Ugly Puggly 35

Ugly Puggly's skin was gritty with dirt. He was making fancy chips and grilling pieces of duck on the bone. He’d their vegetable relation, chickpeas, on the boil. He knew I hated chickpeas, but I didn’t take it personally.

I lumbered down the stairs into the heat of the kitchen with a towel wrapped around my expanding waist. Vosene shampoo coating what was left of my hair. ‘The water’s no workin.’

‘I didn’t notice,’ he ran the cold water tap in the sink. ‘Seems to be workin fine.’

‘Nah, I mean, it’s no heatin. No hot!’

He chopped some vegetable with a large knife and dressed it in a bowl with olive oil so pungent it tickled my nose. ‘It’s the boiler. Yer no gettin enough energy fae the batteries, cause the windmills no turning. Just take a cold shower.’

‘I cannae.’

‘How no?’

‘Cause it’s cold.’

He laughed, and stepped over Harry’s body to check under the grill. ‘But it’s good for yeh, for yer immune system.’

I was dripping on the floor. ‘Fuck off! It might be good for yer immune system, but it’s no good for mine.’

I went back up the stair to pray for the miracle of hot water to rinse myself with. When I came down, the chips were in a small ceramic bowl and the duck was crisp and dark, which made my mouth water. ‘Where’s the tomato sauce and vinegar?’

He went to the cupboard and stuck them down in front of me, and sat down across from me. I took a wing and mouthful and it was better than I hoped. ‘You know hauvin any?’

‘Nah, I’m no hungry.’ His eyes slipped away from mine.  

‘Don’t go all anorexic on me.’ I dunked a chip and pushed the bowl towards him. ‘I know you think there’s nothin worse than a fat poof, but yer just big boned.’ I patted my paunch. ‘Look at me wae my athletic body.’

Taking a chip, he bit it in two and swallowed, and spoke with his mouth full, showing he’d no manners. ‘I think being a murderer is worse than being fat, or even a poof.’

Taking a handful of chips in tomato sauce, I stuffed them in my mouth. I spluttered, ‘You don’t fancy me, dae yeh?’

He shook his head and took another chip. ‘The number of people that fancy you follows the law of diminishing returns. And I think yer pretty close to zero, noo. I’d guess even a negative number, if that’s possible. Mair people hate yeh, than love yeh.’

I tucked into another duck wing and chewed slowly. ‘Whit about my wife?’

‘Nah, habit. She just puts up wae yeh. She doesane hate yeh. No, yet.’

‘True,’ I nodded. ‘I’m a bad habit. Whit about puddin?’

‘Nae puddin.’ He turned his head. ‘It’ll be gettin dark soon we need tae think about puttin Harry in the ground.’

‘Don’t go all morose on me. But if yeh want tae pick up a bad habit and go on the drink, I’m yer man for a bender, but no necessarily the kind of bender yeh like.’

He got up to make the tea and stepped over Harry’s body to fill the kettle. Glancing out the window, he said, ‘There’ll be people lookin for him, waitin for him. And they’ll no know whit to dae or say, because there’s nae body. Think of all they wans after 9/11 that had nothing to bury, not even a fine-tooth comb of hair, and envied the dead and those that had somethin tae put in the grave.’ He turned towards me. ‘We’re robbin people of their grief.’

I pushed my plate from me and tried to think of something to say. ‘We didnae choose this mate. It chose us.’

‘I know, but it’s hard. There’s wee hing, ye’ve got tae think about, like should I put his watch back on him?’

‘Why would you dae that? It’s a good watch.’

‘But naebody will ever use it. And as the body decomposes and turns back into the essential elements and minerals of all of us, it’ll still be there.

I ran my fingers through what was left of the gunge in my hair. ‘Will it still be tickin like a bomb?’

He stepped over the body to get the milk for my tea. ‘Modern watches don’t tick much, but then yev the problem of if they dig up the body, and the watch has stopped, they’ll assume that’s when he died.’

‘Maybe we should fast-forward it then, or knock it backwards, like Back tae the Future. And then boom, they can start him up again, like Lazarus, only fatter.’

Putting too much milk in my tea, he handed me a mug, but stood rigid with his back against the work surface, sipping at his tea with smacking noises.

‘I think we should put his watch on him.’ I nodded solemnly. ‘It’ll be fittin. Maybe someday somebody will gie him a proper burial.’

‘Aye, that’s whit worries me tae. If he gets a proper burial sooner rather than later, then we all go to jail.’

‘Can yeh know make yer fuckin mind up?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I cannae. During the Clydebank Blitz, they didnae have a lot to bury either. And they said there was 500 dead. One of the wardens famously remarked, “Aye, in whit street”. They we had Dresden, 25 000 evaporated, where even the air was too hot to breathe.’

‘Nine-eleven,’ I said.

‘Aye, nine-eleven, 3000 bodies or thereabouts. Thousands more killed breathing in carcinogenic dust particles. Hundreds of thousands killed in a revenge mission that made the world a worse place to live.’

‘Noo, yer talkin,’ I said. ‘Get angry. It wisnae totally yer fault.’

‘Aye, it wis,’ he replied.

‘But technically, it wisnae. Whit about natural disasters?’

His brows furrowed and he looked like a gargoyle ready to spit water. Well, Typhoo Haiyan killed around 250 000, but that was mainly in the Philippines. And we know that poor people don’t really count. It was described as a super storm. A once-in-a-lifetime event, that happens every other year.’

I jumped in fright. Dave was standing in the doorway. ‘Whit yeh daeing creeping about?’

‘I didn’t creep,’ he replied. ‘I got the bus.’

‘You’ll probably keep the bus ticket as a memento of yer lastin love.  

He looked at the body and stepped over it to give Ugly Puggly a peck on the lips. ‘My mum wants tae see yeh,’ he told him. ‘Wonders whit yer intentions ur?’

‘Oh, for fuck sake,’ I cried. ‘She wants yeh tae make an honest man of im’. Even though she cannae stand yeh, or poofs, in general. Just tell her yer a mass murderer. That maybe put her aff. But maybe no. It’s no as if the playboy is a great prize.’

‘Speak for yersel,’ said Dave.

‘I’m ur speakin for myself, but also for Howard. The answer is a big fat, Nae Chance. Goin marry yersel tae yer phone.’