The morning sun was making the iron tick. I got out, and immediately a cloud of wriggling, writhing chocolate-colored bodies swirled around my legs. Border collies, six of them, barking, snuffling my shoes. He’d been expecting me, had calmed the dogs as my car breached the distant front fence. Had held them back only long enough for me to get out, at which point the dogs came rushing, sniffing, barking. He was standing at the edge of the porch wearing flip-flops, black and white. His toes were dry and cracking, his face broad beneath a faded cap.

“Ted, eh?” He jutted his chin at me as he came down the steps. I smiled, offered my hand, braced for recognition of my face. There was none.

“That’s me,” I said. “Thanks for seeing me, Al.”

“No problem, mate.” He scratched his chest. He was ruddy faced and sunburned, what looked like a homemade haircut hidden beneath the cap. “Bit of a weird story, I gotta tell ya. I half decided you were havin’ me on.”

“Nope,” I said. “God’s honest truth.”

“Right.” Al slapped away the nose of a border collie who was snuffling at his crotch. “Well, she’s round ’ere, mate. Wouldn’t expect her to greet you at the car, that’s for sure. She’s a lazy bitch, I’ll give her that.”

He led, and I followed, up onto the porch, where the shade was a relief. There was a small plastic child-safety gate to keep the border collies off the stairs. A coffee table made from old pallets sat before mismatched cane lounges sunken with the shape of bodies now gone. At the very end of the porch, lying on its side on a hair-covered blanket, was a pure white dog.

She lifted her head, got to her feet as we approached. She was fat. Sadly fat, the sagging belly and thick neck of an unhappy creature who gorges on whatever passes beneath her nose. The dog had a cheerful face, though. Pointed at the nose, broad at the forehead, a mingling of perhaps dozens of breeds. I smiled at the triangular ears pricked, sharp, like two cupped hands.

“So this is her, huh?” I said. The white dog didn’t come to me, which I thought was odd, given the doggy smile about her lips. But as I crouched, hands out, in greeting, she took a couple of steps forward and I noticed the limp. The right front paw. The one that had been broken when she arrived at the RSPCA in Yagoona. I pretended the limp was a shock. “Oh dear. What’s that all about?”

“Yeah, she’s had it since we got her,” Al said. “These fucking rescue dogs, mate. You never know what you’re getting. It’s a lucky dip.”

“Is it permanent?”