An afternoon nap brought no comfort whatsoever, only left me with a sticky sense of unease and a mouth as dry as sandpaper. I woke to the oddest, almost physical emptiness in my legs, as if someone had whisked the hot water bottle out from under the duvet. Normally, Archiemy golden retrieverwould be sleeping right there, his slow, heavy breathing lulling me better than any sleeping draught.
Now the bed was empty, the sheets unpleasantly cold against my skin.
Sitting up and swinging my legs down, I shivered at the chill sneaking through the flat, draughty as a haunted house in November. Not a sound, either, no scurrying claws on the floorboards, no snuffling sigh, not even the telltale shake of furry ears. Nothing.
“Archie?” I called out. My own voice sounded odd, cracked and unfamiliar, as though Id borrowed it off a stranger.
No one came running, and suddenly my flat felt enormous and hostile, as if all the cosiness had been surgically removed. I tottered down the hallway, holding onto the wallpaper for balance. My heart pounded away in my throat, thumping irregularly, as if warming up for a drum solo.
And there, perched at the kitchen table like a celebrity in a glossy magazine, sat my daughter-in-law, Emilytwenty-six years old and as chic as an Instagram influencer. Flawless skin, hair that clearly cost more than my winter coat, and a gaze that had never quite discovered the concepts of empathy or warmth. She held a glass of some thick green sludgeher latest superfood smoothiescrolling through her feed with the smug smile of someone whos just won the Lifetime Achievement Award for Existing.
“Emily, wheres the dog?” I asked, leaning on the doorframe to hide the suspicious tremble in my knees.
Emily lazily looked up, her eyes radiating the sort of icy calm reserved for royalty and serial killers. She took a dainty sip, leaving a chic green moustache on her top lip, and licked it away with theatrical precision.
“Oh, Mrs. Turner, youre up! Well, the thing is Archie got a bit upset, whining and dashing about, flinging himself at the door, scratching and all that. Honestly, I thought perhaps he had, you know, a bit of a tummy. I opened up to put his lead onand, goodness, he just bolted! Nearly knocked me over. Yelled Archie, stay! and would you believe, he didnt even twitch an ear. Hes vanished. Natures calling, I suppose. And, well, you know what they sayif a family dog heads off on his own, it means hes gone away for good. Doesnt want to upset his owners, so he just slips off.”
Inside, something twisted, a rusty key scraping away at my insides.
“What nature, Emily? Its November,” I said quietly, feeling the icy creep in my fingertips. “And hes been neutered for five years now. Terrified of the lift, and never leaves my side outside, not for a second.
Emily shruggedone of those lovely English shrugs that manages to pack in centuries of couldnt care less all in one effortless motion. I suddenly felt faint. She honestly, crystalline, didnt give a toss how I felt.
“Well, maybe he got bored of this concrete shoebox. Wanted a bit of the wild, the open air… Just the animal in him, I suppose. What can you do?”
My eyes fell on a set of car keys flung carelessly on the table, attached to a fluffy white bunny keyringa parody of innocence if ever I saw one. Not where they belonged in the hall cupboard, but here, in plain view. She hadnt just opened the door.
Shed driven my companion out to the countryside while I slept, taking advantage of my vulnerability.
I turned silently and walked to the front door, feeling icy determination pool silently inside me. I knew Id never find him on foot if shed carted him miles away, but staring at her gloating face was more than I could stomach. She was clearing the decks before she left, removing unacceptable obstacles.
The next four hours morphed into a sticky, stifling nightmare.
I scoured the whole neighbourhood, peered under every car, called out until my voice was raw enough to file screws. I rang everyone I knew, hands trembling so hard the phone escaped my grasp onto the pavementtwice. I posted in the residents WhatsApp, attached a photo of Archie grinning, tongue lolling: Missing dog, friendly, gentle, will come to anyone
No one had seen him. No one.
Back home, I drained some heart drops, but their pungent whiff only sharpened the queasiness. The flat, bought by my son, Alex, to house us all, had become a battleground on which Id suffered a resounding defeat without a single shot fired. Emily floated around me as if I were a threadbare armchair awaiting its appointment with the binmen.
There, in the hall, stood a giant, pink suitcasegaping open like the mouth of a greedy crocodile. Emily, ever the efficiency expert, was methodically cramming in bikinis, sarongs, jars of overpriced face creams.
“Dont get yourself in a twist, Mother,” she flung over her shoulder, shoving a wad of silk dresses into the maw. “Really, whats the point? That decrepit muttfur everywhere, that special scent, drool all over the parquet Ew. Get yourself something smaller. A fish, maybe. No barking, no walks in the rain. Alex booked me an ultra all-inclusiveI need good vibes, none of this funeral stuff.”
“Does Alex know?” I asked, head bowed.
“That the dogs run off? Not yet. Why bother him? Well tell him when hes back. Or you tell him. Say its old age, the dog slipped out, you forgot to close the door. Happens all the time.”
She hadnt just got rid of the dog. Shed staged it so Id be the guilty party. And Alexmy gentle, soft-hearted Alexwould believe her. She could cry at will, never a red nose in sight, while Id be left stammering, wheezing, too scared to sound like some mad old bat.
I sat in the armchair in the gloom, clutching a chewed rubber ballmy last tenuous thread to the reality where Archie was alive and well.
Early autumn dusk crept in outside. Purple shadows pooled in the corners, swallowing up familiar things. The wind rattled a rogue lilac branch against the panea high, scratchy sound, sinister as nails on a blackboard.
Suddenly, the sound changed.
It wasnt the window. Nor the branch. It was a faint, hesitant scratching at the front door. And the barest thread of a whine.
I shot up so fast my vision blurred. I cant recall how I reached the door, or how my hands fumbled the locks. I only remember flinging open the heavy door.
There, on the battered doormat, lay a bedraggled, trembling heap.
He stank of wet earth, petrol, motorway grime, and the wild, raw stench of terror.
“Archie!” I breathed, collapsing to my knees on the icy tiles.
He could barely raise his head. His once-golden coat was matted, plastered with burrs and sticks. He shivered uncontrollably. His front right leg hung in the air, twisted and useless.
But there was something in his jaws. Clamped so tight his gums had turned white.
A thick, red booklet.
“Alive Good boy You came back” I stroked his filthy, soggy head, not feeling the slightest disgust, whatever Emily thought. All I felt was the steady thump of a living heart under my hand. “Give it to me, come on Whats that?”
With a choking, hoarse effort, Archie loosened his grip. The booklet fell wetly into my hand.
I wiped the cover on my dressing gown without thinking. Gold letters glimmered under the hall light. A British passport.
I opened it with numb, clumsy fingers. Emily stared back at me from the photopristine blow-dry, that little sneer Id come to know so well. Slipped between the pages was her boarding pass. Business class. Flight at 6 am tomorrow.
In an instant, the whole dreadful jigsaw clicked into place.
Shed dragged Archie out farinto some muddy field or thicketpushed him out. He dug in his heels, desperate not to go. Her designer handbag must have tumbled out in the struggle. The passport had fallen. Furious, in a rush, shed shoved him, clambered into her car and roared off, none the wiser.
And Archie Archie hadnt just chased after her car. Hed found the thing that carried her scent, the scent of home, his family. And brought it back.
Hed limped for miles on three legs to return something she dropped while she was betraying him.
“Whats all this racket?” barked a peevish voice. “Mrs. Turner, do you have every window in this flat open? Its blowing a gale!”
Emily appeared in the hallway, adjusting her face mask. In her silk dressing gown, she looked about as out of place as a mermaid in a chip shop. When she saw the muddy dog on the mat, she froze. The face mask suddenly struck me as her true facestiff, white, lifeless.
“Y-you?” she whispered, pitching up to a shriek. “But I drove you to the sticks! You shouldnt This cant”
Archie, recognising the voice, did something hed never done toward a human before. He growleda deep, warning rumble. He pressed against me, seeking protection. Or perhaps offering it.
I slowly, painfully, got to my feet, hand pressed to the wall. My back ached, my knees groaned. But a cold, perfect certainty flooded me. The fear was gone. Only revulsion remainedas if Id trodden in a particularly vile puddle.
“So, he just ran off, did he?” I asked quietly, holding the passport between my fingers as though it were a dead rodent. “You said it was nature calling? Drove him to the middle of nowhere, did you?”
Emilys gaze bounced from Archie to my hand. At last her brain caught up. She recognised her document.
“Give it back!” she shrieked, lunging. “Its mine! How did you get that?! Give it!”
I stepped away, tucking the passport behind me. Archie barkedcroaky, sharp, a clear warning. Emily reeled, hitting the invisible wall.
“My flights at six! Alex paid so muchjust give it back, you you”
“Go on, finish it,” I invited, voice steady. “Old witch? Batty? Useless cow? Like you call me with your friends when you think I cant hear?”
“Oh, I dont carejust give it! Thats theft!”
“Archies legs injured,” I answered, with the tone reserved for exceptionally dim and unkind toddlers. “Poor loves hobbling. Theres blood. He needs a vet, X-ray, perhaps an MRI Veterinary bills dont come cheap these days, Emily. Not cheap at all.”
“Ill pay! Ten thousand? Twenty? Take it and be donejust give me that passport!”
“No, love,” I shook my head slowly. “Its not about money. Its about decency. You dumped a living soula member of our familyin the wild, foreign and freezing.”
“Its just a bloody dog!” she yelled, her flawless cheeks blotching under the mask. “A mangy mop! And me off to Turkey! I need a break! Im exhausted!”
“You havent nerves.” My reply was icy. “You have a calculator for a soul.”
I opened the passport. The pages were glued together with dog drool.
“Oh dear,” I said, feigning concern as I flicked through. “Look at that. Damaged document. He carried it in his mouth for miles, seesaliva, teeth marks, mud Doubt border control will love the new look.”
“Itll dry! Ill, Ill blow-dry it! Iron it! Give it back!”
“Even if it dries” I moved toward the open kitchen window.
We live ground floor. Outside: a wilderness of brambles and stubborn raspberry canesthe handyman, old Mr. Perkins, never bothered to clear it. Beyond the window, darkness thick as ink. Wind shivered the tangled branches.
“You threw out my friend. Im throwing out your holiday.”
“No! Dont you DARE!” She hurtled across the kitchen, knocking over a chair.
I wound up, calm and slow. A perfect throw.
“Fetch, Emily!”
The passport arced beautifully into the night, vanished with a thump and the crunch of twigs, buried deep in the prickliest heart of the thicket.
“Go find it then,” I said with glacial calm. “Maybe youll spot it by morning. If youre lucky.”
Emily let out something between a shriek and the honk of a wounded seagull. She leaned out the window, risking life and designer dressing gown, peering hopelessly into the darkness. There was nothing but wind, brambles and the cold.
She spun, shooting me a glare packed with undiluted hatred, and stormed out, slippers and dressing gown flapping. I heard the front door bang in her wake.
I closed the window with a click. Draughtsno good for Archie; the poor thing was already chilled to the bone.
He lay on the living room rug, panting, worrying at his injured paw. I lowered myself to the floor beside him, fetching the first aid kit. My hands were steady now. My head felt light and clear, as though Id shrugged off the boulder Id been lugging all year.
“Lets have a look, hero,” I whispered, switching on the big desk lamp.
Carefully, I examined his pads. No sign of a break, just a bit of blood where his leg had swollen. I parted the matted fur.
There it was: a massive, dry burr lodged deep between the pads, sharp as a miniature hedgehog with anger management issues. Every step must have been agony.
“Hold tight, love, thisll feel better,” I grabbed the tweezers.
Archie tensed, but didnt yelp or pull away. He trusted me, utterly. One swift pinch, and the bloody burr came free. I drenched the wound with antiseptic and bandaged it up. Archie sighed, stretched out and plonked his head in my lap.
He was home.
From outside, even through the double glazing, I could hear Emilys shrill cries
“Where IS it?! Bloody bushes! Ow! I hate you all!”
She was somewhere out therewailing in the dark, tearing her hands, her face and her precious dressing gown on those wicked brambles. Swearing at me, the dog, the raspberry canes, Turkey, and the universe. The sounds struck me as poetic justice. The overture to her brand new, lonely future.
A key twisted quietly in the door.
I didnt startle. I knew it couldnt be Emilyshed dashed out without her keys in her fluster.
Alex came in, my son. Tired, unshaven, his overnight bag slung over a shoulder. Hed come home a day early to surprise us.
He stopped in the doorway, taking in the muddy, bandaged dog, the scattered bandages, and me sitting on the floor.
“Mum?” He frowned, eyes darting between us. “Whats going on? Whys Emily crawling around under the windows with a torch, shouting her head off? I tried calling to her, but she ignored me completely.”
I smileda calm, bright smile, the sort people wear after a storm has passed.
“Shes in training, son. Preparing for Survivor: Suburban Jungle Edition. Extreme resilience course.”
Alex kicked off his shoes, came inside. He looked at Archie, who, recognising his master, thumped his tail weakly. Then at me, the first aid kit, the bloody burr on a tissue.
“She drove him off, didnt she?” he said quietly.
Not “lost”, not “he got away.” He knew at once. Hes sharp, my boy. Hed seen it allthe looks, the sniffy disdain, the petty spites. But he, like many men, preferred to ignore the obvious, hoping it would just go away. Tonight, reality slapped him round the face.
“She did,” I said, simply. “Away out near the sticks. While I was napping. Claimed hed run off for romance. But Archie came back.”
Alex went to the window, looked out into the night, down at the beam of Emilys phone torch, at the breaking branches.
“And her passport?” he asked, not turning. “Shes shouting about a passport.”
“Archie found it, where she dumped him. Brought it home. A bit chewed, mind. Then I accidentally dropped it out the window. Draught, you know.”
He was silent for a moment. I saw his jaw clench and unclench. Hed loved Emily. Or thought he didher perfectly coiffed persona, anyway. But Alex had carried Archie home as a puppy ten years ago. Archie was a part of his very soul, the bit that still remembered his dad, our family adventures, his childhood. He couldnt forgive the betrayal of a helpless creature. This was the line.
“I see,” he said, sliding off his jacket and hanging it carefully over a chair. His movements were slow, deliberate, final. “Well, thats Turkey out, then. For her, anyway.”
“For her,” I agreed, filling Archies bowl to the brim. The rattling sound of kibble bouncing into the metal bowl struck me as the cosiest imaginable noise. “Documents finished. No go.”
Alex joined me on the floor, pressing his face into Archies matted, woodsy fur. Archie licked his ear with a grateful sigh.
“Fine then,” his voice was muffled, but steady. “Ill go. With you, Mum. And with Archie. Well find a hotel that takes dogstheres plenty now. Hell need some rehab after his adventure. So do you.”
We heard a wail from outsidea triumphal but quickly disastrous shriek, so piercing it made the windows shake.
“Found it! I found it! Waitwhats this?! What have you done?!”
Emily had found her passport. And, I suspected, the thing Id noticed before sending it flyingArchies tooth had punched a neat, fatal hole straight through the page with her visa. The page now looked like a doily.
Alex got up and flicked the kettle on.
“Tea, Mum? With mint? Strong?”
“Yes, please. Yes, please.”
Warmth started seeping back into the flat. The silence and cold gave way to the gentle hum of the kettle and the contented crunch of dog biscuits. We were home. We were a family.
As for Emily she was exactly where she belongedoutside, wrestling with thorns, bitterness and a dimpled passport that would get her precisely nowhere.
A week later we really did jet offto a dinky cottage by the sea, run by a couple who doted on retrievers.
Archie limped for a few days more, but sea air and salt water worked their magic. And Emily? She moved in with her mother, reportedly tending her nerves and her bramble scratches for ages. But some scars, as everyone knows, never truly heal.
