Ugly Puggly 9

I wandered through to the kitchen. While the kettle was boiling, I picked out a mug from the debris in the sink. Tap water was boiling hot. I ducked down and pulled the blind up to look out the window. He’d a kind of windmill thing in the garden. It wasn’t as big as I imagined. I noticed it creaked with each turn of the blades and iit would drive the neighbours daft. A cable ran from it into a shed. I couldn’t find any milk in the fridge, apart from the long-life stuff that was older than me. The cheese was blue, and I didn’t imagine that was its natural colour. I wouldn’t be searching the cupboards for the biscuit tin.

I kicked through stuff piled both sides of the hall and into the living room. He was sprawled in a chair, flicking through a leather-bound volume of Rabbie Burns’ poetry. I sipped at my tea and sat down in the other armchair. ‘Jesus, I hope the next council tenants will be able to find the furniture under aw this junk.’

He briefly looked at me. ‘It no junk.’

I sucked in my breath. ‘You fooled me, but I guess when we were young, we were the jumble sale. You got handed down yer sister’s duffle coat and brother’s school shirt.’ I looked about for an old house phone. Ours used to sit at the door on a kind of tabernacle. A phone was a sign you’d made it. I never thought we’d come to a day when you’d actually have to talk to people on them, as if we were middle class. At least he never had at least six rooms to have a shower and do a shit, each with their own tile features. You shouted down the phone instructions of where to meet and when—left it at that and hoped for the best.

‘And that garden of yours—’

‘Whit’s wrang wae it?’

‘It’s got a fucking windmill in it and it’s full of glass for one thing.’

‘It could be worse,’ he said in a measured tone. ‘It could be full of grass.’

‘Grass!’ I cried. ‘Whit’s wrang wae grass? I’ve got grass in my garden.’

‘It doesn’t do anything.’

‘Exactly, that’s whit grass is for. Not daein anything.’

‘Well,’ he replied. ‘Think of all the resources we fling away wae not daeing anything. You’ve got the council out spraying it wae stuff they used to drop in the jungles of Vietnam. Rachel Carson wrote a book about it, called Silent Spring. And then you’ve got aw the kind of machinery to cut and manicure it, keep it to a uniform height. Or even worse, covering it in plastics—it’s no artificial grass, it’s plastic, pure and simple—if I’d covered that slope out there in plastic bags instead of broken bottles, people wouldn’t be up congratulating me on my artificial bin bags.’

‘But think of all the jobs you’ll be losing.’ I was thinking of my own job. ‘The Tories shut shipyards, steel mills, and factory after factory and called it progress.

‘Fuck off,’ he said. ‘The future is already here. You’ve already got machines that hover and cut coleoptile growth to 3mm and returns to base to recharge. They don’t need humans. All they need is a massive waste of dead space and small minds—it’s not about jobs, it’s about the planet. We need to make changes now. Throw everything into the mix.’     

‘So whit you saying? Dae nothing?’

‘It would be a start. What we really need to do is stop using fossil fuels and make trees our temples.’

‘You sound like one of those green nuts.’

His bony face broke into a grin. ‘You’re probably right. The police are trying to lock me up. And the government pays me for being sick, but it won’t pay me for being well. And I’ve got a certificate fae the doctor saying I’m a loony, but only if I volunteer to be.’ He held out his arm. ‘I’m no green. I like to think of myself as pale and interesting. But you’d need to be nuts not to think we’re all gonnae burn very soon, and want to dae something about it.’  

I put the mug down at my feet. ‘Och, whit can you dae? You cannae dae nothing.’

He made chewing noises with his thick lips. ‘Maybe, you’re right,’ he eventually said. ‘We need a sign from God. White clouds in a blue sky. A Saltire sign from our patron Saint Andrew—who’s also, incidentally, the patron Saint of Russia—that we’re gonnae hump the English in battle. And we dae. We bring back their goalposts and turf from Wembley. And we’re sick all the way in the bus hame. We never done nothin, but we did somethin.’

‘You taking the piss?’

‘Aye.’

‘But you werenae even there.’

‘Aye, but you’ve talked to me about it enough to make me think I was.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘I would,’ he said. ‘But it’s my house.’

Glancing about the room, I was trying to think of something to hit back with. Then I got it. ‘Aye,’ I speared a warning finger at him. ‘But it’ll no be yours for long, when the council evict yeh, for the mess you’ve made.’

He snorted. ‘You sound like a twee wee columnist fae The Sunday Post. But chance would be a fine thing. It’s no Council.’

I coughed and smacked at my chest. ‘Whit is it then?... It cannae be bought!’

‘How no?’

‘Because…yeh’ve nae money.’

‘I didn’t say I did.’

‘Where’d you get it then?’

‘I didn’t get it anywhere. My mum bought the house before she died. She said it was a beezer of a price. Much cheaper buying than renting.’

I almost kicked over the mug and I jerked forward. ‘You’re lecturing me and you sold oot!’

‘Sold out, whit?’ he asked.

I wasn’t sure, but it felt right. ‘Market forces. The thing you’re greetin about.’

The front door clattered open and we both turned our head. Dave hi-stepped over junk and into the living room, carrying another black bag. He too, it seemed, had been turned into a Womble. He put it down on the floor, adding to the detritus.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said and narrowed his eyes.

‘It certainly is,’ I replied in an overly bright voice. ‘Nice to see you too, Mr Bulgaria.’

‘What you talking about?’ he asked and wiggled his eyes and tilted his head to show he wanted to have a quiet word with Ugly Puggly.

But Ugly Puggly was never good with the subtle. I had to explain to him. ‘He wants tae talk tae yeh—alone.’

‘How did he not say then?’ Ugly Puggly asked.

‘Because I’m here.’

Ugly Puggly considered this and shook his head as if he couldn’t quite fathom it. But I made it easy for him. I got up from the chair, careful not to knock anything over. ‘I’m just leaving, anyway.’