Victor found the little beast by the road in October.
A shivering, halfgrown puppy sat on the shoulder of the Aroad, rain slick on its fur, eyes fixed on the passing traffic as if it were waiting for someone in particular. Victor had been driving to his cottage to dig up potatoes, eased the car to a stop, thinking the animal would simply look on. But the pup lifted its head, and in an instant everything changed. The potatoes stayed buried for another week.
He christened it Mars. The name came from the neighbour, Mrs. Eleanor Hargreaves, who spotted the russet, oversized creature in the hallway.
Redmuzzled, floppyeared, hopeless, she declared. Mars. It suits him.
Victor laughed then.
Mars grew fast. By spring he occupied the whole left side of the settee, claiming it as his rightfully earned domain. At first Victor scolded him, then stopped. Sleeping alone in the flat was worse than sharing the night with a dog that snored and occasionally thumped a paw in his sleep.
Their friendship did not blossom overnight; it unfolded slowly, like the way people bond when there is no rush. A morning walk. A bowl of food at seven in the evening. The telly. Sometimes Victor spoke aloud to Mars, who sat beside him with a grave expression, only yawning now and then, baring his teeth in a harmless grin.
Youre right, Victor would say. Thats enough. And he would switch off the television.
***
The accident came in April, as they were returning from an evening stroll.
Victors memory of the exact moment was hazy. The road was slick; the car skidded onto the pavement at a corner. Mars was on a leash, then the strap snapped. Victor was thrown onto the curb, struck on his side, and lay there for a few seconds, hearing only his own breathing and a distant shout.
When he pushed himself up, Mars was gone.
The leash lay on the tarmac, the plastic clasp broken in two.
He searched until midnight, combing three neighbourhood blocks, calling the name, asking passersby. People shook their heads. One man claimed he had seen a red dog sprint toward the railway crossing about forty minutes earlier, but he had seen nothing after that.
Back home Victor sat in the kitchen, staring at the empty bowl.
Later he rose, typed an advert, printed twenty copies, and the next morning plastered them around the whole estate. He also phoned three veterinary practices and the animal shelter on Factory Lane.
If a red mixedbreed dog turns up, please call, he said into the receiver. My number is.
A week passed.
Then a month.
The flyers faded under May rain, and Victor replaced them. He did it again in June. The vets gave no reply. The shelter on Factory Lane called twice, both times by mistake it wasnt his dog.
In July, Eleanor Hargreaves warned him from the doorway:
Victor, perhaps you should take another one. The shelter has plenty.
No, Victor answered.
She never broached the subject again.
The flat without Mars felt altered.
It wasnt empty. The furniture stayed put, the fridge hummed, neighbours clattered upstairs around half past nine as usual. Yet something had shifted.
Victor lifted an old ball from the floor the one Mars used to chase down the corridor placed it on a shelf, thought, then stowed it in a drawer. Later he retrieved it again and set it back.
Each morning his hand, out of habit, reached for the leash by the door. The leash hung there, unused. There was nowhere to go.
He began taking walks alone, the same route, the same hour, only without Mars. He could not explain why; he simply walked.
In August his daughter, calling from Leeds, phoned.
Dad, come stay with us, have a rest.
I cant, he replied.
Why?
He paused, then said, Maybe hell come back.
She fell silent, then said Alright in that tone people use when they want to say more but hold it in.
Mars returned in October.
Victor heard a scratching at the front door around eight in the evening. At first he thought it was a draft, a settling noise from the stairwell, but the scratching persisted, deliberate, as if someone knew the door would open with just a little patience.
He opened it.
Mars sat on the mat.
He was older now. His coat was trimmed in places where wounds had once been, a faint scar on his left side, and around his neck hung a leather collar, brown, with a brass buckle and a tiny tag that bore a single word: Buddy.
Victor lingered in the doorway, looking at him. Mars stared back, one ear lopsided, a russet spot on his forehead shaped like an uneven star, the same amber eyes rimmed with dark.
Where have you been? Victor asked.
Mars stood, stepped across the threshold, and moved through the hallway as one who knows the layout by heart. He headed right, toward his bowl empty, as always.
Victor shut the door, shuffled to the kitchen, his hands trembling slightly as he opened the fridge.
Alright, he muttered. Alright.
The next morning he drove to the veterinary practice.
They examined Mars, gave him the necessary vaccinations, checked his microchip. Victor asked about the collar. The vet took the tag and read it aloud:
Buddy. Is that another name?
Someone gave him a different name, Victor replied.
He lived with someone?
For about six months, I suppose. I dont know where.
The vet looked at Victor, then at Mars, then back at Victor.
It happens, she said. Dogs sometimes wander off and later find their way back. Especially the clever ones.
Victor said nothing, watching Mars sit on the metal examination table with an unruffled composure as the vet worked.
On the back of the tag they discovered a telephone number.
Victor called from the car while Mars rested on the back seat, gazing out the window.
The line answered after three rings.
Hello?
Good afternoon, Victor began. You had a dog a red one. You called him Buddy.
A long silence.
Yes, said a mature female voice. He was with us. He left in September. Weve been looking.
Hes with me now. His name is Mars. He went missing in April.
Silence stretched again, then the woman said:
He was with us. We fed and treated him. He had injuries.
Thank you, Victor replied. Hes a good dog.
Indeed.
Another pause.
Do you live far from Birchwood Road? the woman asked.
Another district, Victor answered.
Goodness. He turned up by our fence in April, just lay there and never left.
Victor glanced at the windblown, leafless yard of tall poplars beyond his windshield.
The conversation faded on its own. Victor hung up. Mars snored softly on the back seat, his head resting on folded paws.
Back home Victor removed the foreign collar, laid it on the table, and studied it brown leather, brass buckle, the tag Buddy. Wellmade, not cheap.
For half a year the dog had belonged elsewhere, and yet he was back.
Victor thought of the woman from Birchwood Road, how she must have fed and petted him daily, how in September she left one morning and he was gone, how she must have searched, perhaps posted notices.
He dialed again.
Its me again, he said when she answered. If youd like to visit him, Im happy to arrange it.
Silence.
Really? she asked.
Really.
She arrived on a Saturday. Mrs. Agnes Whitfield, sixtyfour, clad in a grey coat, carrying a canvas bag filled with apple jam and a sack of dog food the very brand Mars had grown accustomed to over those months.
Mars spotted her in the hallway, didnt bolt. He padded forward, nudged her palm with his nose, and wagged his tail exuberantly.
They shared tea. Agnes recounted how shed found him by her fence in April, taken him to the vet, how frightened he had been at first, then settled in. Victor spoke of the crash, the broken leash, the endless flyers.
Mars lay between them, dozing, occasionally lifting his head to glance at one, then the other.
He chose us both, Agnes said.
Victor looked at the dog, then at the woman beside him.
It certainly seems that way.
Victor placed the stray collar back into a drawer, not discarding it.
Mars resumed occupying the left half of the settee and chased his ball down the corridor at the witching hour. The flyers on the lampposts soaked in November rain and peeled themselves off.
Agnes visited every Saturday, bringing jam, sometimes asking for advice on blackcurrants she kept a garden on Birchwood Road, and Victor knew a thing or two about planting. They chatted while Mars lounged between them.
One evening Victor pulled the leather collar with the Buddy tag from the drawer, examined it under the lamplight; the metal gleamed.
In the entryway hung two leashes. One, red and worn. The other, blue and new, a gift from Agnes that Saturday, hung silently without asking permission.
Thus the years slipped by, the flat alive with the soft thud of paws, the scent of jam, and the quiet certainty that a lost dog, once wandering, had finally found his way home.