Ugly Puggly 67

Molly had a hand draped over my shoulder as we sat in the back of the Bongo. Her musty perfume stirred me up. She dressed like we were going for a night out on the town, with a brazen display of leg in a short skirt worn by a professional woman. But I was too far gone and sick to care. Grateful for the performance. She flirted shamelessly with Dave, who’d a set of twin seats behind us. One for him and one for his phone. Dave flirted right back, with a kind of girly glee, and I learned a few words I didn’t know.

‘Fuck,’ I said. ‘I didnae huv time to wave goodbye to the head butler, to the head cook, and yer nanny.’

‘I’m here wae yeh,’ said Molly. ‘Head cook and bottle washer tae.’

‘We don’t want to be dead before we get there, although we may well be,’ I reminded Ugly Puggly as he tried to overtake a bus in the West End, but almost drove into the back end.

He wore a Chairman Mao cap and he might well have had a five-year plan. He’d fixed the back wheel and got us moving. Jitterbugging, as he stalled and started and stalled and started. Molly told him she’d drive, but he smiled and laughed as if he was enjoying himself.

‘I’ll dae the first part,’ he’d told her. ‘Until we get tae the motorways. It might well come in handy later on.’

Tyres squealed. Horns sounded. I tasted sour saliva as the Bongo sheared to the right. I’d visions of us all as piles of ashes without needing to take the slip road to the crematorium. Molly squealed in my ear and put a hand across my chest. A reminder I was still alive. Dave’s phone escaped from his hands and flipped through the air like a rainbow trout going upstream. The van juddered to a halt and Ugly Puggly jolted forward gripping the steering wheel and rebounded back into his seat.

‘Fuck,’ I shouted into the back of his ridiculous cap. ‘They’re called corners for a reason. Yer no meant tae drive oer them.’  

He turned to check we were alright, his face tense. ‘The corner wasnae meant to be there,’ he said.

I fumbled with my seatbelt, unstrapping it. Dave staggered to his feet. He picked up his phone and checked it could still send him cute cats doing funny things and men with small penises doing even funnier thing. And cats with small penises doing things I didn’t want to know about. He seemed relieved that all those cats were herded where they should be.

Molly slid open the doors and stepped out onto the pavement. ‘Let’s no make a fuss,’ she said in a throaty whisper. Fuss was for people that could afford it. It was that old Glasgow adage as long as you’d on a clean pair of pants, you’d be fine. My betting was hers were spotless, mine less so.

I climbed out of the van and put my hand against the door panel as I tried to spew up against the edge of the pavement. But all I could manage was dry boak. My eyes watered and I wheezed like my granny before they buried her. She had to die first, of course. So I recognised there’d be a fair chance I’d survive another twenty years.

The tarmac was in a terrible state, chipped and pitted. The Council would need to do something about that or we’d have a claim. The pungent stink of my sick disgusted me.

Dave pushed a bottle of water into my hands. ‘Drink this, yel feel better.’ he said.  

I looked at him with glazed eyes. ‘Better than whit?’

‘Just drink it and shut up,’ Molly snarled. ‘Don’t be a smartass.’

I knew better that to argue, putting the bottle to my lips. Supping it down and feeling my insides uncurl, my sight sharpen.

Ugly Puggly appeared before me. ‘You alright?’

I took another swig of water. ‘Aye.’

He looked over my shoulder. ‘Well, we better get movin, in case, yeh know, the police come.’

Dave hopped back into the van. I rubbed at my head and stuck out my hand. ‘Keys,’ I said. ‘I’ll drive.’

‘You canne drive,’ he cried. ‘Yer still oer the limit.’

‘Well, you cannae drive cause yer a fuckin idiot.’

We glared at each other. Jaws clenched.

‘I’ll drive,’ said Molly, diplomatically.

Ugly Puggly took his cap off before handing her the keys. He went into the back of the van, pulling the door shut. I stepped up into the passenger seats beside Molly. She turned the key and the van rumbled and  engine started first time. A small smile of triumph. Turning her head, she asked. ‘Where we goin tae?’

‘Edinburgh,’ said Dave. ‘Morningside, I’ll gie yeh directions when we get closer.’

Molly glanced at me. ‘I don’t like driving in Edinburgh.’

‘Naebody does,’ I told her. ‘Edinburgh is full of one-way streets and Edinburgh folk that think they’re better than yeh. They’re almost English. Whit we goin tae that shitehole for?’

Dave piped up. ‘We’re picking up a boat. A bargain. We seen it on Gumtree.’

‘Whit dae we need a boat fer?’ I asked. Molly took us back onto the road and into the flow of traffic, headed towards the city-centre turnoff and spaghetti junction. I tapped at the petrol gauge, and it was unmoving, showing empty.

‘How else are we gonnae cross the Channel?’ Dave sneered.

‘Well, unless we get petrol, we’ll no even cross the road.’ I turned to look at Ugly Puggly. ‘How did you know fill up the tank?’

‘I ne er thought,’ he admitted.

That made a kind of sense. If we’d given him a bit longer he’d have made the Bongo run on chip fat or biodegradables. He didn’t pay for energy.

‘You better make a sharp turn when you can,’ I told Molly. ‘And go back the way we’ve came. It’ll be bad enough running oot of fuel here, but if we hit the city centre, we’ll have 20 000 cars and 20 000 people in cars, all hating yeh like a Celtic supporter in the Ranger’s end after his team have scored.’

‘That’s the kind of unpopularity we’ve got to court,’ said Ugly Puggly. ‘Fossil fuels are killin us. But aw we worry about is getting hame in time to make oor dinner.’

‘Yer on ye ain, there pal. Make the turn,’ I told Molly again, almost grabbing the wheel, like a disgruntled ex-President.

‘To paraphrase Malcolm X,’ said Ugly Puggly.  If fossil fuel companies stick a knife in yer back nine inches and pull it out six inches, that’s not progress. If they, eventually, pull it aw the way oot, that’s no progress. Progress is healin the wound that the blow made. And they huvenay even begun to pull the knife out, much less try and heal yer wound. They won’t even admit the knife is there. In fact, they’re blaming yeh and buyin mair knives tae the world’s no so much their personal pincushion, but a burst baw.’

‘I’m gettin the bus at this rate,’ I said.  

‘Well, go on then,’ said Dave. ‘Yer jist haudin us back.’