Best Friends

by Martin Westlake

Part 1 appears in this issue.

conclusion

Until then, Archie had just behaved as though somebody or something he liked was there — what I called fawning about. But on this occasion, after the usual ‘greeting.’ Archie started to play with — well, with nobody — but it looked for all the world as if he were playing with somebody or something. He gambolled about like the young puppy he still inwardly was, barking occasionally and stretching out with his front legs down on the ground, his tail wagging enthusiastically.

The hairs went up on the back of my neck, but I forced myself to walk down to the bottom of the field. There was nothing to see; it seemed Archie had invented an imaginary friend for himself. That evening, I wrote to the breeder and asked whether that sort of thing happened. She wrote back to say that she’d never heard of such a thing, but she wouldn’t rule anything out with flatties.

The pattern repeated itself for several weekends. I wasn’t at all superstitious but, nevertheless, I couldn’t help feeling there was something about that spot. It wasn’t just about Archie. I decided to investigate a little further. One Saturday, I found a stout stick and, while Archie played in the grass as usual, I beat a way through the hedge and explored the young wood on the other side.

I had been foraging about aimlessly for about five minutes when I came across what looked like the remains of a path. The path itself was completely overgrown with briars and nettles, but it had once been lined with terracotta tiles, and I could just make out where the path had led through the trees. It ended abruptly under the trunk of a fallen oak tree. So, it seemed there had once been some sort of a garden there. But that didn’t help explain Archie’s strange behaviour.

Anyway, he and I otherwise got on very well, and I decided I would just have to put up with a dog who had an imaginary friend. And then, one weekend, it snowed. It was early on a Saturday in February, and I’d had to drive carefully to the usual parking spot, a wide verge on a country lane that on that day was banked up with white snow drifts, pitted with dark melt drops.

We followed the inevitable path, and Archie swept through the snow to the hedge. I could see the snow kicking up about his paws. Just as Archie was doing his usual farewell gesture of sitting and barking, I saw the snow on the hedge fall off, as though someone or something had just forced their way through.

My heart thudding, I walked down the field. Once again, though, there was nothing to see. The snow was messed up where Archie had been cavorting around, but there were no other tracks. I inspected the hedge; nothing. Some snow had just coincidentally slipped off, that was all. And yet I didn’t feel easy. I was alone at the bottom of a field far off the beaten track.

The hairs on the back of neck went up. I thought about that old path I had discovered on the other side. Was I being watched? This was getting ridiculous, I chided myself. I called Archie a bit abruptly, put him on the lead and cut our walk short. I needed to get away from the place. Strange!

In the evening, I got out my maps and identified some possible alternative circuits for countryside walks and the following, Sunday morning I tried one with Archie. It proved perfectly adequate, at least while the snow lasted. But the snow had largely gone the following Saturday and, when we got out of the car at the head of another new trail, Archie whined. He looked at me with those great black-brown eyes of his and whimpered plaintively. What was this? He did his business and then made it clear he wasn’t interested in a walk.

I usually fed him after the walk, when we got back home. That morning, he didn’t eat his food. The mound of pellets remained untouched in his bowl all day. In the afternoon, he did his business and then turned for the house. Something was up. The next day was the same. I took him to the park compound, but he didn’t want to play with the other dogs. And the next day was again the same.

I made an appointment and took him to the vet. She examined him thoroughly and told me he was perfectly all right from a physical point of view. Could he have some sort of psychological condition, I asked her? She didn’t think so. Animals sometimes went off their food, but he’d be right as rain in no time at all.

Except that he wasn’t. He whimpered and whined all week long, giving me what felt like reproachful looks, as though I’d done something wrong. He remained off his food and started to lose a bit of weight. And on the Saturday morning, when I opened the car boot, he simply refused to jump in as usual. ‘What is it?’ I asked him. ‘Do you want to go back and see your friend?’ Archie didn’t nod, but I swear he’d understood me. He started to get excited.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘If you promise to stop this whining and whimpering, I’ll take you back there, do you understand?’ I opened the car boot again and the next thing I knew he was in the car and looking impatiently at me. I didn’t know what I was expecting. But I had hated to see Archie looking so downhearted, and the change in his behaviour had already cheered me up.

When we got to the verge, he couldn’t wait to get out of the car. He tugged me along the lane until, suddenly, he stopped and looked behind us. I felt uneasy. What was going on? I turned and looked. As usual, there was nothing, but Archie was staring intently, and his tail was wagging on the ground.

‘What’s up?’ I said. ‘Is your friend back, Archie?’ The dog turned and looked up at me, and I’d swear the expression was: ‘So, now you understand.’ When we got to the fallow field, I let him off the lead, and he went bounding down towards the hedge, his tail whirling like a helicopter’s rotor. He barked a few times, and I could see him excitedly turning around and around. Then he started to play in the long grass, occasionally barking out of what was evidently sheer pleasure.

I let him play for a long time. I was so happy to see him back on form. But after three-quarters of an hour or so, I knew I’d have to get back to my desk soon. So, I called him. And that’s when he disappeared. He looked at me for a split second, in that way dogs do when they have to decide whether to obey or be naughty, and then he wasn’t there anymore.

At first, I thought he’d fallen over, or maybe fainted or had some sort of heart attack. And then I thought he’d fallen into a sink pit or something like that. I ran down to the spot. The spring grass was flattened all about, but there was no sign of Archie. What could have happened? I called him until my voice grew hoarse.

I informed the local police, of course, but Archie — all forty kilos of him — had disappeared without trace. They told me that dogs like that could fetch a pretty price on the black market but, in my heart, I knew he hadn’t been stolen. I went back to the spot the next day and conducted a more thorough search. There was nothing and, oddly, for the first time I no longer had any sense that there might have been anybody or anything there.

I broke off a branch and beat about in the underwood behind the hedge, but there was nothing to be seen. Then I thought about the path. Where did it lead? I clambered around the fallen oak trunk and beat away at the undergrowth until I could see the twin rows of broken tiles snaking away through the wood.

Nature could be so rapacious. I realised I was walking through what had once been a garden. Where ash and oak and pine jostled for space, there had once been a lawn. On the far side, I came to the ruins of a small cottage. A fire had destroyed it many years ago, and briars and brambles now covered most of it in an impenetrable mess. A still-standing brick wall ran away from the cottage at right angles, and I realised that this had once been a covered garden. There was no sign of Archie. There was nothing standing that he might have hidden in and no hole — a well, for example — he might have fallen down.

I was about to turn back when my eye was caught by a grey stone set against the tumbledown wall. I hacked away at the briars and then scraped away at the moss that half-covered it. It seemed like a headstone, and I could just make out a few letters of an inscription of some sort. I scraped away more moss and then, with a sharp twig, dug out the dirt that had collected in the letters. I fetched some leaves and wiped the stone clean. ‘Here lies Charlie,’ said the inscription. ‘A man’s best friend for thirteen years.’

‘Archie?’ I said, ‘Is this where you went? Are you playing with Charlie now?’

When I had squeezed back through the hedge, I stopped and gazed out on the grassy field where Archie had so often played with such glee. I heard a distant bark. Probably a fox. There was a chill in the air. I turned up my collar and headed back to the car.