Victor found him on the roadside in October.
A little, sodden puppy was perched on the shoulder of the Aroad, eyes fixed on the passing traffic as if waiting for a particular carriage. Victor had been driving out to the allotment for his potatoes, slowed for a heartbeat, thinking the creature would simply glance past. But the pup lifted its head, and that was the end of the potatodigging the spuds stayed in the ground for another week.
He named the dog Mars. The suggestion came from his neighbour, MrsMargaret Clarke, who spotted the ginger, floppyeared thing with legs that didnt quite match its body in the hallway.
Redmuzzled, nosy, a right klutz, she said, Mars. Sounds about right.
Victor laughed.
Mars grew like a weed. By spring he was hogging the entire left side of the sofa, convinced it was his constitutional right. Victor swore at first, then stopped. Sleeping alone in a flat felt worse than sharing a bed with a dog that snored and occasionally kicked in its sleep.
Their friendship didnt spark overnight; it crept along like two people who have nowhere urgent to be. Morning walks. A bowl of food at seven oclock. The telly. Sometimes Victor talked to Mars out loud; the dog sat beside him, ears perked, only yawning now and then with a grin that showed every tooth.
Youre right, Victor would say. Enough of that.
And hed flick off the TV.
—
The accident happened in April, on the way back from an evening stroll.
Victors memory of the exact moment was fuzzy. The road was slick, the car skidded onto the pavement, Mars was on his leash, then the leash snapped. Victor was flung onto the curb, hit his side, lay there for a few seconds listening only to his own breathing and some distant shout.
When he got up, Mars was gone.
The leash lay on the asphalt, the plastic clasp cracked in two.
Victor searched until midnight, covering three neighbourhood blocks, calling the dogs name, asking passersby. They shook their heads. One person mentioned seeing a ginger dog dash toward the railway crossing about forty minutes earlier, but that was all.
Back home Victor sank into a kitchen chair and stared at an empty bowl.
He got up, typed up a notice, printed twenty copies, and the next morning plastered them on lampposts around the estate. He also rang three local veterinary practices and the animal shelter on Baker Street.
If a ginger mutt turns up, please call, he said into the receiver. My numbers
A week passed. Then a month. The flyers faded under May rain, and Victor reaffixed them. He did it again in June. The vets stayed quiet. The shelter called twice, each time by mistake, each time about the wrong dog.
In July MrsClarke slipped a comment through the door:
Victor, maybe you should get another one. The shelters got plenty.
No, Victor replied.
She didnt bring it up again.
The flat felt different without Mars. Not empty, exactly, but the things stayed where they were, the fridge hummed, neighbours clattered upstairs at half past nine as usual. Yet something had shifted.
Victor lifted an old rubber ball the one Mars used to chase down the hallway set it on a shelf, then slipped it into a drawer, then out again, and left it on the shelf.
Each morning his hand drifted to the empty hook where the leash used to hang. It dangled there, a reminder of a route that no longer needed to be taken.
He started taking walks alone, on the same route, at the same time, just because he could.
In August his daughter called from Manchester.
Dad, come and stay with us for a while, she said.
I cant, he answered.
Why?
He paused. Just in case he comes back.
She was silent, then said Alright in that tone people use when they have something else to say but let it sit.
Mars turned up in October.
Victor heard a scratching at the front door just after eight in the evening. At first he thought it was a draft or a stray cat, but the sound kept coming, deliberate, as if someone knew the lock would give if they waited long enough.
He opened the door.
There sat Mars, a little older now. His coat was trimmed in spots where old wounds had healed, his left side a shade darker, a leather collar around his neck brown, brassbuckled, with a tiny tag that read simply Buddy.
Victor stood in the doorway, staring. Mars stared back, right ear floppy, a ragged ginger patch on his forehead shaped like an uneven star. The same amber eyes, rimmed in dark.
Where have you been? Victor asked.
Mars stepped across the threshold, navigating the flat as if hed memorised every hallway. He trotted straight to his bowl empty, of course.
Victor shut the door, shuffled to the kitchen, hands trembling as he opened the fridge.
Alright, he muttered. Alright.
The next morning he took Mars to the local vet.
They gave him the needed shots, checked the microchip, and examined the collar. The vet took the tag, read it aloud:
Buddy. Is that a new name?
Someone gave him another name, Victor said.
Did he live with anyone?
For about six months, I think. Im not sure where.
The vet looked at Victor, then at Mars, then back at Victor.
Dogs do that, she said. They wander off and sometimes come back. The clever ones, especially.
Victor said nothing, watching Mars sit on the stainlesssteel table, unflustered, as the vet examined him.
On the back of the tag was a phone number. Victor dialled it from the car while Mars rested his head on the back seat, eyes glued to the window.
After a few rings, a voice answered.
Hello?
This is Victor. You had a dog, ginger, called Buddy, he said.
A pause.
Yes, a middleaged woman replied. He left us in September. Weve been looking for him.
Hes with me now. His name is Mars. He went missing in April.
Another pause, then:
He was with us. We fed him, treated his injuries.
Thank you, Victor said.
Hes a good dog.
Yes.
A silence stretched.
Do you live far from Birch Street? she asked.
Another part of town, Victor answered.
Goodness. He turned up at our fence in April, just lay there and never moved.
Victor stared out at the leafless park opposite his flat, the poplars standing like sentinels.
The call ended on its own. Victor put the phone away. Mars snored softly on the back seat, his head resting on folded paws.
Back home Victor took off the foreign collar, set it on the table, and stared at it. Brown leather, brass buckle, the tag Buddy. Wellmade, not cheap.
Six months with another family, and hed still found his way back.
Victor thought of the woman from Birch Street, how shed fed him, patted him, and attached herself to him. Then, in September, shed woken up and hed been gone, searching, posting notices.
He rang her again.
Its me again, he said when she picked up. If youd like to come see him, Im happy to arrange that.
Silence.
Really? she asked.
Really.
She turned up on Saturday. MrsGillian Harper, sixtyfour, in a grey coat, carrying a canvas bag of apple jam and a sack of dog food the very stuff Mars had gotten used to over those halfayear.
Mars saw her from the hallway, didnt bolt, just nudged his nose against her hand and wagged his tail with quiet delight.
They sat with tea. Gillian told how shed found him by the fence in April, taken him to the vet, how scared hed been at first, then how he settled in. Victor recounted the crash, the broken leash, the flyers.
Mars lay between them, dozing, occasionally lifting his head to glance at one, then the other.
He chose both of us, Gillian said.
Victor looked at the dog, then at the woman.
Seems that way.
He slipped the foreign collar into a drawer didnt throw it away.
Mars reclaimed the left half of the sofa and resumed his nightly dash for the rubber ball down the hallway at one in the morning. The flyers on the lampposts sogged in November rain and peeled themselves off.
Gillian visited on Saturdays, bringing jam, sometimes asking for advice about blackcurrants she tended a garden on Birch Street, and Victor was learning a thing or two about gardening himself. They chatted while Mars napped between them.
One evening Victor pulled the leather Buddy collar from the drawer, examined it under the lamp. The brass tag glinted.
Two leashes hung by the entryway: one red, wellworn; one blue, brandnew, the one Gillian had quietly added on a recent Saturday, without asking permission.
