Poor Reginald. He is officially still missing. After all this time. We never actually called off the search. The gaps between looking just got longer and longer. This last one has lasted years. There are still lamp-posts with bits of our posters stuck to them. White strips of paper under the Sellotape. The rest of it, with his picture and our number and the word ‘missing’, has gone. Like the dog himself. Poor Reggie. Poor me.
I used to talk to him. I miss that. It wasn’t just good boy and bad boy and walkies and dinner. They were long talks. Not serious talks. It’s not like I told him things I never did anyone else. But we chatted. I’d wake him up to have them. Often when the house was sleeping. I’d get down on the rug next to him and slide my hand under his head and then put my head right on his. Cheek to snout. I’d start saying his name over and over. The poor beast would be fast asleep at first. But then his tail would stir, it would lift and flop down in a single, groggy sign that he was waking up and that he was happy to be waking up to my voice. ‘Here he comes,’ I’d say, with a smile in my voice. His tail would go again. His breathing would change. An eye would open. It would be red. Full of gunge. A browny-grey gunk that pasted his eyelashes together or gathered in a sticky ball in the corner. He’d just lay there at first, giving me the side-eye. But his tail gave him away. What I liked most was when our faces were side by side, cheek to snout, and we were both gently pressing together. To stay close. I could feel him pressing against me. I’d tell him to lie down again, that I wasn’t going anywhere, then I’d roll over and put my head on his belly and stroke his chest, in the furry vulnerable bit between his front legs. I’d sometimes get this horrific thought of someone, maybe even me, sticking something long and thin – a knitting needle or a straightened out coat-hanger – into that part of him.
‘Should I burn it down? When he’s the only one in there? I think I could get away with it. He always stays later than everyone else. Like he’s showing off even when there’s no one there to show off for. I could put a wooden beam across the door. The fire would burn up the evidence. What do you think, Reggie?’ This was before I quit. I was talking about Jason. I thought I was odd having these thoughts, but I’ve since discovered it’s not so unusual. More than half of employees think about murdering their employer. It’s quite normal. Even healthy. It turns them into real people and enables us to empathise with them better. That’s the theory. I have to say, that wasn’t my experience. Reggie would eventually go back to sleep. While I was still there. Still talking. I didn’t mind. He snored. I used to love listening to it. He sounded like a human when he did it. Like a small child or an old man. It soothed me.
‘I don’t understand how he could just disappear. He’ll be so hungry.’
‘Don’t worry, he’ll turn up. He’ll turn up.’
‘You’ve lost our dog. You’ve actually lost him.’
I hadn’t. I knew where he was the whole time.
That day. In the fields. I see it all unfold again. Exactly as it did. I hear the car engine turn off. I hear my door open and my boots hit the gravel. I hear Reggie barking. Already his barking is growing distant. He is off. He knows the way by now. I hear my car door closing and my footsteps crossing the small car park and then how the sound changes as I move onto the trail. I hear my breathing. I’m walking fast. I’m eager to get to where I’m going. The drugs are in my pocket. Every now and then I put my hand inside to make sure. Yes. Still there. And there’s the lighter. And there’s the second one. The reserve. The previous week I got to where I was going and the lighter didn’t work. I tried it a thousand times. I screamed. I broke things. I had to retrace my steps and start the whole thing again. Every now and then I call his name. Sometimes he barks in reply. Sometimes he’s far away but other times he surprises me by how close he is. It is windy. I notice that. It sweeps over the fields and makes the stalks move. They change colours as they lean one way then another. Moving all together. It’s like a watching a swarm.
I want to get to the ditch. Where the broken tree trunk is. It’s where I always go now. I’m eager to get there. I can hunker down out of the wind. It’s not far. Maybe a mile. If that. My pace quickens. I hear my breath getting faster.
What I love about this time is that it’s completely my own. Everyone I know thinks I’m somewhere else. Occupied by someone else. It’s like a cross-stitch of alibis. I used to get up at about 3am sometimes. Just to be alone. Just to have a waking hour or two when someone wasn’t there, picking at me, wanting something from me, taking something from me. But now I have this time. I have chiselled it out of thin air. It’s all mine. If you want something badly enough, then go and get it. Make it happen.
I am here now. I stand above the ditch looking around me. I am nowhere at all. In each direction the fields roll away into the distance. The only buildings I can see are far off. They are hazy and shapeless. They can’t touch me here. I look up at the branch. The same branch I always look at. The robin is there. I’m infatuated with him. Seeing him there, it makes me think everything is right with the world. We’re all exactly where we’re meant to be today. He chirps his hello. He hops one step sideways. To get a better view of me. I’m certain of it. Unobstructed by leaves. His tiny head twitches to the side. Chirp, chirp. That’s me. Greeting him back. I’m close to tears.
Reggie is here now. He is sniffing at something in the ditch. Perhaps I left crumbs last time. I jump down there to join him. ‘What’s up, beast?’ I rub him under his chin. He looks up at me and smiles. I squat down in front of him. I’m holding his head in my hands, looking at him gravely. ‘I do love you, my friend. You understand what I’m saying.’ I hug him. With my face buried in his coat. I am crying now. He lets me hold him a moment. He stands there patiently. He’s humouring me. He knows all this. He loves me back. But he’s eager to be off. I let him go. I try to pat his side before he runs off but he’s too quick and it’s barely a glancing blow. I call him back. I want to give him a proper stroke. But he’s gone. That faint fingertip brush down his side, it will have to do.
I sit down on the wood and begin to smoke. I lean back against the dry mud wall. It’s hard and caked so it won’t leave a mark. I could be in the trenches. I imagine the exposed roots to be the limbs of half-buried soldiers. I close my eyes. I keep smoking. I feel the ash land on my wrist. I let it. A gust will take it when it’s good and ready. I am overwhelmed by how much I love this solitude. It’s not love. It’s need. Everything was so fast and chaotic. It was making my bones rattle. But not out here. Out here I can breathe at my own speed. If I want to contemplate – I don’t, but if I did – I’ve got the time and space to do it.
I wonder if I should bring Dolores one day. When it’s all out in the open. Would it be better? The sudden knot in my stomach tells me it wouldn’t. But no one could see us here. Under the sky. Maybe she’d be prepared to get her knees dirty. I feel a stirring. I consider acting on it. But even if she did I’d resent her presence the minute I’d finished. No. Better alone.
Reggie is back. He puts his wet nose against my cheek. I smile. Then he’s gone again. Good for him. Good for you. This is your special time, too. You enjoy it. I say this. Or think it. It doesn’t matter. He’s no longer here to hear me. I will bring Dolores. I mustn’t be so mean to her. We can be friends again. She has my best interests at heart. I’d do well to remember that. My head is tipping forward. I let it. I like this feeling of gravity, of slouching fully forward and being absorbed into the earth. I’m debris at the bottom of the ditch. I can hear the wind but I can’t feel it. Not down here. It can’t get me down here. It roars over the land like a locomotive. Or maybe that was a locomotive. We’re not too far from the tracks. I’m nearly asleep.
‘You’ve actually lost our dog.’
‘Don’t worry. He’ll turn up.’
I am cold and my body is aching. I am getting to my feet. I’m not sure how long I was asleep. Maybe I wasn’t asleep. I feel like I was. Like my body is doing things but my mind is a step behind. It could be ten minutes later or two hours. I don’t know the time. I look up. There are clouds so I can’t see the sun to even make a guess. I call Reggie. I bend down to pick up the lighter that I must have dropped. I look around for anything else. Any other sign of me. I feel the chocolate wrappers in my pocket. Or hear them rather. When I rub my pocket through my jeans. Balancing on the trunk is the water bottle. It’s empty. How? I call Reggie.
It’s easier getting into the ditch than it is getting out. I need both hands. I have to hold on to things and heave myself up. It takes some effort. Once I’m out I bend over with my hands on my knees to gather my breath. Reggie usually barrels into me at this point. I turn my hanging head left and right and look at the upside-down world. I can’t see him. Carefully, giving the blood time to move with me, I stand up. I notice that the robin has gone. The empty branch looks lost without it. For no reason at all I take it as a sign of foreboding.
I begin walking back the way I came. The way we came. He’ll find me. He’ll catch my scent and come bounding after me. He knows the way. Sometimes he’s even been back at the car waiting for me. I keep walking. I keep calling. I keep looking behind me. He’s not at the car. When I get there. I knew he wouldn’t be. But I walked all the way anyway. Just to make sure. I unload my pockets and the empty water bottle and then set off back towards the ditch. I am aware my pulse is quickening now. Not from the walking. Our bodies are fine things. Instinctual. They sense danger before our ever so logical brains do. I’m more than halfway back. I stop and call his name. I close my eyes to listen better. Sometimes you could hear him even when you couldn’t see him. Rustling among the stalks. He sounded different from the wind. But I don’t hear him in the fields. I keep listening. Another sound is rushing up on me. It is getting louder and louder. It’s right on top of me. It whooshes past me and then begins to fade. I open my eyes again. The train is already off in the distance. Heading back to town. I watch it until I can’t see it anymore.
I start to sob. I don’t know why. I try to convince myself that I don’t know why. I clench my teeth to stop myself, to get a grip, but the opposite happens and I can’t hold it back anymore and suddenly everything just pours out of me and first I bend over double and then I crumple completely and I’m on my hands and knees hitting the ground with my fists while snot streams out of my nose and I don’t even care because I’ve not bawled like this since I was five.
Eventually I stand up again. ‘Reggie? Reggie?’ I say his name this time. Conversational tone. I don’t bother calling. I know. I don’t know how I know. It doesn’t matter. The robin wasn’t there. That’s how I know. What does that mean? A stupid bird. Who cares how? But I know. I leave the path and begin walking directly towards the tracks.
There is a small verge leading up to them. I walk up it and balance on one of the rails. The only thing I don’t know is which way I should walk. I decide to go left. Away from the town. Towards my ditch. As I walk I’m scanning in front of me. I’m not sure exactly where I should be looking. On the track, at the bottom of the verge, in the ribbon of clear ground before where the fields start, or in the fields themselves. I keep walking. I don’t call his name anymore. I pass my ditch. I walk further. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Then turn around. I keep scanning, in case I missed something the first time. But there is nothing. I should be getting hopeful. I’m not. I know I’ll find him sooner or later. I pass my ditch again. I reach the point where I emerged onto the tracks and I keep going. The line bends slightly. I can’t see around the corner. I walk around it. I expect to see him at any moment. But I don’t. There is movement in the bushes. Something brown is in there. Reggie is brown. I stand and wait. A hare sticks his head out then darts across the track and disappears. I continue walking.
When I finally see him I’m not shocked. It is only confirmation of what I already knew. He is about fifty yards in front of me. At the bottom of the verge. From where I am I can tell that he’s been split open. I look down at my feet. I decide I won’t look at him properly again. I step down from the track and walk along the verge. The ground is easier here. I am looking down the whole time. When I see him at the top of my vision I stop and turn around. I look for a stick. A hard one. I find a bit of old track instead. It’s flat. Like a paddle. It will do perfectly. I begin to dig. I expect to find myself scratching my way through a rough layer of stone and gravel and other obstinate minerals. But the ground gives way easily and in no time at all I’m able to discard the piece of track and scoop out the earth with my hands. I’m not sure how deep to make it. I jump into the hole. It’s past my knees. I decide that will do. I climb out and back up to where Reggie is lying. I still won’t look. I put a hand out behind me, feeling tentatively along the ground until my fingers touch a paw. I drag it towards the grave. I won’t look. I step over the hole I’ve dug. The weight on the end of my arm changes as he slides over the edge. I lean forward and like a dog myself I begin shovelling dirt backwards between my legs. When I’m satisfied I stand up and walk away. I don’t look back.
Rather than deal with this I decide that it didn’t happen. None of it. This must be why I didn’t look at him. I’ve never been here before. I reach the car. I am driving. I am at home. Reggie isn’t here. His basket is empty. I fill up his bowl and call him. He doesn’t come. I open the front door and call him. He doesn’t come. I wonder where he is. This isn’t like him at all. I hope he turns up soon. He was here and then he was gone. I just don’t understand it. We’ll make posters and stick them up all over town.