T Darts chap 18

Chapter 18

For a second all was pandemonium. I leapt up, The Poet leapt up, AkiMat
leapt up. We were all rushing up and down the narrow saloon bumping
into each other and falling onto the draylon upholstered furniture and
floor. Then Captain Vegas spoke. He was the only one who hadn't leapt
up. That was amazing in itself.

"I'll go outside," he said. "I'll see who it is."

We all stopped rushing. At that point The Poet had been in mid-air. He
froze in mid-air. He was like a figure from a painting by
Magritte.

"What?" I said, shocked, disbelieving, not able to believe my ears, my
eyes.

"After all," said Captain Vegas, "I am Captain."

There was no disputing the fact, Captain Vegas had said it with such
authority. And it was true, he was captain, we had decided just the day
before although we had had no idea where it would lead.

"Really," said Captain Vegas. "I'll do it. I'll go outside."

"He's quite brave, isn't he?" said 16. "I never knew."

"You have to be brave to work in a chip shop and look like Elvis,"
said The Poet.

I wanted to ask The Poet what he meant but now Captain Vegas was at
the door. The face at the window had disappeared. We were all quiet.
The only sound was the rain on the fibreglass roof.
Pitapatapitapatapitapata. Captain Vegas opened the door and stepped
outside. He shut the door behind him.

"Do you think he'll be all right?" said 16.

"Captain Vegas always says it's always him," I said. "Now at last it
is. This will do him good."

"I agree," said The Poet.

"Cup of tea anyone?" said Seven.

We all put our hands high up in the air.

It was just as 16 had turned the teapot upside-down and was peering up
into it to see if there was in fact a final drop of tea when the door
opened and Captain Vegas stepped back inside, the water dripping from
his ears. All at once we asked what had happened but Captain Vegas kept
his lips tight shut and shook his head. He walked past us and into the
narrow galley. From the table only 16 could see him.

"He's holding a steel cup," whispered 16. "He's filling it with sugar.
He's coming back. He's coming back."

Captain Vegas walked back past us. He was holding the steel cup out in
front of him like it was a torch and on his face was a look of pure
joy. It was as if the cup wasn't just any torch, but the Olympic torch
itself and he had been chosen out of millions to carry it. He opened
the door and went outside.

"Cup of tea anyone?" said Seven because there didn't seem anything
else to say.

We all put our hands in the air.

We drank the tea. We drummed our fingers on the tabletop. Outside the
rain came down. Pitapatapitapatapitapata. On and on.

Eventually Captain Vegas came back. The rain was still dripping from
his ears.

"Well?" I said.

"It's late," said Captain Vegas. "We should go to bed."

"But..." said 16. "That face, who did it belong to? The cup of sugar,
what was it for? You, what did you look so happy about?"

Captain Vegas inflated his chest, like a professional lifeguard in a
photo shoot, or a life-saving dummy.

"WHEN YOUR CAPTAIN SAYS IT'S TIME FOR BED THEN IT'S TIME FOR BED. DO
YOU UNDERSTAND?"

As he finished shouting Captain Vegas gave a little wiggle with his
hips just to show that he wasn't entirely serious.

We all looked at each other across the tabletop, smiled, decided to
let Captain Vegas have his moment and we went to bed, The Poet and
AkiMat to their cabin, me and Seven to our cabin. We had pleasant
dreams because, after all, the first day of the holiday had been pretty
damn good. We were on a boat. We were together. We were having a good
time. And there was a mystery in the air.

When I woke up there were three people in my bed. This surprised me a
little as when I had gone to sleep I was sure there had been only two.
I opened my eyes wider just to check. I was right. There were three.
There was me, Seven and Captain Vegas. Captain Vegas was extra.

"Captain Vegas," I said, "what are you doing in my bed?"

"I brought you a cup of tea," he said.

I knew Captain Vegas was lying. If he had brought us tea that would
have been fine. But Captain Vegas was actually in the bed, lying down,
with the duvet pulled up under his chin, his thigh pressed against
mine. And, more tellingly, there were no mugs of tea in the room, not
one.

"Captain Vegas," I said, trying to hang him by his own rope, imagining
already the snap of his neck, "Where is the tea?"

Captain Vegas looked around the room. "Shit!" he said. "I must have
forgotten it. I knew I'd forgotten something. Anyway, get up. We have
an appointment. We're going to be late."

"For what?" I started to say but Captain Vegas had already climbed out
of bed and left the room. It was almost as if he had never been there.
It was only the impression of a DA haircut on the pillow that confirmed
his presence.

When Seven and I went into the saloon everyone else was already there.
Captain Vegas was sitting at the wheel and the roof had been slid open.
The sun was shining down and the engine was throbbing beneath the
floor.

"Unhitch the moorings cabin-boy," said Captain Vegas in the
authoritative voice he had used the night before, a voice I guessed we
were going to hear a lot more of.

"Aye aye Captain," said 16 and he leapt up with a salute and ran out
to untie the ropes. Then we were off.

"Don't ask him where we're going," said The Poet, pulling me to one
side and speaking like the younger of the two Hardy Boys. "He won't
say. Apparently he's told 16. Those two are thick as thieves. My guess
is that it's got something to do with that cup of sugar and the face at
the window."

"You're probably right," I whispered back, doing a decent impression
of Nancy Drew despite myself.

"Look at that," said Seven suddenly from behind me.

I turned to see what. I saw. It was a windmill.

"It's a windmill," I said. And we all went out on deck to see.

In fact there was quite a lot to see. There was the windmill and its
sails. But there was also the river itself, the rushes at the side of
the river, the birds in the rushes, the horizon, the blue sky and the
sun. All in all it was very nice and enough to put a cup of sugar and a
face at the window out of the mind of anyone, especially the mind of a
gay darts player.

Quickly we decided that there was no better place to be than on deck
so we stayed there. We took off our shirts and lay down comfortably
with towels behind our heads. Seven told us some more stories about his
tattoos and AkiMat made various things out of pieces of paper;
jodhpurs, aerosol cans and so on. The only disturbance to our peace was
when Captain Vegas called 16 inside to consult the map. But that didn't
happen very often. We had a very nice morning.

At around lunch-time, just when we were thinking that the shenanigans
from the night before had been only a flash in the pan, a coda to a
horror story, something to talk and laugh about in the future, Captain
Vegas shouted from the wheel that we were nearly there.

"Nearly where?" I shouted back.

"Salhouse Broad," said 16 from my side. "That's where we're
going."

"And what's in Salhouse Broad?" I said.

"You'll see," said 16 and he smiled smugly to himself in a way I
hadn't seen since he had pulled some particularly cute guy.

I should have know then that hormones were on the cards, I should have
known then that love was in the air. But I didn't. I just sat up,
preparing myself for whoever or whatever we were going to meet, and
looked around.

On either side now the banks were more densely wooded. The river had
broadened out. There were openings on the left and the right and from
somewhere was coming a sound.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Clang, clang, clang.

Suddenly 16 leapt up, stealing the territory that was usually taken by
Captain Vegas. "That'll be them," he said. "The people we're going to
meet." He wiggled his hips. Being Captain Vegas's cabin-boy was getting
to him. The Poet was right, they were thick as thieves. And twice as
crafty.

I shook my head. "Why is it always you?" I said. "WHY IS IT ALWAYS
YOU?"

"Look," said Seven. "Look."

I looked. In fact, we all looked.

The boat had turned left and we had entered a wide, calm broad. The
water was glistening in the afternoon sun, waves were lapping at the
sandy banks and we were surrounded on all sides by trees. But that
wasn't what we were looking at.

Right in the centre of the broad was a boat. That was what we were
looking at. And listening to. For it was from this boat that the sound
was coming.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

I should explain. The boat was no ordinary boat. It's shape and size
was similar to ours, but that was where the similarity ended. Where our
boat had a fibreglass cabin and deck this one didn't. In its place was
a structure under construction. This construction was made entirely of
steel. It was a steel boat. But that's not all.

On the deck of the boat doing the construction and making the 'clang,
clang, clang' noise were four men. They were stripped to the waist and
they were glistening with sweat. Each of them had a similar compact and
muscular body. The muscles were rippling and straining as they were put
to use.

You see, the men were moving heavy girders, lifting them into place,
fixing them there with noisy rivet guns. They worked with a seemingly
boundless energy. Now I understood what 16 was so excited about. I knew
how his mind worked, and his body below his belt.

"They're the people I met last night," said Captain Vegas. "They
wanted to borrow a cup of sugar."

I jumped as I hadn't noticed Captain Vegas standing just behind me. I
had been concentrating hard on what was in front of me, wondering what
was going to happen next.

"They're steelworkers," said Captain Vegas. "Or they were. They've
been made redundant and now they're on holiday. They're trying to build
a boat entirely out of steel. It's a pride thing."

"Nice," said The Poet. "But what are we doing here?"

The Poet had hit the steel nail right on its steel head. As
always.

"Oh," said Captain Vegas. "I forgot to mention. At the steelworks they
were in a darts team. They've challenged us to a match."

"It's a pride thing," said 16. He wiggled his hips.

Just like Captain Vegas, 16 wiggled his hips.

Strange things were afoot. And I knew they would get stranger before
the sun would set. I don't know how I knew that but I did. Simple as
that.