K Darts ch 9

Chapter 9

When love hits you it can be like a bolt. And that's what it was, it
was a bolt. I woke up in Seven's arms and there wasn't any other place
I wanted to be, not even St Tropez, which was a place I'd always wanted
to go.

During the night Seven had told me the story of each and every of his
tattoos; the painted voodoo lady, the Czech Jewish Golem, the Statue of
Liberty. But my favourite was the one on the back of his knee. It
seemed to authenticate the feelings that were already surging through
my body. It was a dart.

"So you like darts?" I had asked innocently and Seven had started to
laugh. I asked him what it was and he laughed some more. He had a laugh
that was like a mountain stream. It was the sort of laugh you come
across unexpectedly on an arduous alpine hike and you are glad you did
because you are hot and thirsty. It was a laugh that you know in later
years will broaden and deepen and will give sustenance to fields and
peoples.

"What is it?" I said again and then Seven explained.
He asked me if I remembered his six brothers and seven sisters and I
said I did, although, in truth, he had hardly mentioned his sisters at
all. "Well," said Seven displaying a similar oracular occlusion, "this
story concerns my six brothers."

"I see," I said, but as yet I had little idea what this could possibly
have to do with a dart on the back of a knee. "So are you going to tell
me another story?"

"That's up to you," said Seven. "Do you think you can take another
one?"

"As long as it's true," I said.

"All my stories are true."

"Then go ahead."

"Point of fact," said Seven, taking a deep breath and then starting
his story, "although my father was a prodigious and famous lover he was
one lazy bastard."

"Oh," I said. I nestled myself next to the elephant in Seven's armpit.
I had a feeling that it was going to be a long story and I wanted to be
comfortable. More honestly, I wanted to be close to Seven.

"And a direct consequence of my father being a lazy bastard,"
continued Seven, "was both a lack of money in general and a lack of
money in particular. Therefore my family lived in a very small house.
There was one bedroom for mum and dad, one bedroom for the seven
sisters and one bedroom for the seven brothers. And there were only
three beds."

"That must have been quite a squeeze," I said.

"It was," said Seven, "squeeze and quite are exactly the right words
to use." (And this made me happy because in a way it was the first
complement that Seven had paid me. I wondered if it would be always
like this, Seven telling stories and me listening, lying in bed
together early every morning, the sun streaming through the dormer
window picking out motes of dust in the air.)

"As you can imagine," said Seven, still talking and oblivious to my
thoughts, "seven strapping lads in one bed can lead to a lot of
problems."

"Problems?" I said.

"A lot of farts for one thing," said Seven.

"I can imagine," I said, imagining with an explosion of noise in my
brain.

"And because of this," said Seven, "it was decided that every night it
would be the job of one of the brothers to lie at the bottom of the bed
and catch the farts in a plastic bag. The next morning this brother
would take the bag outside and release the smells to the wind in the
air, the birds in the trees."

"What a good idea," I said.

"It was," said Seven, "but it wasn't a popular job. Spending the night
under the covers in the region of arses just waiting for farts wasn't
an ideal way to spend the evening. In fact it was most unpleasant. And
because of this there were always a lot of arguments about who was
going to collect the farts each night. At first we used a roster system
but we were a competitive lot and that didn't satisfy our need for
competition. So Four came up with an idea. He said we would draw
straws. And after some discussion we all agreed that this was a fair
way to decide who should catch the farts."

"So from then on every night around teatime we would draw straws. Two
would hand out the paper and One would hand out the pencils and then we
would all draw."

"Four was clever," I said. "It was a good idea."

"It sounded like a good idea," said Seven, shaking his head at the
memory, "but it wasn't. You see, I was a crap drawer. I tried to draw a
straw but my straw always looked just like a line, or a worm, or a long
dash. So every night my straw would be voted the worst and every night
I would be at the bottom of the bed catching the farts in a bag. After
a week I thought this couldn't go on."

"No," I said.

"Catching farts just didn't turn me on."

"I can see that," I said.

"But it was a difficult situation," said Seven. "One to Six thought
they were on to a good thing. The way things stood they would never
have to catch the farts again. They were good at drawing straws and
they would never lose. I had to come up with a new competition that
would entice them so much that they would give up the drawing of
straws.

"For days I wandered around the village trying to come up with an
idea. But I couldn't think of anything. Every day I was exhausted
because of my night's exertions. It was no good at all. In desperation
I even asked the opinion of the villagers. Lucy Windlass suggested a
piazza making competition. Farmer Barry said we should construct
matchstick telescopes. The Vicar argued for cowpat eating under
carefully controlled conditions. But none of them seemed any good. We
had tried and done all of those things in the past and none of them had
the oomph I knew would be necessary to capture my brothers'
minds.

"Then one day in my travels just when I thought I would be catching
farts for the rest of my young life I met Ivan. Ivan came to our
village just one day a year and by many he was regarded with suspicion.
Mothers would lock up their daughters, fathers would leer at him and
make jibes with a fake masculine bravado but to me he was always a
friend. I suppose in some ways I was an outsider too."

"Oh," I said.

"That day," said Seven, "when I came across Ivan he was leaning
against a haystack sucking on a strand of grass. He asked me what was
wrong and I told him. I told him the whole story of the farts and the
drawing of the straws just as I have told you."

I sat up suddenly in bed and clapped my hands.
"I know where you're going with this," I said. "You're going to tell
me that Ivan gave you a dart-board, you practised darts by yourself and
then one day you suggested a new competition and that competition was
darts. One to Six accepted and you never had to catch farts
again."

"No," said Seven, putting his arm around me and pulling me to him.
"That would be a nice story but that's not what happened. Ivan said
that there were worse things in life than being a fart catcher. He said
I was lucky to have so many brothers who let me catch their farts. He
said he would give his right arm just to catch one fart."

"So what happened?" I said. "What about the dart tattoo?"

"When I saw Ivan and saw how lonely and alone he was I realised that
one day that could be me. I realised that I had to do something myself.
That's what I learnt. You have to rely on yourself."

"So you thought of the dart competition yourself?"

"That's right. You have to rely on yourself."
Seven repeated the words. "You have to rely on yourself." Then he
stopped talking. He sat up in bed and folded his arms. "In this world
you have to look after number one. Numero uno."

I looked at Seven. I looked at the space where he was, where usually
there was no-one. The last few weeks were in my mind. I thought how me
and The Poet and 16 and Captain Vegas had formed first the Castro and
then the darts team, how we had been spending more and more time
together, how we were taking on and defeating bastions. They had been
good weeks. I smiled.
And this made me think of something else or at least realise
something. About how happy I was and how I didn't even want to be in St
Tropez although I had spent all those hours looking at the palm trees,
the sandy beaches.

"I don't agree," I said, leaping out of bed. "No I don't agree at all.
Seven you can rely on me. That's what I want to say. You're part of the
darts team now and we stick by each other. Me and 16 and The Poet and
Captain Vegas."

"Are you sure?" said Seven, beginning to smile.

"I'm sure," I said and now I jumped on the bed and I jumped on Seven.
I began to kiss his tattoos one by one. I kissed his seahorse and his
mermaid and his anchor and his fish and his football and I was just
about to kiss his unicorn when there was a voice behind me. It was 16.
His face was red and he looked out of breath.

"It's The Poet," he said.

"Yes?" I said, thinking the worst.

"He's off to Japan," said 16. "He's packing his bags. Come
quick."

And we did. Me and Seven went quick. We didn't even get dressed.