Justin missed his dog.
As the days passed and Boy failed to reappear, Justin began to accept that he had been gravely wounded or killed in the airport explosion.
A disinterested observer might expect the death of an imaginary dog to be less traumatic than, say, the death of a real dog, but this was not the case. Justin felt that Boy was the only living creature who understood the peculiar half-reality occupied by his enemy. It made sense. Boy lived in that world too.
Yet if this were true, Justin brooded, if Boy had come to exist because he, Justin, had conjured him out of thin air, out of the murky depths of his subconscious, then how could Boy be killed off in the real world? His head spun.
The dog had offered him solace and loyalty. Protection. Love. Boy was his, his creation, his companion. His soul-mate. He was the only creature on earth who could fill the jagged void in his brain, in his heart. Who could possibly want to destroy that?
Justin knew. He dropped his head into his hands in despair.
I want my dog back.
I’ll talk to him, he thought. I’ll beg him to give me back my dog. I’ll do anything. I’m not proud.
And then he sat up, suddenly angry. But I created Boy. No one has the right to destroy him but me.
He was shouting now, spinning around like a blind boxer. You can’t just crawl into my head and destroy my creation! Do you hear me? He’s my dog! He’s mine, and I want him back!
Justin looked up and saw Dorothea staring at him. He brushed the tears from his face. Looked away.
‘I was talking to fate.’
She said nothing.
‘I want my dog back,’ he explained.
‘The greyhound?’
‘Yes.’
‘Big pale-grey dog?’
‘Yes.’
‘Kind of brindly?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wise eyes?’
‘Yes!’
‘I just saw him.’
‘What?’
‘I just saw him in the back garden. He was staring at Alice. To be honest, I didn’t entirely like the look in his eye. Greyhounds and rabbits, as I said before, not a great combination. But he didn’t touch him. Just stared.’
Justin bolted out of the room, down the stairs and into the back garden.
No dog.
‘DOROTHEA!’
‘Yes?’ She was standing beside him.
‘Where did you see him?’
‘Right there,’ she said calmly, pointing to a dense area of ferns by Alice’s hutch. And there he was, sprawled comfortably, half-hidden by the foliage, head cushioned on a bag of wood shavings, asleep.
Justin grabbed Dorothea and hugged her. ‘Thank you, Dorothea.’
‘For what?’
‘For finding my dog.’
She frowned at him. ‘I merely saw him. You brought him back.’