Ugly Puggly 16

Hands deep in my pockets, I whistled Come on Irene for some reason, as I didn’t even like the song when it first came out. The pavement was speckled with leaves and recent rain and I almost slipped. Sitting on the bottom stair taking off my work boots, my numbed brain finally caught up with my nose. Something was roasting in the oven and the heating was back up to swelter mode.

I ducked my head in the living room door. Ugly Puggly was sitting reading with a mug of tea in his hand. His eyes shifted upward from the page and met mine.

‘How’d you get oot?’ I asked.

‘Covid,’ he replied.

I edged into the living room. ‘I thought they kept you in if you’ve got Covid.’

‘They dae,’ he said. ‘But I didnane huv it. The staff had it, and they couldnae cope. Couldnae even get agency in.’

‘So how come they let you oot? I thought you were on…’ I swallowed the wrong words and came out with  ‘Section 28 days. Do not pass Go!’

He turned a page in the book he was reading and marked it with his thumb. ‘I was, but psychiatrist’s discretion. They just make up some bullshit about extended time out in preparation for leaving and then toss yeh. And call it a learning experience.’

‘Fair enough, everything’s a learning experience, noo.’

‘Aye, that was part of the reason I got oot. I got sick of that guy shadowing me everywhere I went. I go to the toilet and he’s standing at the door—wae the heavy breathing.’

‘Nasty. I wouldnae like that myself—unless it was a young blond.’

‘You get young blondes in there too. You get every type.’

‘I didnae mean it that way.’ I turned my head and looked about. ‘Where’s the playboy?’

He pointed a finger, ‘Upstairs.’

‘He’ll be up there on his phone—’  

An orange card was used as a bookmark. He balanced the book on top of a wobbly pile of half-read books. ‘Well, this guy that was shadowing me, kept knocking on the toilet door. “You alright in there?”

‘I’d fell asleep wae the medication,’ he admitted. ‘I didnae tell him that though. I started following him. He went to the toilet and I’d stand outside and bang on the door, shouting, ‘You alright in there.’ He went into the office and I’d stand outside waiting for him to shadow me, shadowing him. He cracked up and went on the sick. I don’t think he had any of those Moderna or booster injections—he was one of the dafties.’

‘That’s like him up the stairs,’ I said. ‘He’s no had nothing. And takes nae precautions. But I think he’s quite safe. He’s got a goldfish bowl for a heid. Honestly, I’m glad yer hame. I was goin stir crazy wae you locked up. And him followin me about.’

‘So whit happens noo?’ I asked.

‘That’s up tae the psychiatrist. He was a young guy that played at no being in charge. And they’re the worst, because they can never be wrong. Nothin is their fault. They shed mair skins than a glue factory.

‘I meant whit’s happening noo wae the dinner?’

He laughed, swung his long legs off the armrest of the chair and stood up. ‘Meatballs with pasta and herb sauce.’

I followed him into the kitchen as he poked about the oven. A wonderful smell wafted out and I swallowed my misgivings about telling him that Dave has been cheating on him.

‘Roast potatoes,’ he smiled as if he was sniffing glue. ‘The psychiatrist wasn’t too bad,’ he admitted. ‘I told him about Freud having panic attacks, but nobody locked him up. That he injected himself in the eye with cocaine. And nobody locked him up. Nobody came to get him—well—apart fae the Nazis, but that was nothing personal. They wanted to kill him for being the father of psychotherapy and for being a Jew. They’d have killed him twice if they had a chance. The claustrophobic fled to London, where cancer ate his tongue and jaw—there was something Biblical about that.’

‘Was the psychiatrist a Jew?’ I asked. ‘Because you could have really put yer foot in it there.’

He shook his head and went to the chopping board and started chopping onions, which brought a tear to both our eyes. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Or he’d have probably kept me in even longer. But most psychiatrists now are minorities—although they don’t call it that—such as women or worse, Asian women. Mental health services are bottom of the medical pecking order and nobody gies a fuck. That’s how they can sell it off to guys like Richard Branson and line his pockets for being a money guru. Who needs acrobats when you see guy like that doing contortions about paying no tax on the Virgin Islands. Stealing from the NHS to pay for his hobbies and vanity projects. And adding tae the carbon balance by joyriding in space and calling it an investment.’

‘Cunt,’ I grunted. ‘We should maybe hae tax-dodgers Olympics every four years. Televise it. See whit kinda floor show and vaulting horses they can come up wae to rip us aff next. Marks oot of ten for innovation.’

I jerked my head around Dave was standing in the door, flicking through his phone.

‘You meetin yer boyfriend the night?’ I asked.

‘Very funny,’ he sloped past me and put his arm around Ugly Puggly’s waist. He nuzzled his shoulder with his chin.

‘That phone’s an addiction,’ I growled. His eyes were sliding towards his phone even whilst he was cuddling Ugly Puggly.

‘Whit of it?’ he shrieked. ‘You’re just jealous.’

‘Jealous of whit? Paying about a grand to look at shite, arrange meetings and shag other guys? I wisnae buttoned up the neck backwards. Yer on that Tinder of Grindr of whatever it’s called? I thought you’d hae learned yer lesson after the last time—you got mugged.’

‘I’m jist looking.’

‘Aye, right,’ I snorted.

‘Pot calling the kettle black.’

Ugly Puggly reached across and poured some more cooking fat into the big frying pan and the peppers sizzled. ‘Dinner won’t be long.’