Ugly Puggly 11

The shopkeeper said he was very sorry to hear about Agnes.

‘Cheers,’ I could never mind his name. I’d called him Raj, when I was drunk and he smiled as if he was used that kind of thing.

I was just in for milk, rolls and a Daily Record. He knew what I liked and was usually ahead of me.

‘When is the funeral?’ he asked.

‘Wednesday, up at the Crematorium.’

‘I don’t know if I can make it,’ he smiled over my head as another regular came into his shop.

I clutched my groceries into my stomach. ‘Dunno, if I can make it either.’

‘What did she die of?’ he asked.

I turned away and the bell dinged as I left. ‘The cancer,’ I said over my shoulder.

‘That’s right,’ he replied as if he already knew.

It was a clear and cold March morning. Agnes was booked in for an 11am slot. Her sisters were there for her. Women of advancing years. Ellen got up to do the dedication, but choked up and couldn’t finish it. The humanist celebrant took the papers out of her hand and finished it for her. Gratitude bubbled up and I wiped away tears with an old hanky. Humanists always seemed to have a beard, even the women.

Elvis, ‘Caught in a trap…’ played as the curtain closed.

The sisters lined up to shake people’s hands as they left. Ellen looked at my outstretched hand and said in her husky voice, ‘You’ve got to be fuckin jokin!’ and blanked me  

The humanist looked over and smiled as if we’d been sharing a joke about Elvis Presley turning up at Prestwick Airport when Agnes was born. No relation, she once joked and I choked. They’d invited everybody to the Reception in the old Pinetrees Hotel. If it was a popularity contest, Agnes was very popular, but I already knew that. I’d the work van and drove it towards Dalmuir and parked outside the pub. I wasn’t looking for company, but I was looking for accommodation.

I battered on Ugly Puggly’s door. ‘I need a place to stay,’ I staggered into the hall and woke up in his mum’s old bedroom, lying on top of the yellow winceyette double bed still in my shirt and black tie. A double wardrobe and chest of drawers with swing-mirrors taking up the gloom. Vintage.

I heard laughter coming from the kitchen. But it was coming from a radio perched on the windowsill. Dave had made a good job of cleaning up and there was enough space on the table for his breakfast—a fry up, and it brought on the boak. I rattled up the stairs and into the toilet.

Ugly Puggly was reading when I came into the living room and looked over the top of his book. Dave was sitting in the other armchair like a Jack Russell ready to spring for your heels.

‘How’d it go?’ asked Ugly Puggly.

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘It was good.’ Then I slid into a seat as I tried to explain. ‘I mean, she got a good send aff’.  

Ugly Puggly folded shut the book and made smacking noises with his lips. ‘Costly, but eh?’

‘Aye, I suppose, probably about five or six grand, I’d hink. But I didnae have much to dae wae that side of hings.’

He rubbed at his eyes. ‘That as well. But I was thinking more in terms of methane and carbon emissions.’

‘Agnes wisnae a well-fired roll wae too much packaging, for fuck sake, get a grip…You’re fuckin crazy.’

‘He’s no fucking crazy,’ Dave yapped. ‘You’re just feeling sorry for yerself.’

‘Shut the fuck up. It’s nothin to dae wae you. And anyway, his psychiatrist said he was crazy.’

Ugly Puggly raised an index finger as if keeping the score. ‘That’s partially true,’ he said.

Dave shook his head and screwed up his face, pushed himself to the edge of the chair facing me. ‘That’s no the point.’

‘Aye, and you’d know.’

‘Aye, I would know. The point is you were married to your childhood sweetheart, but you wanted to have sex with other people. You did have sex with other people, including Agnes. Now you say you loved Agnes, because she’s conveniently dead. And your wife booted you out. And now yer feeling sorry for yerself. Is that about it?’

‘No, it isnae,’ I growled. If my head hadn’t hurt so much, I might have swung for him. ‘It’s fuck aw to dae wae you.’ I nodded in his direction. ‘How does he know aw this?’ I asked Ugly Puggly. ‘Have you been tellin him about my business?’

‘No,’ he shook his head.

‘He didn’t have to,’ Dave yelped. ‘You were doon here all of last night, greeting and howling about how it wisnae fair. How she was only 62, and you loved her. How much you loved your wife. How much you loved everybody.’ He sneered, ‘Even how much you loved me.’

‘Nah, that’s no true.’ I looked over to Ugly Puggly for confirmation, but he nodded that it was true. ‘But I didnae mean that.’

‘That’s what I meant,’ said Dave. ‘You don’t mean anything because you’re a selfish bastard.’

I jumped from the couch and flew at him, but he was quicker than me and shoved me.  I staggered and crashed into a table full of leather-bound books. Nothing was broken apart from my pride. Dave held a hand out to help me up.

‘Fuck off,’ I cried. Got myself up and staggered past him. Out into the hall and searching my pockets for my van keys, remembered my jacket was upstairs hanging over a table with a picture of Ugly Puggly’s parents.

Ugly Puggly met me sneaking back into the lobby. ‘You want a cup of tea?’ he asked.  

‘Only I can make it.’ I knew what his tea was like. ‘The thing is I need somewhere to stay.’

‘We all need somewhere to stay,’ he said. ‘Maslow says as much in his hierarchy of human needs. It’s there at the base of the pyramid in physiological needs.’

‘No,’ I waved a hand at him, before he got started. ‘Whit I mean is, I want to stay here for a wee while, until I get myself sorted.’

He shrugged. ‘There’s two bedrooms. I only ever use one.’

‘Aye, but I don’t want to get in your road.’

‘Well, don’t,’ he said.