Ugly Puggly 61

‘We’ve always got a choice,’ said Ugly Puggly. ‘That’s the kinda shite you always read in those self-hate books dressed in pretty words. That’s like sayin you get a vote every four years to decide which Tory bastard wants tae shite on yeh next.’

I expected him to be scared, but he sounded angry.

The playboy sidled up to me. ‘Let me use yer phone?’

‘Dunno where it is. Might be upstairs on the windowsill in the bathroom.’ I tried to remember. ‘Or it might be in the glove compartment of the van.’

He didn’t wait for me to finish. He dashed upstairs. Ugly Puggly began to clear up the mess his old iPhone had made. The shattered screen was the worst part. In the old days we’d have tried to fix things, but now it was cheaper buying new. He fiddled with it, taking off the back and holding up the Sim card.

‘At least that’s somethin. In the palm of my hand, I hold all the earth’s wonders.’ He managed a thin-lipped smile, putting the screen on the drying board of the sink beside unwashed dishes. ‘Out there cold and death. Oppression and torture.’  

‘It’s no that bad,’ I said, but all I could offer was the same old clichés. ‘If we’re gonnae go doon. We’re gonnae go doon fightin.’

Dave came down the stairs scowling at the black of my screen. ‘A fuckin Noika! Whit did yeh pay for this thing? About a fiver?’

‘Sound about right.’ I tried to remember. ‘Pay-as-you-go.’

‘Pay-as-you-go?’ He held it at arm’s length as if he was holding a turd. ‘No wonder I can’t get it tae work.’

‘Just gee it here.’

I fiddled with the button before the screen lit up. ‘You need tae gee it time tae warm up, or somethin.’  I went to hand it back to him, but he shook his head.

‘I might as well use a house brick as that thing.’ He waited until Ugly Puggly had finished running hot water into the sink before he asked him. ‘Can I use yer phone?’

Ugly Puggly pulled open the unit door and looked inside for washing-up liquid. His fingers played a dirge with the water, before he decided it was hot enough. ‘I’ve no got a phone,’ he said. ‘They’re no good for yeh.’

Dave looked perplexed. ‘I thought you did huv wan. Did I no phone yeh.’ He reconsidered and added dimples to the conversation. ‘It might no huv been you.’

Ugly Puggly separated the plates from the cutlery and sloshed washing-up liquid into the sink. He picked a pot out of the sink, half-filled it with soapy water and sat it on the cooker until he’d finished the knives, forks and spoons. His eye drifted to the creaking windmill outside and he muttered something that sounded like poetry. Big caring hands drifting in warm suds.

‘You are not alone.

The world shares yer fears

Some for a night or even two

And you for all their years.’  

There was something of the church about him. ‘Whit’s that?’ I gasped.

He snorted, paraphrased. ‘Cannae remember, Vikram Seth.’ He frowned. ‘I think it was called All You Who Sleep Tonight.’

‘Sounds like a right boring bastard tae me.’ I glanced at the playboy.

He was wearing one of his sappy smiles and feigned interest. He went across and rubbed the back of Ugly Puggly’s checked shirt. ‘That was nice,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’ Ugly Puggly made the backs of the spoons shine in his hand, and held them up to the light to check. ‘It wisnae meant tae be nice. It was meant tae be disconcertin. But the tonal emptiness of it appealed tae me.’

‘That’s nice tae,’ said Dave.

‘Would you fuckin, shut up?’ I told him. ‘Yer beginin tae sound like an evangelical American that went tae nice school.’  

He glared at me. ‘That’s no whit I meant. I meant—’

‘Enough,’ Ugly Puggly shut his eyes. ‘Jist gie me a minute, will yeh?’

‘Aye, sure,’ I held up my hands and nodded at the door. A signal to the playboy we should retreat to the lobby or living room, but not his bedroom. Phone or no phone. I wasn’t sure who or what I’d find under his bed.

Dave picked up his smashed phone before following me into the living room. He was trying to piece it together. I played with the remote and flicked through the channels, but there was nothing on but soap operas. He eventually gave up with the phone. And slid into Ugly Puggly’s seat knocking his thigh against some poetry books with the reading-light behind his head, but it wasn’t plugged in.

‘You think he’ll be alright?’

‘Nah,’ I turned the telly off and held the remote in my lap like a baton. ‘He’ll no be alright. Nane of us will be alright. Yer askin the wrang question. The question yev got to ask is: is he broken?’

He scratched at his phone on the arm of the chair, and didn’t look up. ‘Dunno.’

‘Neither dae I,’ I admitted. ‘We might huv tae make a run for it—and take him wae us.’

‘Where would we go?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Whit if he doesnae want tae go?’

I was surer about that. ‘We’ve jist got tae make im’.

‘How?’

‘Fuck knows!’ I didn’t mean to sound so upset. I apologised. ‘We need tae use lust no logic. He used to pace the floor like a bear in a cave. But noo he knows, he’ll follow you.’

He raised his head like a tourist caught peeing in the wrong toilet. ‘Is that a compliment?’

‘Nah, it’s a miracle. But no aw miracles are the same.’

‘It is a compliment.’ In his haste to catch me out, he knocked against his phone and its pieces scattered on the floor. ‘Fuck!’ he cried.

‘It’s already broke,’ I reminded him.

‘I know. I’ll need tae get another wan. That’s whit I was wantin tae use yer phone for. Tae look on the internet. I could have ordered wan and hud it here by the morra.’ He peered at the bits on the brown carpet. ‘I’ve still got the same Sim card.’

I opened my mouth to tell him Ugly Puggly had taken it out. Instead, I told him that it might be better if we left the old Sim card behind. Left our old identities behind. Somebody might be tracking it.  I watched the expression on his face changing. I didn’t need to tell him who.

‘I’ll lose aw my online friends,’ his shoulders slumped.

I put it diplomatically. ‘Aye, you’ll no be as busy wae yer mouth and fingers.’