Ugly Puggly 20

Ugly Puggly’s garden may have been a death trap with all that broken glass running down the slope, and the turning frame of a windmill, but the triangle of grass where he hung the washing was a suntrap. Bushes and trees at the canal acted as a windbreaker, and gave us privacy. Not that at our age we’d anything worth hiding.  He’d a set of deckchairs with canvas backs running with rail tracks of brightly coloured stripes from when his mother was still alive that he played twister setting up. He set them up in the space at the stairs, behind the gate, pushed up against the wall, but still on the slabs and away from the midges. We rolled our trouser legs up and tilted our heads, our eyes filled with picture-postcard-blue sky, our knobbly bare knees almost touching.   

 ‘It’s just like the old days,’ I grunted and reminded him when we got settled. ‘There were two seasons. Short and dark Dickensian school days when it rained every day, and yeh turned into yer ain version of a ghost. And longer days, when we glowed red as the Japanese flag, and even blinking hurt yer eyelids. Mum applied Calamine lotion to our ears and backs and our legs. You shed yer skin like snakes, but we laughed because every day was a holiday. And ye’d get a pokey hat and ask yer mum for ten pence for the shows.’

‘Aye,’ he replied. ‘If you say so, but that’s no how I mind it.’

I turned my head to look at him, but he’d his eyes closed. ‘Whit’s the matter wae you?’

He kept his eyes closed. ‘Nothin, just forget it.’

He had me dangling. If somebody tells you it was nothing, it must be something and if they tell you to forget it, you can’t help picking at it. When we were younger I’d have slapped his sunburnt back hard and made him squeal. I squinted at him and whispered. ‘Have I missed somethin? You werenae abused or somethin? Where yeh?’ I turned my head to check the backdoor was shut. ‘Where’s the playboy?’

He opened his eyes. ‘He’s inside, catching up on his beauty sleep. How?’

‘Cause, yeh know?’

‘Nah, I don’t know.’ He propped himself up a little straighter with his elbows. There was a knack to deckchairs, get it wrong and they’d start wrestling with you. And usually they won and left your body on an entangled heap on the ground.  ‘By abused, I take it you mean sexually abused.’ He shugged. ‘Nah, I wasnae sexually abused, if that’s whit yeh were thinkin. I was never touched by my parents or any other adult figure. Because my mum and dad were so much older than everybody else’s, I thought the cold silences and grim comings and goin were normal. That’s whit everybody was like.  My da once took me aside, and told me, ‘Listen, whit’s happenin isnae your fault. You don’t need to greet about it.’

‘He’d a problem wae the gamblin, he’d bet on anythin. He loved goin tae the dogs at Shawfield. Would even have bet on President Trump being a good President, or global warmin stayin below two-degrees Celsius. Yeh used to be able to get good odds on that. Noo it’s about 100/1 and lengthening. He always took the rank outsiders.’

‘Aye, I know the type, well,’ I said. ‘My wife married me just to prove me wrang.’

‘The worst of it was when I’d smell the salt and vinegar and he’d come in carryin a fish supper and extra portion of chips. An a box of Black Magic. That was him tryin to kid on he was still flush.’

And his face flashed red with anger. ‘I was spat at by girls and called a Mongo and beaten up by boys. At least at school there was somebody watching yer back and there was rules yeh could follow and understand. An somethin to dae aw day. An yeh got free dinners wae yer ticket. Summer was full of hidin fae folk like a troll under a bridge. And waitin for them to pass oer.’  

‘Fuck,’ I replied. ‘Yer a killjoy.’   

‘Aye,’ he grinned. ‘But yeh did ask.’

‘Wish I hudnae.’ 

‘The worse thing wasnae the unwinnable fights, or the gambling, but the smell of fear. Yeh, get to recognise it on yersel and others. The fight we’re fightin noo—we’ll no win. The planet will crash and burn, well before the high-heid yins admit there’s a problem. They’ve got the same destructive pride. Even when they’re wrang, they’re right. Gamblin wae other folk’s lives. Water, water everywhere, but none to drink.’

My eyelids had a pink tinge. When I opened them, I felt that itch on my forehead and tops of my shoulder blades and my pot belly. I thought I could smell Calamine lotion. Ugly Puggly was wearing a grubby cotton shirt with a round collar protecting his neck from the sun. He’d changed into a pair of white Scotland football shorts and was crouched down sorting through old roof tiles beside the shed.

I went into the kitchen and made us both a mug of tea. The cooker was still warm from burnt toast and I swallowed the smell. Dave had left his crusty debris and dishes in the sink for me to clean up.  

‘Here,’ I handed Ugly Puggly a mug of warm tea. ‘You know the playboy had two eggs wae his toast. Does he know realise if he’s vegan that he cannae eat eggs like normal folk?’

He sipped at his tea and glanced at a crow cawing high in the trees. ‘Nah,’ he muttered. ‘But it depends whit yeh mean by normal folk.’  

I patted the greying hair on my sunburnt chest. ‘I mean, normal folk like me. No you, because yer a loony. And him!’ I couldn’t think what he was.

‘There’s nae reason tae apolgise,’ he said.

‘For whit?’

‘For whit I told yeh earlier. Yeh were only a wee boy. Yeh werenae to know. But yer ma sussed it oot pretty quick. She was good that way—good in every way, in fact.’

My hand shook and tea sloped over the sides. I felt the tears in my eyes. As I got older that happened more. ‘Aye, I know, but I’m sorry anyway.’  

He patted my shoulder. ‘I know,’ he said.

‘Ouch,’ I cried. ‘Sunburn. You did that on purpose!’