They were back from America. Or rather, he was back; after a brief prior visit to meet his parents, she had arrived. They were away in the Lakes, leaving the dog and house for a week’s free holiday. He packed the car and they drove the twenty miles into the country, windows wound down against the summer heat.     

‘Was this what you expected?’

‘Eh?’     

‘This – Yorkshire, a job.’     

‘Haven’t found one yet.’

‘I know.’     

There was a brief silence as he slowed to negotiate the turn by the reservoir. A sheep was cropping the verge, and the sound of men trimming thorn-bushes floated in from the coast.

‘Let’s enjoy a week of nowt – and Charlie, of course – then see where we get to.’

She leaned out to breathe in the moorland scents. More sheep loomed, static as snags of wool in the bracken, then scattered as they got near. Soon they left the moor-top and began to thread along the bottom of the dale. The chapel house lay on the far side of the next valley. The road wandered up and past it, switching back then winding on towards another moor. By the chapel door, a smaller lane split off down to the neighbouring farm. Separating the two was a crooked signpost, its metal fingers blunt and spattered with muck. After they had retrieved Charlie from the farm (he’d been on his best behaviour, apparently, though at twelve that wasn’t saying much) they realised it was too late to go anywhere, but too early to settle in.

‘What d’you want to do?’ he asked.

‘Hmm?’ She was prodding at the kindling and twists of newspaper laid out in the fireplace.  ‘It’s eighty degrees. We’re not lighting this, are we?’

‘Well, he likes to lie out, you know – warm his belly.’

She rolled her eyes and clicked on the TV. He poked around the bookshelves to see what had changed since his last inspection. From the dog-bed in the kitchen came a long, raggedy yawn, then the first snores. They crept to the doorway.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We can eat later.’

The next day, they set off early for Kettleness. Charlie managed his Bonios, a morning sprinkle, and was ready to go.  She turned around and stroked his head as they drove. Though the heat wasn’t up yet, Charlie left foggy circles on the window, dabs of slobber and smudges like children’s finger-marks as the motion of the car pushed his nose through the steam. The route was all back roads, twisty and high-hedged, so the sea came as a pleasant relief – slate-grey, lined here and there with accents of sun; a broad, rippling stripe marking the end of everything.

‘Got his stuff – water, bone – and ours?’

She nodded.

‘Alright, then.’

She set off between knobby rock walls and sprouts of marram grass. He followed, Charlie huffing on a short leash. The path twisted till it flattened out three quarters of the way down, branching into a steep rock slide to the beach, and a flatter track circling out of sight.

‘I’m going that way,’ she said, hefting the bag. He shuffled around with the panting Labrador and twenty minutes later they met on the shingle. Not a soul, as his parents predicted. The bay curved away in both directions, and beyond the jutting headland was nothing but sea. She spread a blanket while he unsnapped the leash. Charlie padded over to the pebbles by the water’s edge.

‘Come on, old feller!’

He hefted the new rubber bone, watched it bounce end-over-end into the surf. To his surprise, Charlie followed, tongue flapping. He waded in and caught the bone in his jaws.

‘Well done, boy! He got it!’

She turned to watch the old dog plodge through foaming water, then as a strand of seaweed floated between his legs, drop the bone unremarked. It sank as he panted happily, and no amount of swearing could bring it back.

She laughed and covered her eyes.

‘Har-de-har! That’s ten quid from this week’s dole to replace the bloody thing!’

But the sun was out, the dog snuffling up razor-clams and nudging at the remnants of pockmarked floats, and they were happy. After the picnic, they packed up and headed home. At the fork in the path, she took the bag around and he looked down at Charlie then scooped him up and staggered from foothold to foothold up the rocks. By the car he collapsed and Charlie shook himself free, dropping his snout in her lap. After a minute, the sharp breeze restored him once more to the living.

‘Good job I finished that PhD,’ he said.

‘Oh yes?  Why?’

‘Phenomenally – heavy – dog.’

*

Charlie lasted five minutes before he fell asleep and had to be helped into the house. He managed a few pats, an early dinner, before taking himself off. She ran her raw, allergic hands under the tap but said nothing. He gamely struggled on, but was soon snoring on the settee.

He woke hours later to a strange, silent house. From the kitchen came low pitiful snuffles, claws scrabbling at the door. He let Charlie out to do his business. A high moon, sweltering yellow, shone through the arched windows of the living room. He watched Charlie shuffle past. It was quiet, somewhat cooler, so he lost himself in the Raymond Chandler he’d liberated from the graduate reading room a few weeks before.

After an hour she came down, yawning.

‘What are you still doing up?’

‘Eh?’

‘It’s the middle of the night. Where’s Charlie?’

‘Oh – I … ’ – he yawned himself – ‘let him out.’ They both glanced at the empty strip of tarmac, then bolted for the door. Outside, the road stretched dog-free up and down the length of the dale. Nothing rustled in the hedge; no crow squatted on the portentous iron finger, nodding them onwards. The night was warm, bone-yellow, empty.

‘Shit,’ he said.

In the car, they crept to the nearest bend (surely he couldn’t have got this far?) then turned and went back past the chapel where the road bumped over a cattle-grid to the high moor. There was nothing at all. He turned around again. She called out Charlie’s name. It floated, long and plaintive, over the drystone walls and stands of gorse. They slunk back to the house in defeat.

‘What are we going to do? I murdered him!’

Normally she’d try to soothe away tension, find a way forward. He had done the same for her in graduate school. But now he paced, inconsolable, around the kitchen. Visions of ditches and mounds of bloody fur capered through his mind. He jerked on the tap and it sprayed over the floor.

‘Hey!’ she said.  ‘Hey – what’s that?’

From outside came a distant, tiny huffing, faint as a bee knocking against the window it had stumbled through. They ran out, listened. The noise refined itself slightly – now the bee sounded tired, disgruntled perhaps, ready to write a sternly-worded letter to the authorities.

‘Down the hill!’

They pegged it to the neighbouring farm. The farmhouse was silent but the noise had swelled to a hoarse, chuffing gasp, repeating every few seconds like a beacon. They followed it through a concrete yard to the open barn.  Inside, they found Charlie doing the rounds. By the light of the moon, they saw corrugated walls ringed with bales of hay. He had no idea they were there and tottered from wall to wall like a slow, furry pinball. Each time his nose bumped straw, he gave another gasp. Caught between pity and amusement they looked at each other, then rushed in to scoop him up and steer him out of the barn.     

On the road, Charlie gave them both the once-over, flopped his tongue and pressed on. She held his collar; he straddled the old geezer, palms fast against Charlie’s back and gave him a gentle push. Half an hour later, they were back in the kitchen. She closed the door and slid down, spent, on the tiles.  Charlie slurped some water and headed for his basket.

‘You’re right,’ she said after some time. ‘The PhD did help. Potentially – homicidal – ’

‘Don’t say it!’

In his basket, Charlie opened half an eye.

‘ – dog-sitter … !’

But the evening, overall, had been too rich for his blood.

He closed the eye, let out a small fart and fell asleep.