Ugly Puggly 97

‘How’d it go?’ wee Jim sprung up from his seat. He didn’t wait for an answer. He was already racing towards the door and out into the carpark as if the cops were chasing behind us.

The meeting in the back room of a library had already started when we arrived. Wee Jim didn’t get to sit at the top table, but has to squash into a grey polyurethane bucket seat next to commoners. We kept our jackets on. The room felt damp. He raised his hand in a silent salute to a woman with chopped silver hair, wearing a brown and beige top, and a long skirt sitting in the row in front of us. She might once have been a looker. I whisper out of the side of my mouth like a schoolboy. ‘Is that yer bit on the side?’

‘Fuck off,’ he spoke too loudly. The bald guy in front of us turned his head. And the speaker at the top table stuttered to a halt and glared at us.

‘She’s wiz a teacher,’ he whispered.

‘Nice.’

‘Nah, no like that. She taught me how to read.’

‘Yer illiterate?’

‘Nah, I jist couldnae read very well, or count either.’

I sniggered. ‘That explains why yer so tight fisted wae the money.’

‘Fuck off.’ But he raised his hand in salute again as she smiled across at him and winked. ‘I shared when I was first in recovery that I couldnae read or write and she offered to help.’  

It was a welcome diversion because the meeting was boring. And I was glad to get home and drop wee Jim off. He slapped my shoulder. Offered a compliment of sorts that might also have been an insult. He told me, ‘Yer daeing better than I thought yed be daeing.’

‘The only wae I could be daeing any worse if I was deid.’

‘Exactly. Let go and let god.’

Molly greeted me at home with a cup of tea. There was an uncomfortable silence between Dave and me. ‘Sorry,’ I told him. ‘I can be a bit of a sad cunt.’

He was magnanimous. ‘I know.’

We competed with each other to see who could get to the plate with chocolate biscuits, and I let him win.

Molly dipped a ginger nut into her tea. It wobbled before she caught it on her tongue. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘Whit did they say?’

I took my mobile phone out of my pocket and slapped it on the table between us as if it held the answers. ‘Strange hink, they asked were I wiz, although they already knew.’ I sipped my tea and pulled the biscuits towards me before the playboy finished them. ‘But then they said the call came fae the same place.’

Dave stopped chewing. ‘Whit does that mean?’

Molly cut in. ‘It means—’ her thoughts choked as options run across her face. She turned to me for an explanation. ‘Whit does it mean?’

‘Fuck if I know.’ I crunched on a chocolate wafer. And put the same question to her. ‘You must have some idea. Cause you watched every wan of they Midsomer Murders. And the body count was higher than the San Francisco love-in.’

‘Huv I seen that?’ Dave asked.

‘Nah,’ I explained. ‘Only old people that vote Tory watch it. And only because it reminds us how boring telly can be when you most expect it. Just when yer waitin for somethin tae happen, it doesnae. Just like real life for rich cunts.’

Molly muttered, ‘I don’t vote Tory!’  

‘I exaggerated that part.’ I involved Dave in our conversation. ‘He doesnay vote for anythin.’

He perked up. ‘I dae. I vote Green, but I huvnae yet, because I huvnae voted. But if I did. I wid.’ He hesitated to say more. ‘But at least that means Howard is alive.’

I shook my head sadly. ‘Wish that wiz true. But she’ll tell yeh. Midsomer Murders. Anybody yeh expect to be alive is already deid.’

Molly’s face became animated. ‘That’s true.’ She chewed on her bottom lip when she realised the implications. ‘Mostly,’ she added. ‘Did yeh see anybody?’

‘A guy walkin his dog.’

Dave leaned forward and hugged a cushion to his midriff. ‘Anybody else?’

‘No sure—it wiz dark.’  

‘That’s a shame,’ said Molly.

I blurted out, ‘It might have been Ugly Puggly’.

Dave dropped his cushion and it bounced under the table. ‘How did yeh know it wiz him? How did he know yeh were up there? Did he know ask about me?’

‘Dunno.’  A moment of hesitation and they were both firing questions at me that I couldn’t answer. ‘Just a feeling,’ was the best I could come up with. I felt stupid, and I needed a drink. ‘I might be wrang.’

Molly persisted. ‘Whit did yeh say it for, then?’

I got up.  My hands rounded fists as I leaned on the table, making a bridge with my body. My eyes were teary. I continued to stand there, wondering how I could explain. ‘I’m goin tae bed.’ I tried to keep my voice chirpy. ‘I’ll see yeh in the mornin.’

I picked up the phone and stuffed it into my side pocket. ‘For the time,’ I explained as I slouched towards the bedroom.

Dave spoke to my back. ‘I’ll no be here in the mornin.’

I wiped at my eyes and turned towards him. ‘Nae bother.’ I apologised again.

He whined, ‘But if it was Howard, why didnae he phone me?’

‘Or me?’ Molly asked. Lightening our mood.

My phone rang in my pocket. My hand was like the claw inside a cage of an amusement- arcade game. They seemed to be holding their breath until I answered. I took a few steps towards the lobby for privacy. Held the phone to my ear.

‘Aye, Jim,’ I said.

Wee Jim had forgotten to tell me something, but I wasn’t really listening. They were Dave was helping Molly to clear up the tea dishes in a slow measured way. The intimacy we had earlier forgotten.

Dave spoke in measured tones. ‘That was nice,’ he told Molly.

‘Sure you got to go?’ she asked him.

‘Aye hinks to dae and people to see.’ He muted his smile and checked his phone.

‘If yer sure?’

‘I’m sure.’ He hugged her tight. Leaned over her shoulder as he laughed. ‘You ll be gettin me too fat.’

I was going to make a joke about it, but I was all out of jokes.