How to Console Valentine's Love Rats

It's tense in the restaurant tonight. All the Valentines are arrayed at the tables and booths and you can see their nerves on their faces. The people on first dates are making themselves particularly conspicuous, because their body language is akin, I imagine, to that of a suicide bomber pretending to read a free-sheet on a tube train two minutes prior to detonation.

The atmosphere is so stilted that if I cut my guts out and strangled myself with them, in might cheer the place up a bit. But while downstairs business is heaving, in the whole upstairs restaurant only two tables are occupied. A regular we've nicknamed "Count Dracula" sits at one of them with his regular lass, rubbing his leg under the table while he eats her with his eyes like Nosferatu.

The other is in the far corner. It belongs to a particularly gropey school disco couple, who finished their food 20 minutes ago and have been sucking face ever since, palming each other’s groins, grunting like pigs at a trough.

I rush down the stairs to fetch Count Dracula more champagne and find two women waiting at the door. Like sunshine on a rainy day they tell me their boyfriends are away on business and they want to enjoy themselves. I sit them down, hand them a free drink and head back upstairs.

As the night rolls on, people get more drunk and the room starts to feels like a horrible, sticky swingers party. The lights are low and in the darkness I just make out The Snogger beckoning me over. He asks me for the bill and tells the girl they’ll find a hotel. Once he has paid we head downstairs to collect their coats from the cloakroom.

I move through the restaurant and say hello to one of the ladies I sat earlier. They’re having a whale of a time and thank me for the drink. Then, one of them locks eyes with The Snogger. She spits out her drink, throws her glass against the wall and begins to hyperventilate. She jumps from her chair and runs towards him. “Moahhowooowww," she says, emitting a kind of shout-cum-yelp that doesn't have any real words in it but manages to communicate what she intends to communicate better than words ever could.

He simply cannot believe it. Of all the gin joints in all the world…

Bang! He stumbles back as she flails at him. He hits the floor, hands clasped to his face. “You piece of shit!” she wails, her eyes running.

“I can explain…” Smack! She hits him again. His date is petrified, not one muscle has moved since the first punch was thrown. She looks at me, mouth gaping. The cheated woman pushes her aside, grabs a knife from a nearby table and yells again, still wordlessly but with more discernible fury now. She sounds like a kettle boiling.

At that moment, the friend steps in. “Sally…” she says. Poor Sally's coaxed out, shaking with the shock.

I kneel down next to The Snogger and he begins to cry. There's no easy way of telling a sobbing man he owes you money, you just have to do it, be ruthless and make sure you let him know that he also needs to pay for his ex-girlfriend's dinner, who has sidled out during the commotion and is unlikely to ever come back.

He hands me his bank card, wipes some of the blood from his face. I pass him a whiskey and he smashes it back.

Follow Max on Twitter: @lunchluncheon

Illustration by Thomas Slater.

Previously: Tips from a Waiter - How to Show Idiots Who's Boss