Ugly Puggly 12

Ugly Puggly was a surprisingly good cook. By that I meant he could do more that toast and beans. He baked his own bread and could even do vegetarian that didn’t involve boiling an egg. I was at the kitchen window taking in the view of windmill. Cold outside, but not a cloud in sight.  Early sunlight highlighting every strained ripple in the cloth frames. The closer I looked the more ingenious it seemed, made of different parts that didn’t quite fit together, but did. It was a bit like Graeme Orbree that built his bike out of washing-machine parts and then set a new world  speed record with that strange posture they outlawed as cheating. 

‘You should make a business out of that,’ I told him.

He was at the cooker waving a spatula, whisking up what he called unfrench toast and offered a shy grin, but said nothing.  

I sat at the table. I’d made a few changes in the house, most of which meant cleaning. I did the dishes and Ugly Puggly did the cooking. Dave did the moaning.

Ugly Puggly filled my plate with fluffy bread and it smelled as if it could have floated up to my mouth. We took our mugs of strong tea after I finished, and stood at the back door. A rowan tree poked its head out of the slope, but it was too early in the season for the crop of broken bottles to show new growth.

He talked warmly about fresh potatoes for dinner, but I wasn’t really listening.

‘Maybe the boyo will be up by then,’ my breath hangs in the air and we stamp our feet.

‘Maybe,’ he replied. ‘The past is ne’er dead. It just lies tae midday.’

That allowed me to make a joke of my own.  ‘I heard you two at it.’

‘At whit?’ he asked. Staring at me as if finding range with a viewfinder.’

I flung the dregs of the tea out into the path and clutched the mug, pushed open the back door and past him. Suddenly, embarrassed about mentioning it. As if I’d been caught out be the creaks and shrieks—all from Dave—that went bang in the night. ‘For the record, it’s nothin to dae wae me.’

He lingered on the doorstep, before closing and locking the door. ‘Whit isnae?’

His white, hairless legs were poking out beneath his housecoat. I went over to the sink and ran the hot water, filling the sink and put my mug in. Pulled the washing up liquid from beneath the sink and squirted some in. ‘You know the…’ and my mind went blank. ‘The electricity between you at night.’ I’d obviously been spending too much time looking and listening to the creak of windmills

He brought over the spatula and bowl he’d used for mixing. Placed it at my elbow so I could lift them into the sink. ‘That’s interesting, whit you said about electricity.’ He stood staring like an escaped mental patient over my shoulder and out of the window.

I splashed through the cutlery and he did some calculations about converting sex into energy and making it into a fast-breeder programme. ‘You could go on making electricity that way practically forever and it’s no more difficult than putting giant nappies on herds of cows to catch methane gas.’

He was making fun of me and I played along. We used to have these kinda daft chats when we were younger. Mental Ping-Pong, but he was much better than me. ‘And God knows you wouldnae have the billions of pounds decommissioning costs of Dounreay or, say, a Torness. Maybe just need to add an extra-hot water bottle, when you get a bit older. A fixed term—then the bullet before the cancer gets you, or worse, dementia. More fun than riding a bike. Not that I’m calling Dave a bike. ’

‘You’ve got to think of the Western powers, the zombie nations, like ours, with more deaths than births. Or China, with a one-child policy catching them out. Their energy bill would be astronomical and there’d be no offset. Africa and black electricity, black power, wouldn’t be palatable in most American states, whatever the cost.’

I took a breather from such arcane speculation and admitted I missed my wife.

‘You should go back to her,’ he said.

‘I would, but Dave was right.’ I flicked the kettle on. ‘And she wouldnae let me.’

He smiled or scowled. Sometimes it was hard to tell with him. ‘You’re probably right,’ he said, ‘but it’s a bit weird that you huvenay tried.’

The door opened and Dave yawned and mussed his hair. ‘Whit have you two been talking about?’

I chucked a t-bag in a cup for him. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘We were just saying this place needs a coat of paint.’

He looked at me suspiciously. ‘Inside or out?’

‘Both.’ I slid a mug of tea across the worktop to him.

H sniffed at it before taking a sip, a funny wee smile playing on his face. ‘Right,’ he said, eyeing Ugly Puggly. ‘I was just thinking we could go back upstairs.’

I sniggered and he gave me a look.

‘Whit?’ he shifted his gaze to Ugly Puggly and waited for an answer, a pout on his lips.

‘Nothin. I  said. 'I was just saying earlier that  he should make a business oot of generating electricity.’

‘I’ve been saying that as well.’ Dave put his mug down and leaned across me gazing out at the windmill. ‘He can turn his hand to just about anything.’

Ugly Puggly admitted he could fix most simple things, but often it was dependent on the weather. ‘Not that you’d expect Council workers to be reliable.’

‘You could do it then?’ Dave asked. ‘Make another thing like that.’

‘Aye, that’s pretty basic. Two days, maybe three, but it can take you months tae get the right set of materials. Yeh need tae dae a lot of scrounging about. That’s why I never fling anything oot.’

‘There’s stuff I’ve got to dae,’ I slipped away without waiting for a reply.