Written by Louise Wilford
He gave me a tomato, crimson red, as big as a Cox’s Orange Pippin. Its sides bulged
outwards like the globes of a heart, with the stalk rising from the pressed-down centre.
Flawless skin with a shine like those plastic ketchup dispensers they used to have in diners,
fashioned to resemble real tomatoes.
He said there’d been no cards he liked. He’d searched all afternoon, he claimed, in
and out of Clintons and the gift stores on the high street, the few department stores that were
left, the post office that now sold old-fashioned sweets loose by the ounce.
‘I even thought of making you one,’ he told me, grinning with the absurdity of the
thought. ‘Can you imagine what that would have been like?’ I nodded. It would have looked
like something a junior school kid had made, a card you only put on the fridge because you
loved the child.
‘All the red roses were gone by the time I left work,’ he added. ‘So I called in at dad’s
allotment to get some things to make you a special meal. It was there that I remembered that
poem by Carol Ann Duffy, the one you used to quote from, remember?’
‘She wrote a poem about tomatoes?’
‘No, the one about giving her lover an onion.’
Ah, yes. How an onion was a perfect symbol of romantic love – layers of depth, looks
like a moon when peeled, sometimes makes you cry.
‘And also there was that poem by Brian Patten about offering his lover a blade of
grass instead of a poem.’
‘You were thinking of writing me a poem then?’
‘I thought I’d skip straight on to the symbol. Who wants poetry? This is love
encompassed in a single perfect item. It’s beautiful. It’s sweet. It’s good for you. It’s been
nurtured with love and respect. They even used to call them love apples in the olden days.
What could be more fitting as a Valentine’s gift?’
He half kneels, bows his head, stretches his arm towards me as if offering something
precious to a princess. The tomato sits on the palm of his hand, heavy and succulent. An
invitation.
I turn to the fridge, think for a moment, then pick out a gnarly parsnip.
‘Here’s what I got you,’ I say.
.
Louise Wilford lives in Yorkshire, UK, with her husband and her cat. Her stories and poems, for both adults and children, have been widely published, most recently in 805, Allium, Balloon Lit, Black Hare Press, Last Leaves, New Verse News, Parakeet, Pine Cone Review, Punk Noir, River and South, Silver Blade, The Avenue, and The Fieldstone Review. She has a Masters in Creative Writing (Distinction). Her story ‘The Fish Tree’ won the £750 First Prize in the Arts Quarterly Short Story Competition 2020, and was nominated for Best Of The Net in 2022. Louise enjoys collaborative projects and once wrote a sitcom with two friends, and an epic narrative poem as part of a group of seven writing friends. She has won or been shortlisted for many competitions, including the National Poetry Prize, The Bridport Prize, and Templar Poets Chapbook Competition. She writes a monthly blog in which she showcases other writers as well as posting a regular humorous column, book reviews and paintings [ https://louviewsnewscues.blogspot.com/ ] . She also runs The Twenty-Twenty Club, a writing group for alumni of the Masters course who graduated in 2020, organising regular competitions and giving detailed feedback to other writers on their ongoing work. She is currently working on a fantasy novel aimed at young adults, and she continues to write short stories and poems.