I came across the little dog on a damp October road.
He was huddled on the shoulder of the A1, shivering and tiny, watching the passing lorries as if waiting for someone in particular. I was driving out to the allotment for potatoes, eased my car down for a moment, thinking Id just have a look. The pup lifted his head, and that was the end of my trip. The potatoes stayed in the ground for another week.
I named him Mars. The name came from my neighbour, Mrs. Margaret Harris, who spotted the reddish, floppyeared creature with oddlysized paws in the hallway.
Reddish, longsnouted, a bit clumsy, she said. Mars. Thatll do.
I laughed then.
Mars grew fast. By spring he was claiming the whole left side of the sofa as his own, and he took it as a right. At first I scolded him, then I stopped. Sleeping alone in the flat was worse than sharing it with a dog that snored and occasionally kicked his legs in his sleep.
Our friendship didnt blossom overnight; it developed slowly, like people who have nowhere in particular to rush. Morning walks, a bowl of food at seven, the telly. Sometimes Id talk aloud to Mars. Hed sit beside me, listening with a solemn expression, only yawning now and then, baring his teeth in the process.
Youre right, Id say. Enough. And Id switch the TV off.
***
The accident happened in April, as we were coming back from an evening stroll.
I cant recall the details clearly. The road was slick, the car skidded onto the pavement, Mars was on his leash and it snapped. I was thrown onto the curb, hit my side, lay there for a few seconds hearing only my own breathing and a distant shout.
When I got up, Mars was gone.
The leash lay on the tarmac, the plastic clasp split in two.
I searched until midnight, combing three blocks, calling his name, asking passersby. They shook their heads. One man said hed seen a reddish dog sprint toward the railway crossing about forty minutes earlier, but hed lost sight of it.
Back home I sat in the kitchen, staring at an empty food bowl.
Then I got up, typed an advert, printed twenty copies and stuck them up all over the neighbourhood the next morning. I also rang three veterinary practices and the shelter on Mill Lane.
If a reddish mixedbreed turns up, please call me. My number is, I told the receptionist.
A week passed. Then a month. The flyers faded under May rain and I replaced them, again in June. The vets were silent. The Mill Lane shelter called twice, both times by mistake it wasnt our dog.
In July Mrs. Harris knocked gently on the flat door.
Victor, maybe you could take another one? The shelters got plenty, she offered.
No, I replied. She didnt bring it up again.
The flat without Mars felt different. Not empty, exactly, but the chairs stayed put, the fridge hummed, the neighbours upstairs cracked on the kettle at half past nine as usual. Yet something had shifted.
I lifted an old rubber ball from the floor the one Mars used to chase down the hall set it on the shelf, then slipped it into a drawer, only to pull it out again later and leave it on the shelf.
Every morning my hand reached for the leash by the door out of habit. The leash hung there, but there was nowhere to go.
I started walking the route alone, at the same time each day, just because I could not explain why. I simply kept moving.
In August my daughter called from Manchester.
Dad, come and stay with us for a while, she said.
I cant, I answered.
Why?
I paused. Maybe hell come back.
She was quiet, then said, Alright, in that tone you use when youre saying something but dont really want to.
Mars turned up in October.
I heard a scratching at the front door just after seven in the evening. At first I thought it was the wind rattling the stairwell, but the sound repeated, persistent, as if someone knew the door would eventually open.
I opened it.
Mars sat on the mat.
Hed aged a little. His coat was trimmed in spots where wounds must have been, his left side slightly singed, and around his neck was a leather collar brown, brassbuckle, with a tiny tag that read Buddy.
I stood there, staring at him. He stared back. A floppy right ear, a reddish starshaped patch on his forehead, the same amber eyes framed by dark lids.
Where have you been? I asked.
He rose, padded across the threshold and went straight to his bowl, exactly where it always was empty, of course.
I closed the door, shuffled to the kitchen, my hands trembling as I opened the fridge.
Right then, I muttered. Right then.
The next morning I drove to the vet.
They examined Mars, gave him boosters, checked his microchip. I asked about the collar. The vet read the tag aloud:
Buddy. Is that another name?
Someone gave him a different name, I said.
He lived with someone?
For about six months, I reckon. No idea where.
She looked at me, then at Mars, then back at me.
It happens, she said. Dogs sometimes wander off and later turn up, especially the clever ones.
I said nothing, watching Mars sit on the metal table, calm and patient under the exam.
On the back of the tag was a phone number.
I dialed from the car while Mars rested on the back seat, watching out the window.
After three rings someone answered.
Hello?
Good afternoon, I began. You had a reddish dog. You called him Buddy.
There was a long pause.
Yes, a middleaged womans voice said. He left us in September. We were looking for him.
Hes with me now. His name is Mars. He went missing in April.
Another pause, then she said, He lived with us. We fed him, treated his wounds.
Thank you, I replied.
Hes a good dog.
Yes.
A beat.
Do you live far away? From Oakwood Road?
Some other district, she said.
Oh dear, she sighed. He showed up at our gate in April, just lay there and never left.
I stared at the grey, leafless park outside the windshield.
The call ended on its own. I put the phone away. Mars snored softly on the back seat, his head resting on his folded paws.
Back home I took the foreign collar off him, laid it on the table and stared at it for a while. Brown leather, brass buckle, the tag Buddy. A decent piece of work, not cheap.
Six months somewhere else, and he still found his way back.
I thought of the woman from Oakwood Road, how she must have fed him daily, petted him, grown attached, and then in September she woke up and he was gone, still searching, maybe posting notices.
I called again.
Its me again, I said when she picked up. If youd like to visit him, Im happy to arrange it.
Silence.
Really? she asked.
Really.
She turned up on Saturday. Galina Thompson, sixtyfour, in a grey coat, a basket of apple jam and a sack of dog food the very stuff Mars had grown used to over those months.
Mars spotted her from the hallway, didnt bolt, just nudged his nose against her hand and wagged his tail.
They sat with tea. Galina told how shed found him by the fence in April, taken him to the vet, how scared he was at first and then settled in. I recounted the crash, the broken leash, the flyers wed plastered everywhere.
Mars lay between us, dozing, occasionally lifting his head to look at each of us.
He chose both of us, Galina said.
I looked at the dog, then at her.
Seems thats the case, I replied.
I slipped the foreign collar into a drawer, not discarding it.
Mars reclaimed the left half of the sofa and started chasing the rubber ball down the corridor at one in the morning. The signs wed stuck on lampposts rotted in November rain and fell off on their own.
Galina visited every Saturday, bringing jam, sometimes asking for advice on blackcurrants she kept a garden on Oakwood Road, and I helped with the planting. We chatted while Mars snored between us.
One evening I pulled the leather collar with the Buddy tag from the drawer, stared at it under the kitchen light. It glittered.
In the hallway hung two leashes. One red, old. One blue, new the one Galina had quietly left one Saturday, hanging there without me asking.
And life went on.
