My Dog Died In March And In April Something Still Scratched At The Bedroom Door

He was a fat, stupid, beloved spaniel and he died in March, at fourteen, on a vet's table, with my hand on his head.

He had one ritual. At 05:40 — not six, not half five, 05:40 — he would come and scratch the bedroom door three times. Not to be let in. To be acknowledged. If you said "morning, mate", he would go away and lie down again, satisfied that the household was still functional.

Nine years of this.

In April, three weeks after, I woke at 05:40 to three scratches.

I want to give you every rational thing first, because I have gone through them all, at three in the morning, for months.

Pipes: the heating is not on in April and the noise is nothing like it.
Another animal: we have no cat, and the doors were shut.
Grief: yes. Obviously. Grief. My wife said grief and she said it kindly and she was probably right and I nearly accepted it.

Except my wife heard it too, on the fourth morning, and sat straight up in bed, and said, before she was properly awake, "Tell him morning."

I said, "Morning, mate."

It stopped. That morning, and every morning after, for the rest of that week.

Then, six weeks in, it stopped for good.

The last time was a Sunday. Three scratches. I said morning, mate. And then — and this is the part where I lose most people, and I do not blame them — there was a sound in the hall like a dog turning round three times before lying down.

That was it. Nothing since. Two years.

We got another dog in the autumn. She is a lunatic and she sleeps until nine and she has never once scratched at a door.

Sometimes, at 05:40, I am awake anyway, and the house is very quiet, and I say it into the dark, quietly, because it costs me nothing.

Morning, mate.