Again, being as this is a new message board and it has some need of attention, I have written a new story for the occasion.
The Rampant Horse
Well, it just so happened that one spring a couple of years ago, the local Pub darts team at the Rampant Horse needed some new recruits: we’d lost a couple to people moving away, so the Captain put an ad in the local paper, and thus we sat in the pub bar drinking the usual, waiting for the new recruits to turn up - Captain Bob had told us to expect one or two, he didn’t know for sure. All at once there was something of a commotion in the doorway, divided off from the bar proper by a frosted glass screen to force the drafts to work a little harder to get at the pubgoers. Something had fallen down, perhaps the umbrella stand, or a coat off the rack, I wasn’t sure: it didn’t help that there were a couple of men standing in quite the wrong place, right by the door, but then past them appeared a youngish woman, I reckoned mid twenties, fairly tall and slim, with shoulder length almost straight blonde hair, looking around through glasses. She went to the bar - and my eyes followed her. This was a repeat of all those so many times I had seen a woman wearing glasses - wondering what were they like, what shape, metal or plastic frames, were they thick? I felt my excitement rise as she spoke to the bar man. From behind her, I could see delicious fragments of what she saw, and hints of serious thickness. Earnestly I thought to myself “go on, turn around so I can see you”, and then “please let her be the new recruit… please…” Just as she turned, someone elbowed me and told me “Fred’s way ahead in this one”. I nearly spilt my drink, and by the time I looked up again, all I could see was the door leading to the toilets swinging shut and a glimpse of the tail of her long beige coat. Ahh, like so many times, I thought to myself, that was all I would ever see. No doubt any new bespectacled recruits would be male and boring. I took a swig of my drink and thinking about darts, and that girl I saw at the regional finals 2-3 years back, oh she was something to think about!
I saw movement refracted in the side of the glass, in itself undefinable, but definitely beige! I looked up, and there she was, a sort of uncertain yet hopeful look on her face. I read her face in a moment, because in so many situations, that is all I get. She wasn’t extremely pretty, although far from ugly, but that wasn’t really what I was usually that worried about. For me, the glasses usually made up for nearly all faults. And oh boy, was this a pair to encourage me! Black plastic frames, the usual squareish modern look, fairly narrow, but for me the most important thing was the lenses, and these didn’t disappoint: flat plano fronted, a little sea of refraction and rings on each side - and on the left, a few millimeters in, a little curved line, trying to lose itself in amongst all the power. I’ve spent so long looking at glasses, I can get a good estimate of the strength: about 20 in the right eye, a few more in the left, obviously the line needed to help equalize the thickness. I looked into her little blue eyes, and she smiled a little, then said “hello, my name’s Donna, I want to be in your darts team.”
I was forced to hand her over to Captain Bob, who I had decided, in common with most other people, wasn’t much interested in girls with glasses. He was more concerned with playing darts, organizing the team and drinking, to obvious effect. Before long, she was up before the dart board playing against Fred, whom we reckoned was our best player. It wasn’t quite a slaughter - but Donna beat him, seeming to score at least one double or treble 20 with every throw, getting over 100 easily every time. Of course we all wanted a go, and she beat us all, that girl with the thick glasses and the metronome right arm. After she’d done a few of us, we were sitting talking excitedly, saying how she was going to win us the league for sure. I wasn’t sure whether it was the glasses or her skill with darts I liked the best. Naw, there was no comparison, you know what the answer to that is.
A couple of weeks later Captain Bob got us together and off to the Royal Oak for a match we’d been worrying about. They were our local rivals, and nearly always seemed to beat us. However we had Donna and had high hopes of at least registering some success. Last year we’d been beaten 11-0 and we badly needed to recover some pride. There was another reason I enjoyed the presence of Donna: as we sat watching Captain Bob take on the Royal Oak’s captain, she watched transfixed, as did we all. Except I wasn’t so transfixed by the Captains, I was slyly looking at Donna, watching the world reflected on the front of her lenses. She didn’t seem to notice me, which I wasn’t worried about. There was plenty of time to look.
Eventually she went up to have her match against one of the opponents. As normal, she just breezed through the match, beating the poor man. We cheered her “Don-na! Don-na!” and she waved at us, then went off to the loo, and I was left with more mundane matches to watch. After a few minutes, there was a scream and some angry words from behind me - I looked, and there was Donna trying to placate someone, it looked like her and someone had bumped into each other, and one had been carrying a drink, which had then split on some unlucky woman nearby. Donna scampered away, hoping to avoid repercussions. I asked her what happened. Her face screwed up a little apologetically, and she said ‘Oh, just a little accident, I bumped into someone over there in the dark.’ I looked, but it didn’t seem any much more dark than anywhere else I could see in the bar. ‘Must have been a bit drunk?’ She nodded, smiling, and said ‘you get them in these places. Comon, lets go watch.’ I followed her to the front row, my mind not entirely clear.
During the rest of the evening I spent my time split between eyeing Donna, with a growing sense of curiosity beyond my normal attraction to a girl wearing glasses. Normal for me, that is. There was just a strange sense that something wasn’t quite right about her. What was it? Anyone could be clumsy or spill a drink. She seemed her normal chatty cheery self, as I sat admiring her strong glasses and the way light danced across them. She seemed to meet my eyes a couple of times - she must have seen me smiling, but she didn’t smile back, she instead looked a little perturbed. Then Fred went up for his match, and I was forced to concentrate on that. All in all it was a much better night than before - we won 6-5, thanks to Donna winning her match and helping us in the doubles. By the time I was home, I was too tired and had drunk a bit too much, so the niceties of the Donna question receded from my mind.
A few weeks later, it was another Saturday in mid June, we’d had quite a run of success, thanks mainly to Donna beating nearly everyone she was put up against. We all turned up one by one at the Rampant Horse for another Darts match, this time with the visitors the team from the Dog and Frog. Now these were a bunch of no-hopers, worse than us without Donna, so we weren’t so worried about this. I was sitting in my car listening to the radio for a moment - I was early, so I thought - and heard a car rev its engine, looked up and saw one car hit another with a crunch of bent metal and broken glass. I looked over, and one car had hit another. Some fat, red-faced and angry woman got out of one car to berate the driver of the other car. The other driver was our little superstar, Donna. Well, you can imagine the shouting and whatever ‘you drove into me, you stupid idiot, are you blind? You need to get your eyes tested!’ ‘No, you drove into me!’ And so on. Perhaps if it wasn’t Donna, or if she hadn’t been wearing glasses, then I wouldn’t have done what I did next. I got out the car, and started trying to intervene. After much heated argument, which I will not repeat here, I got the fat woman to grudgingly accept that I had witnessed the incident and that the blame was basically hers. As I politely opened the door, Donna looked up at me and said quietly “thanks for that, I owe you one”, to which I replied “any time for our star player”. She laughed, but I could see was shaken up by it. Different people react to car crashes and resultant arguments differently, so I thought nothing of her nervousness. I bought her a drink to help calm her down - she couldn’t play stressed out.
As usual, Donna beat her opponent handily, perhaps even more so because the unfortunate opponent was blind in one eye - maybe a bit of a mismatch, but that was how the random draw went. Donna went off to her car carrying her lucky darts, in case she lost them - not that she really needed luck - then came back in the middle of the next match. She didn’t see the fat woman as she went past, but the horrid woman sure saw her and knew who it was. She stuck out her foot, Donna clearly didn’t see it, and tripped over it. Unfortunately, one of her darts she was holding went flying and hit the Captain of the Dog and Frog team on the hand, went in and fell out, drawing blood. Even more unfortunately, he was easily their best player, and was up next against Fred. He stared at Donna, and then there was a strange quiet as people realised what had happened.
Thus ensued another argument - perhaps not as heated as the one outside, but the accusations of cheating were vehemently denied by Donna, who said simply ‘I just tripped up, sorry.’ Their Captain exclaimed heatedly ‘How can I play like this? My hand’s gone numb and stiff! Shall I get your Fred to throw left handed?’ Captain Bob shook his head, ‘No, that’s stupid, that’s an unfair advantage.’ ‘One of other players can go again.’ ‘No, that’s crazy!’ ‘She’s the crazy one,’ said their Captain, looking at Donna, who now looked as if she could be somewhere else, and repeated ’she’s a cheat!’ At that Donna gave a little wail, and ran off to the ladies to hide.
Well, this was getting the darts match nowhere, so the Pub Landlord came from behind the bar and asked what had happened. He took charge and got the opposing Captain’s hand bandaged up, then after hearing some more accusations and grumbling, he told everyone to calm down, and said that the match had to be abandoned, because Captain Bob would not let a substitute be used, which was his right. There was much more grumbling, the Dog and Frog team left in a huff, their supporters trickled away, leaving the pub half empty, and the Rampant Horse Darts Team sitting around in silence, not wanting to play darts. Then the recriminations started, Fred starting off ‘we need to get rid of her. She’s unlucky!’ Captain Bob strove to defend her ‘She’s won us four games this year already. That’s twice as many as we won in the whole of last year!’ ‘But one of those was against the Dog and Frog, this should have been an easy victory, we’ve lost a point because of her!’ Captain Bob looked sad, not wanting to lose Donna, but not wanting anything like this to happen again.
‘Where is she?’ ‘In the ladies loo, I reckon.’ ‘Puffin, you go look for her, she seems to like you best.’ Did she? Maybe Captain Bob had got that the wrong way round? Anyway I got up and went out to the ladies toilet. I knocked and called out “Donna! Are you there?” - I thought I heard a bit of quiet sobbing, or was that my imagination? Gingerly I pushed open the door, hoping that nobody would see me and think me some sort of pervert, and called in ‘Hello, Donna, are you alone?’ There was a little strangled sob from somewhere beyond the door, and a strained voice said ‘I think so,’ then ‘yes, nobody here.’
I went in, and found her leaning against the washbasins. She turned to face me, her eyes wet with tears, more tears running down her face. Automatically I offered a hug which was accepted. ‘Now don’t worry, it’ll all be alright’ ‘Really?’ She said, trying to blink tears away. ‘Yeah, we’re not all against you. We need you.’ She shook her head, evidently not quite believing that, but somehow forced herself to stop crying. I reassured her again, just in case ‘I know you’re the best Darts player the Rampant Horse has ever had.’ She took a tissue from the dispenser, and took off her glasses, and wiped her eyes dry. Her uncorrected eyes looked vaguely up at me, uselessly narrowing, her brain looking for detail in the blur, not helped by her recent cryfest, then she replaced her glasses, met my gaze firmly with her now corrected version, and gave me a little smile, mouthed “thanks again”, then her face changed to grim determination.
I followed her out to the bar, where she went up to the rest of the team, and stopped. ‘I’m just gonna say, it’s been fun, but I can’t keep on like this. You and I both know I’m not right for this team, I am too unlucky. Sooner or later, I will bring bad luck on you all. Thanks for having me, and… goodbye.’ Captain Bob got to his feet, and said ‘well, it’s been nice to have you ’, Fred grimacing at that,’ and I don’t want to feel you’ve been pushed out. If you want to come back, you’re welcome at any time.’ He shook her hand politely, and she turned to leave. I went after her, but she looked up at me, a hint of a tear in her eyes. ‘please, Puffin, don’t. Just go and sit down with your mates.’ I wished her goodbye, and glumly sat down with the team.
‘Well, what do we do now?’ Asked one. Fred replied acidly, ‘find someone who isn’t going to kill us, maybe?’ Captain Bob stared at him, but said nothing.
Over the next few weeks, things rapidly went back to the way they were before Donna’s advent. We got stuffed 9-2 and 11-0 in two matches against the Golden Lion and Black Sheep respectively. One or two members of our beleguered team grumbled, one suggested he wanted to give up, he was fed up with us getting beat all the time, the other wondered aloud whether someone ought to give Donna a ring and ask her to come back. That idea was soon squashed by a glare from Fred, who clearly did not want to forgive her for making him pass up the chance of settling an old score with the Captain of the Frog and Dog.
Some days later I was in the town centre during a weekday lunch break, in a pub typical of that area, not the old fashioned, traditional country pubs where we tended to play, but much more modern, and much as I didn’t want to admit it, much better kept. I had myself a quick drink before going off to a work-related meeting. I heard a familiar sound, then another, then another. Someone playing Darts here? Curious, I got up and went to look. Sure enough, just round the corner, there was a very neat and well-appointed darts room, complete with hardly-used dartboard. And there, with her back to me, was a familiar figure - Donna. She didn’t notice me at first, despite her attention not being entirely on the board. I noticed something about her that seemed different, not the way she looked, she still wore the same glasses, and it wasn’t the serious-looking trouser suit she was wearing, no, it was something about her behaviour. She seemed more serious, more concentrated. She seemed to look at things for just a little longer than thought necessary, and her head moved around more. A strange feeling that I half-knew what was going on with her came over me, but I couldn’t quite see what is was. Not wanting to make her jump, I coughed a little, and she turned to look at me.
She stood open mouthed for just a moment, her little eyes staring at me. After a moment of surprise, she smiled, and walked over to me. ‘Well, hello Puffin, it’s good to see you again.’ ‘How are you?’ ‘Getting on fine, really. No more accidents for a while. I’m glad you came to find me, I need to get your particulars on that incident last night.’ She screwed up her mouth at the thought of that. ‘Actually, I didn’t come to find you, I found you by accident.’ She laughed, and went to the door, turned and asked ‘Well, aren’t you going to buy me a drink, and tell me what’s been happening?’
I did as I was ordered, and then sat with her back in the cubicle where I was sitting before I heard her. I told her all about the defeats at the hands of just about anyone in the area who could hold a dart in their hands, and we got on merrily enough. She told me lots about her background, her job and how she liked to relax with playing darts. She seemed to snuggle up against me, and she spent much time staring into my eyes with her bespectacled gaze, me drinking in every opportunity to behold those twin shiny crystal things, one of them having the extra attraction and interest of a line. After a bit, she told me regretfully she had to go back to work - and so indeed did I. She promised to be back tommorow. I got a text message just before lunchtime the next day, she was busy and forgot about it, was really sorry, would try to hook up again another day, maybe Friday? Oh, I so hoped it could be.
Friday came and I waited inside the city pub we’d met in before. I thought I heard someone talking outside, and there she was, talking on her mobile, staring across the road at something in the distance. I waved at her, but she didn’t seem to notice me. I almost got run over by having to stand in the road to get her attention, and then her eyes widened and she smiled and waved me, said her goodbyes into her mobile phone, and gave me her full attention.
She took me inside, again apologizing about the missed meeting, and then seemed to notice something. Perhaps it was feminine intuition, I don’t know, but she looked me with that glorious gaze, and asked ‘Are you okay?’ ‘Erm, yeah, fine,’ I replied awkwardly, then,‘just a busy morning at work.’ She gave me a sympathetic look, and then started talking about work herself. Well, you know women, give some of them half a chance and off they go nattering away, whether from habit or nervousness or whatever, I didn’t really mind, it gave me more chance to consider her eyesight without thinking too much about what to say next. I took a swig of my drink while she looked at the notice board next to the bar, and then started reading it aloud. Well, you didn’t exactly need superhuman vision to read it, there’s not much point printing posters or fliers with print that a person with 20/20 vision can’t read unless they stand right in front of it. She said ‘hmmm, Summer Fair in August, haven’t been to one of those in ages.’ I wasn’t too interested in the Summer Fair right at that moment, nor Darts particularly. Something had occurred to me. It was obvious to me she could see perfectly well in the distance, and of course close up, but what about peripheral vision? What had happened seemed to fit the pattern. As she stared, read and commented on the I moved my hand forward, wiggling my fingers. She carried on looking ahead. I moved my hand further forward, and wiggled my fingers a little. Surely she must see them? Or perhaps she wasn’t interested in watching me wiggling my fingers? Admittedly, it wasn’t very interesting, but really the notice board wasn’t exactly fascinating either. I moved my hand a little further forward still, trying to guess the angle at which anyone normal could see it, even when wearing strong glasses like hers, which presumably distort her peripheral vision a little anyway. Still no response. That was it, the clincher. She had some sort of peripheral vision problem. I wondered what to say next, looking and feeling confused and sombre. Did she know she had a problem? Was I right? She turned her head somewhat toward me, looking across me at something on the far wall behind the bar.
Then she turned to look at me properly, and asked innocently ‘what’s the grin for?’ ‘I wasn’t smiling ’, I said, deadpan, then ‘really, I wasn’t smiling.’ She burst out laughing, and made to tickle me. ‘I’ll get you smiling…!’ Then she noticed I wasn’t really in the mood for that. ‘Rough day. OK, I understand.’
I took another swig of the drink, and dredged up the guts to ask the question that events and evidence demanded. I put the glass down, turned to her and asked ‘Donna, can you see okay?’ Her eyes opened in surprise, curiosity and perhaps, a little alarm at that. Then with some determination, she turned and looked into the distance, and read something. Not from the back of the bar, certainly not the easy notice board, but down the corridor next to it and through the open door at the end, something pinned on the wall beyond, over twice as far away as the notice board, a fire safety board telling what to do in case of emergency. The letters were smaller than those on the notice board, less than 3/4 of a inch or about 18 mm high. She carried on reading without any problem. Well, I reckoned on that performance, either she’d been going around memorising fire safety rules, or could actually see perfectly well in the distance. She stopped and turned to look at me, looking distinctly unimpressed. I held up my hands in a placatory gesture. To distract her, I asked ‘I know, lets have a game of darts. If you win, I’ll take you to the Summer Fair.’ Her expression changed from something like displeasure and distrust to something more like her normal disposition with me: smiles and delight.
We went into the darts room, and I let her go first. The game ebbed and flowed a bit, perhaps with her being put off with my question about her eyesight. She said to me brazenly ‘you ask some dumb questions sometimes. Look, I can see I’m winning. As usual.’ ‘I’d better start playing then.’ ‘Is that what you call it? Better start saving for the Summer Fair…’ Two more rounds later she’d beat me, her usual skill at finishing leaving me in her wake, I lost by quite a lot. It’s not uncommon, I’m not the greatest. I have seen Donna beat much better players than me, not that that really mattered much to me right at that moment. She sidled up to me, looking distinctly naughty. ‘Did you let me win?’ She smiled wickedly, so I told her ‘No, you’re much better than me at Darts.’ She gave me a kiss, and stepped back. ‘Perhaps I’ll find out how good you are at other things sometime?’ ‘Hmmm, maybe.’ ‘Maybe?’ ‘Okay, yes. Sometime.’ She waved, and blew a little kiss at me, and with that walked out and was gone.
The next day we were playing an away match against the Lady Jane Darts Team. This was another particularly good team, if we had had Donna we might have won, but without her, it was just another thrashing. We sat around moping, some of us openly wishing Donna was there, I felt the same, but not just for her dart throwing skills. Fred said bluntly ‘No way am I playing with her on the team. She’s a menace.’ At that a couple of the other members told him they were fed up with getting thrashed and wanted out. Captain Bob did his best to talk people round, but it didn’t seem to do any good. There was a big argument, and half the team left, two then me.
After work Monday evening, Captain Bob rang me ‘look, I know we’ve had our differences, and I know not everything has gone right while I’ve been Team Captain. It’s just that right now we don’t have a team, nobody is very happy with it least of all me. I need to ask you a favour, if you know where Donna is, being as she seemed to like you, can you get in contact with her and try to persuade her to come back. We need her. Even Fred knows that.’ ‘What about the others?’ ‘One thing at a time, Puffin.’ Well, I was more than happy to oblige, but did not indicate - yet - my rather easier access to Donna that he had any inkling of. I got a text from her asking to meet at the usual pub Tuesday at 1pm.
She was there first, sitting in the same spot we’d shared before, and deeply pleased to see me, it was obvious even a high myope without his glasses could see it. Again she saw that I seemed a little jumpy, nervous perhaps. ‘Another rough day?’ I nodded, although that wasn’t cause of my dilemma. I had to spill all. But should I spill all that I knew, or thought I knew? How would she react? Did she know she had a problem? Was I right? ‘You need to get a different job. They are making your life so difficult, I can tell, just for a bit of money to live on.’ I changed the subject and extended the invitation to rejoin the Darts Team. She was overjoyed, but asked ‘Is Fred OK with that?’ ‘He will be.’
After that I fell into another of my telling silences, so she made up her mind. ‘There’s more, isn’t there? Something you haven’t told me?’ ‘Err…’ ‘Go on, then.’ She glared at me, transfixing me with a hard, demanding stare.
I sat for a moment, then I said it ‘I know what’s wrong with you. Your eyesight.’ ‘There’s nothing wrong with my eyesight.’ Her voice wavered a little ‘nothing that glasses cannot correct. I only got new glasses 3 months ago. Sheesh, what is it with men and glasses? I’m only shortsighted, not disabled.’ She looked very irritated, and oddly, disturbed. ‘There is. How come you keep tripping up all the time?’ ‘So what, I’m clumsy. Live with it, I do.’ ‘What about the car crash? I saw what really happened. You pulled out and the woman’s car hit you.’ She glared at me, anger covering her anguish, ‘I don’t believe it, I come out for a drink with someone who I think is a decent, normal bloke and I find out he’s part of the Spanish Inquisition!’
‘Okay, let me prove it to you.’ ‘Hmmm…. okay,’ she agreed, displeasure covering something I surmised. ‘OK, look at the pink poster on the notice board. See it?’ ‘Of course I can see it. I’m not blind.’ ‘Right, keep looking at it… keep looking. Now I’m going to bring my finger in from the side, and you tell me when you can see it.’ ‘Alright, as if that’s going to do anything.’ I moved my finger slowly round in an arc, through what ought to be part of her visual field, saying a couple of times ‘keep looking at the poster… can you see it?’ ‘You should be able to see my finger by now.’ ‘I can’t, and that’s because I shouldn’t be able to. My glasses distort at the edges.’ ‘Yes, but not that much. Being myopic tends to make the view like a wide angle lens, you get more field of view.’ ‘How would you know that? Are you an optician now?’
I breathed, and then started to explain. ‘Okay, I know how strange this sounds, but there are some people who don’t make judgements about people who have defective vision.’ I saw a growing look of comprehension and, unfortunately, dismay on her face at that. I continued ‘there are some people who, odd as it might seem, like the look of glasses. They are called….’ She interupted me, blurting out angrily ‘I know exactly what they are called, they’re “Optic Obsessives”! Her eyes rolled skyward, then glared at me, with a mixture of anger and dismay. ‘I also know what they are like. Couldn’t you be normal, for a change? I really thought you might be, no, you’re someone who wants me for my glasses, not for me. Couldn’t you be into my legs, my bum, my tits? What’s wrong with them, aren’t they interesting too? I’ve met two or three men like you in my time, always staring and drooling over my glasses, nothing else. I do notice that, despite my problems.’ ‘So, you admit you have a problem?’ ‘Ahh, fuck this, you pervert, I’m off! Don’t call me!’
With that, she stormed out of the pub. I didn’t hear from her, and didn’t dare call her. Captain Bob rang me later in the week to ask if I’d been in touch with Donna, and yes I had. I lied to him when I told him I thought she would be there. He said ‘Ahh well, you did your best, thanks Puffin.’ I didn’t dare tell him anything else, being as I thought I had done my worst and ruined everything. It’s just that my little secret - some of the time it goes okay. That time it didn’t. Maybe next time, I’d be luckier, with some other luscious bespectacled beauty.
To my endless astonishment, Donna turns up for the last match of the season, an away match at the Golden Cross. The rest of the team were delighted to see her, and she actedly pleasantly enough to them. But towards me there were only icy stares and the briefest and most grudging of acknowledgements. There it was, me trying to move on and there was the attractive GWG dangled before, unobtainable because of what I had discovered. Despite this, Donna helped us to a decent victory, 7-4. Thankfully I wasn’t forced to play doubles with her. On the way out, Captain Bob thanked us all, especially Donna, we’d done okay in the league, instead of being wooden spooners, we’d come 6th in the league, top half but one place below that which would entitle us go to the regional finals. ‘Don’t be disappointed, this is just the start. Next year, we try again.’ I wasn’t so sure I would be there next year, if Donna was around. For a couple of weeks I forgot about darts, and tried to forget about Donna too, but one evening the phone rang. It was Captain Bob. Excitedly he told me that the 5th place team had all come down with food poisoning, and would be no shape to compete in the regional finals that coming weekend. The place was being offered to us instead. With mixed feelings I accepted the offer and promised to be there early next Saturday, despite cursing to myself about the food poisoning.
Duly we all turned up that Saturday morning, Donna gave me a hard stare and said nothing of import, then we were into the matches. We did really well, much better than Captain Bob and the rest of us expected, mostly thanks to a certain Donna with a perfect, deadly aim. Eventually we did get knocked out, but got as far as the semi finals. Bob reckoned we’d done ourselves proud, and heaped praise on Donna. Even Fred was gracious enough to thank her. Our final match was the play-off for 3rd/4th place against the Greedy Fat Pig Darts Team. We were doing okay, 4-4 with 3 matches to go. Next up was Donna, our little secret weapon. Our supporters were chanting her name “Don-na! Don-na!”, clapping their hands and stamping their feet. As she ran up the short flight of steps to the Dartboard, she tripped and fell - to a big gasp and sigh from the crowd - and her glasses flew off, skidding across the well-polished floor, and straight under someone’s stamping foot. One sickening crunch later, and they were fit only for the litter bin.
Donna cried out in surprise and dismay, then started looking for her glasses. As if that were remotely possible, given her poor vision, and it was definitely pointless, given their ruined state. Someone told her what had happened to them, and she wailed in distress. Captain Bob went up to help her, but it was clearly pointless getting her to play darts right now. Our team asked the opposing Captain for a timeout, and he accepted. Donna was shocked and confused by her state, I tried talking to her, even Fred did, without much effect, but then she managed to pull herself together a bit, and said ‘I’ve got a spare pair in my car… I think…. I hope!’ Captain Bob took her car keys from her bag - she couldn’t see to find them - and went to look. He came back a few minutes later, looking desperately disappointed, saying ‘sorry Donna… I can’t find them.’ Donna nearly burst into tears at that: there was no way she could try playing, I reckoned she could barely see the board in the sense she could see something was there, but having no idea what it was unless told. Perhaps someone could guide her, point her in the right direction? No, that was silly, and the opposing captain would probably object to that.
After a pause, Captain Bob said to us sadly, ‘I reckon we’ll have to give them the game, we could still win the match, if I can get the other Captain to agree to let us change the last doubles pairing.’ He went off, and we heard a bit of an argument, nothing so tempestuous those I’d heard recently, then Captain Bob came back and told us the news. ‘He’s not for waiting around much longer, but is willing to swap around the order of play, so we have a little while to work out some solution to Donna’s problem.’ He turned to one of the other players and told him he was up next, then started wondering aloud ‘does anyone around here have a spare pair of glasses?’ He looked around, eyeing those supporters and watchers bespectacled nearby, but although some did wear glasses, they evidently didn’t make a habit of carrying spare pairs around with them, and obviously wouldn’t give up their glasses they wore now, just for a darts match - not that any of them had prescriptions near that of Donna. One old lady proffered a pair of readers - quickly rejected by the morose Donna. It seemed hopeless to her and Captain Bob.
But something about that moment reminded me of what I had in the back of my car. You know, as an optic obsessive, I have quite a collection of glasses, and had recently been to a junk shop to buy more examples. Had I taken them out? And in amongst that group of old fashioned, assorted pairs of random glasses, might there be anything Donna could use? I went to her, and said ‘I know you don’t like or trust me much, but trust me now. You want to see, you want to win this darts match?’ She glared at me, despite her feeble, fuzzy, distorted vision. She then spoke very uncertainly, grudgingly even ‘alright, tell me what you want to do. I have a feeling I won’t like it.’ ‘You might not love it, but you might be able to see the dart board!’ ‘Okay, no funny business?’ ‘Not really, I promise.’ With that she got up, and allowed me to lead her to my car, still not very convinced, but at this point, willing to try anything.
Once outside, I took her to my car, taking care to warn of her steps, things in the way, etc. She didn’t thank me for that. I opened the back of my car, and in answer to my prayers, the box with the latest lot of old glasses was in there. And another. And another small one in the corner. Elated, I started rummaging. Curious and seeing just about nothing, Donna walked over, squinting desperately in the poor light. Uncertainly, quaveringly she asked ‘what are you doing?’ I had to stop myself answering “what does it look like”. To her, it seemed like just something blurry moving around. I started at the beginning. ‘You know I am into glasses.’ ‘Yes, I know.’ ‘I collect glasses.’ ‘Why? Oh, never mind, I don’t want to know.’ ‘Well, I like the look of them. But actually, right now, I might have a pair that will fit you, that you can see through.’ At that she gave a little surprised noise, and now sounded vaguely interested, rather than absolutely disgusted with me. ‘Okay… Go ahead then.’
It took a few minutes of rummaging, and there few glasses in my small collection here that were remotely right for Donna. She asked me, a skeptical note in her voice ‘do you know what my prescription is?’ ‘Do you?’ ‘Not really, something like 21 in my right eye, 24 in the left. I can’t remember. I’m no glasses nut, I just wear them to see.’ ‘I thought as much.’ ‘You can tell my prescription?’ ‘To within a couple of points. It’s no great magic trick. It’s to do with cut in and eyesize. Erm, I’ll explain later.’
After a couple more minutes, I’d found a few pairs that might just be right for Donna. Thankfully the batch I had contained many strong, thick minus glasses, some with myodisk lenses. Unfortunately, they were of distinctly old-fashioned design, from 20 years ago or more. That couldn’t be helped. I turned to her and explained what I had ‘They don’t look like what you are used to, I don’t think we can fussy about the frames or design right now. So… here goes the first pair.’ Donna tried them on - they were a bit too small, but the lenses were close to what she needed. She took them off, and I helped her with another pair. ‘Ahh, I can see clearly with my left eye… but not the right, it’s all distorted. I really need the right eye sorted.’ It continued for about 6 or 7 pairs of glasses, one at a time being rejected on grounds of size or one lens being too far out. It took a bit of argument, but she settled on a particular pair, a powder-blue pair of drop-temples with the right lens a little too strong, the left rather too weak. It wasn’t great, but it was a whole lot better than minus 21 and more dioptres of blur. Thankfully she didn’t have much astigmatism, or else what I was trying would have been a struggle with my full collection, let alone just what I had here.
I remembered something else. ‘Hang on’, I exclaimed, and opened the smallest box. It contained a couple of broken pairs of glasses I was intending to dump. There was one broken pair of cateyes, with a single plus lens, and what used to be a pair of drop temples, with a powerful myodisk lens on the left, and neither lens nor frame the other side. Hurriedly, knowing we were short of time, I pushed the lens out of the ruined frame and told her to try it. ‘Which eye?’ ‘Left.’ She tried it, and she gave a little “O” of surprise. ‘It’s exactly right.‘ After some determined but careful shoving, the old lens was out, the new one pushed in, and Donna was wearing her new, but old glasses. I commented ‘they look very attractive on you.’ ‘don’t start!’ Was her reply, but this time lacking much of the angry venom she’d thrown at me before.
She followed me in, looking distinctly pleased with herself. Captain Bob asked her where she had found them, and she said ‘don’t ask. And don’t worry, I can see just fine.’ I called out ‘Watch out for the steps!’ She nodded, and walked carefully up them to the oche, where her opponent was waiting, hoping for a timeout win. No such luck for him, and worse, he faced a determined Donna. She struggled at first, getting used to different size, shape and feel of her glasses, and in particular the different way they let her see clearly - but the comparatively narrow myodisks didn’t seem to be a problem for her, being as she couldn’t see much beyond that angle with her normal glasses. The weight did bother her, she had fiddle with them and push them onto her nose between rounds, but overall that didn’t cause her too much difficulty. Her opponent was good, but not that good, and she was Donna, even with only reasonable vision, she could beat people, and so she did, and we ended up at 5-5 with one to play. And guess what, it was a doubles match, with guess which pair? Yes, it was me and Donna. I’d been dreading this since I saw our names together, but now, I went up to her with hope in her heart. Despite what had been said before, she smiled at me.
Then our opponents appeared, a husband and wife team. Innate understanding flowed between them, and as if that weren’t enough, they were fine darts throwers. The game started, and we were behind, thanks in the main to me and my nervousness, but Donna was steely and, thankfully, gracious and encouraging. Despite that, the married pair from the Greedy Fat Pig were getting ahead of us. Suddenly Donna pulled out a magic round, scoring 180, and we weren’t doing so badly. Then they did better, and I didn’t, and thus things went wrong again. Donna was left with the 2nd highest checkout possible, 167, if she missed, they would surely win, they needed only 40, an pretty easy checkout. She turned to me, and said ‘Puffin, after this, I need to talk to you. But now, I need to do this. I know I can now, thanks to you.’ She favoured me with a smile, how I had missed that! Then, cooler than a million cucumbers, she stepped right up to the oche, to the usual chants of “Don-na! Don-na!”, and much cheering and foot-stamping - this time her glasses weren’t getting anywhere near that! Thanks to her nerves of steel, and the emergency glasses supplied by me, she slotted in treble 20, treble 19, then bullseye, each throw accompanied by a cheer. The place erupted when she hit the bull, Donna jumped around, whilst holding her darts aloft in one hand and carefully holding her makeshift glasses onto her face with her other. The team mobbed her, and me, and then sometime later, we got up onto the podium to collect our third place medals. Captain Bob was fit to burst with delight and pride, so he went to buy a drink to celebrate.
My mind still reeling from our success, we were all outside when Donna came up to me, looking distinctly sheepish. ‘Look, I’m… sorry about what happened before. Perhaps I was a bit hasty.’ Graciously, I nodded a vague acceptance of her apology. I couldn’t really pass up such a chance of this, a good looking girl wearing vintage frames, the myodisks small, the lenses thicker and sparkier, none of this modern day understated stuff. In those days, they took their thick lenses and lived with them. After a pause, during which she eyed me, she admitted ‘I still don’t understand this thing with you and my glasses, for me they are just things I need to wear to help me see. But… even the strangest seeming things have a use, a purpose, although I might not know what it is at the time, you have taught me that.’ ‘And before you say anything else, I agree that I need to get this peripheral thing checked out. By a proper optician, not a glasses nut. But I should be grateful that someone is looking out for me. Perhaps I have avoided the issue for too long.’ ‘Good. Can I come?’ She looked dubious, so I added ‘only to the reception, I don’t need to watch the procedure. Just to hold your hand, as they say.’ ‘Okay, yeah, just to hold my hand. Actually….’ she grasped my hand, smiling, then said ‘you can hold my hand now.’ We walked off to the car park, and she asked ‘It’s not too late to get tickets for the Summer Fair, is it?’ ‘No, I don’t think so. But if it is, there’s bound to be something else we can go to together.’ ‘I’ll be checking out all the pub notice boards I can find, just in case, then.’