Ugly Puggly 82

Because it was late when I got home, I thought I’d fall asleep right away. But Molly wouldn’t let me sleep beside her. She put me in the room next door. I tried telling her I was sick and needed constant monitoring. She gave me the look and a diagnosis. ‘I’m sick of yeh tae…’

I lay in bed for a while thinking things over. When I raised my head from the pillow, I could hear the telly blaring in the living room. She’d be sitting there, not watching, but she liked the background noise. I’d become that now.

I got up to go to the bathroom during the night and she was still sitting there. But she must have heard me, because her eyes opened. She gave me a weak conspiratorial smile. Sitting cosy and blinking away sleep like an owl. And I’d a nightmare vision of her not being there which made me well up. I turned my head so she couldn’t see the glisten of tears in my eyes, but my choked voice gave me away. I heard myself saying, ‘You no sleep?’ Knowing how inadequate it was to how I felt.

She shook her head. We were in a common place, outside time. A 1930’s movie playing out, but now without sound on the telly.

‘Neither can I.’ I groaned and gasped as I shuffled towards her. She was out of her chair and grabbed my arm, leading me to the chair she’d being sitting in. The imprint of warmth, a reminder of the stillness and stickiness of sex and the bed we’d once shared. But I was doddery and in need of her caring in other ways. The need for a drink to settle me rose in my throat and flashed through my mind. My eyes were already looking over her shoulder, casing the joint.

‘You want tea?’

‘Aye, that’s be nice.’ I rocked forward to get up off the chair, but her reply pushed me back down.

‘I’ll get it.’

Watching the film for a bit, until she came back with my tea, I knew some of the actor’s faces, but not the names. She held the mug out for me to take. ‘Whose that I asked?’ nodding at the screen.

Swinging her legs up and sitting on the arm of my chair, her creamy skin aglow, close enough to breathe her in. ‘James Cagney,’ she laughed at the shock of recognition. ‘It’s no Angels wae Dirty Faces is it?’

‘Nah, it’s that oer wan.’ I couldn’t remember the name of it. And sipped at my tea, but then forgot in my hand as we began watching the film. ‘How’s the playboy gettin on?’

‘Oh, he’s got a boyfriend noo.’

‘Fuck,’ I put the mug down at the side of my chair and let the tea grow cold. ‘He’s always had boyfriends, whit’s new there?’ I thought of Ugly Puggly.

‘No, but this wan is serious.’

‘He’s a fuckin arsehole. Time’ll catch up wae im. He’ll get some stupid job like hairdressin. His hair ll retreat to his ears. His glory days will have ripened and fell away. And he’ll just be another fat poof cutting about and talkin shite like the rest of them.’

The soft smile left her lips and her dreamy eyes were replaced by something harder. She stood up and angled her head. ‘Whit yeh mean, like Ugly Puggly?’

The pain in my guts returned me to normal life. ‘Nah, I don’t mean him. I meant…’ But I didn’t know what I meant. ‘I’m sorry,’ I wheezed.

‘That boy likes you.’

‘That boy likes anybody wae a cock.’ I kneaded my stomach with my fingers, trying to lessen the knot and get the circulation going. ‘He’s as shallow as a silver teaspoon.’

Disapproval sharpened her features and flooded into the words she spat. ‘I’ve no got a cock and I hink he likes me. But I’m nae judge of character. I once liked you enough to even marry yeh—that’s how stupid I wiz.’

‘No, I don’t mean that.’

‘Whit dae yeh mean?’   

They were fighting it out with guns onscreen. They had it easier. I tried to get up from the chair but sank back down. A fart ripped out of my guts and a run of skitters. The stench would have put Jesus back in the tomb.

But Molly gestured behind her to the kitchen. ‘It’s aw right. I’ll jist get a wee cloth and we’ll get hings tidied up. You go and wash yersel doon. And get intae bed.’ She held out her hand for me to grip and stand up.

I shuffled, trailing shite towards the toilet.

‘I’ll jist get a hot-water bottle for yeh,’ she cried at my back.

I felt childish tears of frustration. Being angry with Dave was a way of holding him beyond arm’s length. A way of diving up the world, in a way wee Jim would have recognised as black and white. That kind of condemnation and condensation dried up whatever was left of my soul. I wasn’t better than him. I realised I wasn’t better than anyone. I was the one lying in my own pish that had to be helped to the toilet. Worse, I was old. For that there was no redemption.

Molly brought the hot-water bottle into the room clutched to her chest. I was tucked up under the sheets with only my head showing. She smiled as if remembering something. ‘You know Ugly Puggly wiz in love wae yeh?’

‘Yer jokin.’ I shook my head and sniggered into the pillow. ‘That’s crazy.’  

Rather than pulling the quilt off me, she lifted it at the corner and dropped the hot-water bottle at my feet. ‘He wiz.’ She corrected herself. ‘I mean, he is, if he’s still alive.’

I warmed my toes on the hot-water bottle. ‘He is still alive.’

‘You sure?’

‘Nah,’ I admitted. ‘I hink he’s probably deid.’

‘We’ve no way o knowin.’ I was impressed by her certainty. ‘I’ll jist come oot and say it.’ But then she paused. Didn’t come out and say anything. If I’d have been drunk I’d have fell asleep and missed what she said next. ‘Dave said he’d sex wae yeh tae—but he apologised tae me.’  

‘Wait a minute,’ I barked. ‘He never.’

‘Why’d he say he did?’

‘Dunno.’

‘You want me to ask im?’

My breathing became ragged. ‘Nah,’ I admitted. ‘I might ave let im gie me a blowjob, wan night when I was drunk. I didnae remember till the mornin’.

She gave a strangulated cry. ‘That’s yer excuse?’

I went to sit up and try and comfort her, but thought better of it. Turned my head to the pillow and squeezed shut my eyes until I heard her leaving the room.