Ugly Puggly 74

We did a lot of crying in the kitchen, in the living room and even in the bedroom. Dave got my bedroom. And Molly let me sleep beside her and cuddled into me. I was allowed to kiss her, but she refused to go all the way and be my wife. It was like being thirteen again. In my desperate straits, I was even tempted to take Ugly Puggly’s name in vain. She was a Sphinx, with crossed paws, and anybody that had failed her was doomed to have crossed balls and die a slow and painful death.

She pulled away from my grasping fingers. ‘I’m no daeing it, wae him next door.’ Sitting up and adjusting her nylon nightie so that it sat straighter on her paunched belly. ‘Tell me again, how you think he’s no comin back.’

I stroked her knee and she batted my hand away. ‘You don’t come back fae the deid,’ I muttered through clenched teeth.

‘But whit makes you think he’d be deid?’

My hard-on wilted and I pushed up the bed with my heels, until we were sitting like brother and sister and I was answering a simple question from Bamber Gascoigne on University Challenge.

‘Gangsters don’t like tae be made tae look like a dick. And when they take somebody away they don’t usually let them go wae a slap on the wrist. Take it fae me, he’s deid.’

She’d a high fancy for argument. ‘But he might no be. He might huv escaped.’

I looked at her, she’d aged well, far better than a woman her age should. ‘Don’t be so fuckin stupid. There’s hunners of them, big guys that ur carryin. He’s no fuckin Batman.’

‘Aye, an yer no Robin, apart fae bein a robbin fat bastard.’ Something was in her teeth, she tried to dislodge with her tongue and picked at it with her long nail, but didn’t seem satisfied with the result. ‘But yeh don’t know.’

‘Whit dae yeh mean. I’ve jist told you.’

‘Alright, I don’t know,’ I admitted and pulled at the quilt and turned my back on her. She tickled my bum and I jerked forward. ‘Don’t!’ I tried to use a gruff voice but it came out sounding more like the playboy would squeak, an invitation.

She hovered over me. ‘He might no be deid. We could call the police. Call the hospitals and find oot for sure?’

Pulling the quilt tighter around my shoulders, I didn’t answer.

‘We could,’ she put her hand on my knee and breathed into the back of my neck.

I jerked away from her and moved to the edge of the bed, without falling out. ‘No, we fuckin couldnae. I’ve already told yeh aw the reasons about a hunner times.’

Her warm fingers eased into my boxing shorts and I held my breath as she stroked me. I turned around and kissed her. She licked her lips, before pushing me away after tasting her. ‘We could?’  

I rolled onto her and sighed. ‘Aye, I suppose we could.’

It’d been a while, but my body remembered the moves. I came with a spurt and lay on top of her shoulder like a newlywed. She stroked around the damp patch and what left of my sweaty hair. If I was a cat I would have purred. I raised my head a tad from her bra strap. ‘I thought you said yeh werenae daeing it wae him next door.’

‘Och, he’ll be sleepin.’ She slapped the back of my head. ‘And you only take about ten seconds, it’s no as if yed notice.’

‘I’m no that bad.’

‘Yer no that good.’

I rubbed her arm. ‘Practice, makes perfect.’

‘Shhh,’ she whispered. ‘Go tae sleep.’

When I woke up in the morning I was disorientated. It took me a few seconds before I sunk back into the pillows and hoovered up the last of the warmth beneath the quilt, putting off the day. It wasn’t light yet, and I tried to guess the time. Earliest, half-five or six. Latest, I’d been drunk for a month. Her smell lingered with the scent of sex. I needed to get up for the toilet or I’d have lain longer.

I tiptoed through and didn’t flush the toilet because I didn’t want to wake the playboy.

A magazine opened on the work surface. She was sitting on a high stool, with a cup of tea and dunking a ginger nut. A shiny red apron with an apple motif, she cleaned her cheap specs, thin lenses in plastic frames and old-fashioned side pieces, she leaned into the page and screwed her eyes up as she continued reading. Then put her specs back on her face and adjusted herself to a sighted world.

She must have heard me. She looked at me with great intensity as if searching for something she wouldn’t find. Tugging the specs off her nose, she reached into the pocket of her piny and blew her nose. Holding it by the corner she shook it out and returned it to its hidey-hole. Turning her head away, when she looked back at me again, her eyes were dry, but it was too late I’d seen the tears. ‘Sorry, I was just thinkin.’

‘It alright,’ I scratched at my belly, keeping the tone light. ‘I dae that tae. Thinkin. In fact, I dae it aw the time.’

Bestowing a prim smile, she continued speaking with her specs held away from her. ‘That thing we said last night.’

‘Aye, about goin tae the police.’

‘Aye,’ her voice was steady now. ‘That was a good idea of yours. But I was thinkin, maybe better if you stay oot of it. Me and Dave can go. I’ll say he’s Ugly Puggly’s fiancé. With aw this political correctness noo, they’ll no know whit tae dae. And we can jist say he went missin.’

I waited until she put her specs back on before I answered. ‘Ye ll need tae tell him whit tae say. He’s a fuckin half-wit.’

She shook her head. ‘He’s no that bad.’

‘You don’t know him.’

‘Neither dae you,’ she reminded me. ‘And anyways, it’s a straight-forward missing-person as far as we ur concerned. Wan day he was there. And the next day, he wisnae.’

‘Aye, but they’re gonnnae ask who stayed wae him. And they’re gonnae ask about me. And they’re gonnae want tae ask me questions. And I’ll need tae lie.’

‘Well, yer good at that.’

I laughed, despite myself. ‘I’ll jist tell them I’m an alky. That’s excuse enough.’   

She laughed too, taking her specs off and balancing them on the unread spread of pages.

‘They’ll ask about you tae,’ I reminded her. ‘Whit you gonnae say about that?’

She bit on her lips and scratched her wrist where a silver bangle hung ‘I hudnae thought of that. I’ll make somethin up about drink, debt, infidelity, cot deaths, my depression, women weepin for nae reason. Wear and tear. General despair. Aw the usual stuff.’ Tilting her chin, she didn’t need her specs to look through me. ‘You think that’ll dae it?’

‘Aye,’ I admitted. ‘That’ll dae it awright.’