. Another cause for an amazement is they appear to be literate. The only frustration is that I have no idea whom the sender is. Currently on the mantlepiece, the hallowed card will certainly be framed once I’ve had the it checked by forensics and contains some beautifully formed, thoughtful and flowing verse, loaded with a few clues: apparently the sender is accustomed to saying hi to me a lot, but nothing more than that ‘in all this time’.

It’s as if a wall of fear, transparent, yet profound, comes up as you come near, cutting off all around.

Thankfully, after her long monologues about Bulgarian folk customs, this appears to rule out my cleaner Iliana. That would’ve been awkward, especially given the knowledge that she handles my underwear.  The other clue is that, despite the presence of a stamp, the absence of a postmark means it was hand delivered, presumably by someone who lives or works locally and knows I do too. We can already rule out anyone who works in my own office. They know me far too well, have generally good taste, are certainly never short of anything to say to me and the single ones are more likely to be on the sex offenders register (molesting unsuspecting bankers in city bars, that sort of thing) than sit down and compose a poem to anyone, least of all me.

So that leaves a handful of people outside of work with whom I have had long-term contact on the basis of saying ‘Hi’. Given my predictable and limited routine revolves around, and never getting beyond, a bar-brasserie about 100 metres from my office I did have my suspicions. When I openly suggested a name in the office, Gloria sitting next to me considered this for all of a nanosecond before erupting with laughter and upon finding breath declared ‘You’re punching way above your weight with that one!’ (which reminds me, I really must check the date of her next career review).

There’s only one other individual whom I could hazard a guess at on the basis of the available evidence. He runs a nearby boutique emporium purveying flowers and wine (so he does have something that could sway me) and did once offer me a discount on  particularly good Syrah if I gave him a kiss.

Who knows, I certainly don’t, but it would put the mind to rest. So if you are a she not a he and have your own teeth, whomever you are I think I could at least buy you dinner if you reveal yourself.  Knowing my luck Rose West is working on day release in the Sainsbury’s Local beneath our office and I’ve been in too urgent a hurry to get my Diet Coke and Marlboro Lights to even notice her doe-eyed hello.  Oh well, as the man said in the closing line of Some Like it Hot, ‘Nobody’s perfect’.