Ugly Puggly 43

‘The last time I was up here, it was my aunt’s funeral—and it always freezin’. I hadn’t brought a jacket and tried to rub some warmth into my arms.

‘Maybe that ghost was yer auntie?’ Dave looked at me and then glanced at Ugly Puggly for confirmation of what he was saying.

‘Nah, too old,’ I told him, but I had another look along the grey tarmac road shining in the rain. ‘My auntie was a lot younger. She was nearer my age, if you know whit I mean?’

‘Was she floatin or walkin?’

‘Shut up,’ I told him.

Ugly Puggly glanced over at the crematorium. ‘Where did yeh park?’

‘Oer there. But it was mobbed and maist of the cars spilled over tae the other carpark. Some of them parked up near the gate. And some other aw the way up this way.’ A note of suspicion crept into my voice. ‘How you no been up this wae before?’

He frowned. ‘No for a while.’

Then I remembered his mum dying. And shortly after that his da. Bump. Bump. I wasn’t sure what to say. ‘You can go right round the back way. Two chapel like things attached tae each other like the spine of a prayerbook. Shut wan and the other wan opens and is ready for business. There’s a wall there, but I’m no sure you can drive straight from one carpark into the other.’

‘Right,’ he replied. ‘We’ll huv a look.’

Dave piped up, ‘Maybe the ghost was undercover, like an angel or somethin. Tryin tae gee yeh a message.’

‘Dae yeh listen tae yersel?’ I sneered. ‘Yev been spending too much time pullin yer plonker and watchin Scooby Doo.’

‘You stay here and keep the edge,’ Ugly Puggly told him. ‘Me and Jim ’ll go and case the joint’.   

‘No way.’ Dave took a backward step and shook his blonde fuzz. ‘Yer no leavin me here alone wae the granny ghost. And whit if the police come?’

Rain stiffened Ugly Puggly’s posture, but he sighed and his head bowed. ‘You keep an eye oot then, Jim?’

‘Aye, I’ll just go and sit in the van.’ I was cold and wet and it seemed an attractive option. ‘An if I hear anythin, I’ll toot the horn.’ I glanced at Dave. ‘One toot for a ghost and two toots for the police.’

‘Shut up. It was you that started it.’

‘Didn’t he?’ he asked Ugly Puggly.

‘Ghost are like poor people,’ he replied. ‘No one asks if they want tae be haunting. Murdered, robbed and raped, exposed tae the elements and lost at sea. Nae wonder they’re pissed off.’ He wandered away towards the crematorium buildings.

‘Whit’s he talkin about?’ Dave thought I might be able to tell him, but I just shrugged. He jogged to catch up with Ugly Puggly.

His blonde hair was a fuzzy comet and made it easy to follow their process. They walked in an almost straight line to the back wall. Their backs bent and they crouched as they got nearer and followed it towards the wooden and glass doors of the building.

I headed back to the van, out of the rain. I felt the urge for a fag, more than a stiff drink. Could almost taste it on my tongue and that space it created. The way it shaped my fingers, made then fan out, protecting the light.

Peering out the van window, I turned the radio on low to the chatter of Radio Scotland and the heater on high. I tried to look brave and not as if I was expecting an old granny to pop up by my side. I could see the silliness of both sides at once and didn’t expect Scooby and the gang to come to my rescue.

Turning the engine off, I pulled a waterproof work jacket from behind the passenger seat and pulled it on. Stood upright and tried to give the impression of a man that did two-hundred press-ups before breakfast. And three-hundred afterwards.  Car headlights were fleeing in both directions leaving behind the hum of traffic. I wandered down the dimly lit row of stones and tried to work out where my mum’s grave was.  

I stopped at a bench, with a scratched metallic urn  holding the stalks of some drooping flowers. My eyes adjusted to the darkness as I tried to get my bearings. Graves clung closely to each other like scuppered marriages, where no one announced the adulterous truth. They were all dead and belonged not to us, but each other. I wasn’t sure if my mum’s grave was up towards the wall or along towards a building where workmen kept their tools. A grave with a bent fir tree growing out of it was nearby, but that was so many years ago. And it would be gone, sheared down to keep the lines straight.

Wind and rain buffeted me and my eyes filled with tears. My jaw clenched and I felt angry that she’d abandoned us. Abandoned me. It wasn’t her fault, as Ugly Puggly had said, but I peered into the rows of darkness and flickering light and that no longer mattered. A small boy’s sob escaped from my throat.

The old woman again, but she wasn’t so old. The same age as my mum. My scalp tingled when I spotted her, up tending a grave with her back to me. She must have felt me watching her, because she turned with that tight, questioning smile on her mouth. I scarpered and ran like a kid playing musical chairs and the only seats left were in the van.

I spotted the playboy making his way back to the van, with Ugly Puggly’s thinning hair beside him. With my mad dash they hurried to, but I got there first and pushed the keys into the ignition barrel and turned the engine on.

They didn’t have time to put on their seatbelts before we were moving, a sharp turn that flung them together and I put the foot down as we got to the gate.

‘Police?’ asked Ugly Puggly.

‘Nah,’ I shook my head. I wasn’t sure how to explain. ‘I thought I saw somethin stupid. That’s aw.’

‘Whit?’

I made a joke about it. ‘Might have been Scooby Doo. And Thelma. She was a bit of a looker. Mind that boy at school said he’d wanted tae shag her? And we hud to explain she was a cartoon, but he was a bit thick and wouldnae believe us, said he’s shag her anyway—might have been Dave? But it’d probably be Fred Flintstone he’d be lookin at.’

‘No it wisnae,’ he said.

I changed the subject. ‘How did yous get on?’