Victor Clarke first found the little pup on a damp October road.
It sat on the shoulder of the A5, shivering and tiny, watching the passing traffic as if waiting for someone specific. Victor was on his way to his aunts cottage to collect potatoes, eased off for a moment, thinking the dog would just look at him. But the pup lifted its head, and in an instant everything changed. The potatoes stayed in the ground for another week.
He named it Mars. The name came from his neighbour, Mrs. Vera Thompson, when she spotted the reddish, floppyeared creature with legs that didnt match its body.
Redsnout, nosy, a bit clumsy, she said, chuckling. Mars. Thatll do.
Victor laughed along.
Mars grew fast. By spring he was occupying the entire left side of the sofa, convinced it was his rightful domain. Victor cursed at first, then gave up. Sleeping alone in the flat was worse than sharing it with a snoring, occasionally pawtwitching dog.
Their friendship didnt spark instantly; it unfurled slowly, like two people who have nothing in particular to rush for. Morning walks. A bowl of food at seven oclock. The telly. Occasionally Victor would talk to Mars out loud. Mars would sit, ears perked, listening solemnly, only yawning now and then to show off his pearly teeth.
Youre right, Victor would say. Enough. And hed switch the TV off.
—
The accident happened in April, on the way back from an evening stroll.
Victor could only hazily recall the details. The road was slick, the car skidded onto the footpath around a corner, Mars was on his leash, then the leash snapped. Victor was flung onto the curb, hit his side, lay there for a few seconds, hearing only his own breath and a distant shout.
When he finally got up, Mars was gone.
The leash lay on the asphalt, its plastic clasp cracked in two.
He searched until midnight, covering three neighbourhood blocks, calling the dogs name, asking passersby. They shook their heads. One lady claimed shed seen a red dog sprint toward the railway crossing about forty minutes earlier, but she hadnt seen anything after that.
Back home, Victor sat in the kitchen staring at an empty bowl.
Later he wrote an advert, printed twenty copies, and plastered them all over the estate the next morning. He also called three local vets and the animal shelter on Willow Street.
If a red mixedbreed shows up, please call me, he told the person on the other end. Heres my number.
A week passed.
Then a month.
The flyers faded in the May rain, and Victor reposted them. He did it again in June. The vets stayed silent. The shelter on Willow Street rang twice, both times by mistake neither call was about the right dog.
In July Mrs. Vera Thompson tentatively said from behind her door:
Victor, maybe you could take another one? The shelters got plenty.
No, Victor replied.
She didnt bring it up again.
The flat without Mars felt different.
It wasnt empty, just altered. The fridge hummed, neighbours hammered upstairs at half past nine as usual, but something had shifted.
Victor lifted an old rubber ball from the floor the one Mars used to chase down the hallway put it on a shelf, then tucked it into a drawer, then pulled it out again and left it on the shelf.
Each morning his hand reached for the leash by the door out of habit. The leash still hung there. There was nowhere else to go.
He started walking alone, the same route, the same time, just without Mars. He couldnt explain why; he just walked.
In August his daughter, Emily, rang from Sheffield.
Dad, come down here. Stay with us for a while, have a break.
No can do, he answered.
Why?
He paused. Maybe hell turn up.
Emily was quiet, then said Alright in that tone people use when theyre saying something else but decide not to.
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 the wind, a creaky stairwell, a draft anything. But the scratching came again, insistent, with pauses, as if someone knew the door would open eventually and was just waiting.
He opened it.
Mars sat on the mat.
He was older now. His coat was trimmed in spots where old wounds must have been, his left side a little singed. Around his neck hung a leather collar, brown with a brass buckle and a tiny tag that read a single word: Buddy.
Victor stood in the doorway, staring. Mars stared back, his right ear drooping, a ragged orange patch on his forehead shaped like a crooked star. The same amber eyes, darkrimmed, looked right through him.
Where have you been? Victor asked.
Mars rose, padded across the threshold, and navigated the hallway as if hed memorised every nook. He headed right, to his bowl still exactly where it always was. Empty, of course.
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 local veterinary practice.
They examined Mars, gave him his overdue vaccinations, scanned his microchip. Victor asked about the collar. The vet lifted the tag and read it aloud:
Buddy. Is that another name?
Someone gave him a new name, Victor said.
Hed been with someone else?
Half a year, somewhere. I dont know where.
The vet looked from Victor to Mars and back again.
It happens, she said. Dogs wander off and sometimes find their way back, especially the clever ones.
Victor said nothing, watching Mars sit on the stainlesssteel table, utterly unbothered by the examination.
On the back of the tag theyd printed a phone number.
Victor dialled from his car while Mars rested on the passenger seat, eyes glued to the window.
After three rings the call answered.
Hello?
Good afternoon, Victor said. You had a dog, a red one, called Buddy.
A long pause.
Yes, a mature female voice replied. He was ours. He left in September. Weve been looking.
Hes with me now. His name is Mars. He was lost in April.
Silence. Then the woman spoke again.
He was with us. We fed him, tended his wounds.
Thank you, Victor said.
Hes a good dog.
Yes.
A pause.
Do you live far from here? On Birch Street?
Different neighbourhood, she answered.
Oh dear. He turned up at our fence in April, just lay there and never left.
Victor watched the bare courtyard outside, leafless poplars swaying.
The conversation drifted to a close on its own. Victor hung up. Mars snored softly in the back seat, his head resting on his folded paws.
Back home Victor removed the strangers collar, placed it on the table and examined it. Brown leather, brass buckle, the single word Buddy. A nice piece of work, not cheap.
Half a year somewhere, yet hed found his way back.
Victor thought of the woman on Birch Street, how shed fed, petted, and become attached to him, only to lose him again in September and keep searching.
He picked up the phone 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 turned up on a Saturday. Mrs. Gillian Parker, sixtyfour, in a grey coat and a canvas bag filled with apple jam and a sack of dog biscuits the very things Mars had grown to love over those months.
Mars saw her from the hallway, didnt bolt. He shuffled forward and nudged her hand with his nose, tail wagging enthusiastically.
They shared tea. Gillian recounted how shed found him by her fence in April, taken him to the vet, watched his fear turn to confidence. Victor told her about the crash, the broken leash, the flyers.
Mars lay between them, dozing. Occasionally hed lift his head, glance at one, then the other.
He chose us both, Gillian said.
Victor looked at the dog, then at Gillian.
Seems thats the case.
Victor slipped the Buddy collar into a drawer, not discarding it.
Mars reclaimed the left half of the sofa and resumed his midnight hallway ballchases. The flyers on the lampposts swelled with rain in November and peeled themselves off.
Gillian visited every Saturday, bringing jam, sometimes asking for advice on blackcurrants she tended a garden on Birch Street, Victor had a modest plot of his own. They chatted while Mars snoozed between them.
One evening Victor pulled the leather Buddy collar from the drawer, examined it under the kitchen light. The tag glittered.
Two leashes hung by the entrance: an old red one, frayed at the ends, and a new blue one Gillian had quietly left on a recent Saturday, never asking permission.
