Ugly Puggly 33

‘Won’t the body start to stink?’ I clutched at my freshly made cup of Tetley’s.

Ugly Puggly took his time answering. He was making porridge for breakfast. Oats, with a dash of honey, instead of salt. The milk was on the turn and maybe it was that I smelt. We’d covered Harry’s body with scraps of carpet that had been left up in the attic. Proof, Ugly Puggly insisted that he knew one day it would come in handy.  Sometime I forgot about the corpse and tripped over it.

Ugly Puggly shuffled over to where the body lay and sniffed. ‘Nah,’ he replied. ‘Yer nose is too near yer arse. It takes about a day for the gases to build up and the body tae putrefy. The heat in the kitchen doesnae help us. How did yeh get on hiring that mini-digger?’

‘Wisnae any bother. About one hunner quid a day or three hunner for a week. Could get delivery the day. But I held aff. You need a driving license or passport. An I’m no sure I want tae, yeh, know?’

Ugly Puggly stirred the porridge and set the heat low. He turned to look at me. ‘I’ve no got a passport and I cannae drive.’

‘Whit about the playboy? Has he got a passport?’

He shuffled over to the window, careful not to stand on the corpse and glanced out. ‘Looks like rain. The best thing we can dae noo is act all normal. Dave’s away, back tae his Ma’s. And you should go back tae work.’

‘If I go back tae work noo, before my sick-line runs oot. They’ll think there’s something seriously wrang wae me.’ My tea was getting cold and I pushed the mug away from me. ‘Whit made the playboy go hame?’

Ugly Puggly mumbled something and I couldn’t quite make it out. ‘Did you say ghosts?’ I asked him.

He looked into the pot, stirred it and turned the ring off. ‘Aye, ghosts. He thought he saw a ghost.’

‘Who was it?’

‘Who the fuck dae yeh think it was?’

‘Oh, aye. Funny thing is I keep forgettin about him. But I hink I did hear the playboy screamin last night.’ I grinned. ‘I hear him screamin practically every night. I thought he was just making another wan of his porn movies.’

‘Fuck off,’ Ugly Puggly took a mouthful of porridge and shook his head as if it wasn’t to his liking. ‘The Tibetan Book of the Dead does suggest that a spirit stays attached to its body, especially when yeh die unexpectedly.’

‘You live by the chopping board. Yeh die by the chopping board.’

‘I’ll bury him,’ his voice was shrill. ‘I’ll say a few prayers as I’m digging. Asking for forgiveness… You’re right, of course, we don’t want to be drawing attention to ourselves and hauning oer our passports. That’s like an admission of guilt.’

‘I’ll help yeh. I was responsible tae by gettin choked tae death by a pyschopath. But let’s no forget, he was a complete and utter cunt. I’ve nae doubt the world’s a better place withoot him. So just shut up and eat yer porridge. I’ll nip up tae B&Q and get some decking. And it’ll gie us somethin tae hide fae the neighbours.

Grabbing my arm, Ugly Puggly helped me get up. For a second I thought he was going to hug me. But the West of Scotland sensibility cut in—men don’t touch unless they’ve got a broken bottle or chopping board in their hand—and he shied away. And we acted awkwardly, as if we’d picked the wrong partner for a barn dance and were just making the best of it.    

‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’ll get goin.’

‘Jim,’ he said.

‘Aye.’

‘Appreciate it.’

‘Nah, nae butterin me up, gets yeh my share of the dosh. You’ve always been tight-fisted bastard. Gies about a thousand quid oot the kitty. And we’ll see how it goes. I’ll need tae get the wood, decking screws and cement.’

  His baggy blue jacket hung from his frame like windblown clothes on a washing line. He’d used a mattock and long-nosed trenching tool and had already dug a hole about a foot down. Top soil, broken brick and tile in a loose pile to the side, with a thatch of moss.  

‘Geez a haun,’ I said. ‘And we’ll stack the wood in front of yeh, so naebody can see whit we’re up tae.’

‘Gie me a minute.’ His sunken eyes looked up at me and his cheeks were gritty were he’d wiped at the sweat. Now he’d a purpose, it was hard to pull him away from it. He’d carry on digging that hole until it was deep enough, and forget to eat or drink or even go to the toilet.

I turned away and started unloading the van. His garden was the size of a football pitch, but with one half whittled down to a slope and covered in glass. Plastic bags waved at me in the wind. Fossilised in pigeon droppings.  I’d a look in his hut for a wheelbarrow to help carry the cement. Dismantled cement mixer, motorbikes mating, rotten wood, oxidised saws, festering ropes tied in knots. Mismatched bricks, tyres and wheels, but none of them attached to a wheelbarrow.

I balanced the cement on my shoulder and carried it and dumping it on the inside of the hut. Piling the wood up in strips, easy to lift and easy to lay. I went back to B&Q for more, getting into a rhythm of working.

   Ugly Puggly wasn’t the only crazy. He just wasn’t willing to be defined by normal. He didn’t ask for anything much more than purpose. We squabbled like seagulls, but we’d never got on better. That was enough. He didn’t want to be in the papers or be a name. He just wanted to be himself. A flawed genius, he was either going to invent something that changed the world, or go down for murder. His head rose from the pit he was digging, a shining orb covered with sweat. He held a hand up and waved.

I waved back at him. He’d probably bury the body and put the carpet aside for later. Who knows when it’d come in handy again?