Page 84 of A Perfect Algarve Villa
March 23rd
Ellis bank balance: (£132,746.39) Overdrawn.
90-Day Rule Tally: Emily: 91 Mark: 86
Why was Mark so angry? Emily dumped her overnight case on the pavement and rummaged around in her handbag for the London housekeys. Her bag felt heavier than it had in Portugal, and she bounced it up the stairs, her shoulders sagging. She unlocked the front door, turned off the alarm, and rolled the case to the foot of the stairs, thinking Mark had no right to shout at her. If he’d been forced to use as many of his precious ninety days as she had, scrubbing this house, he’d have found a way to pad out his allowance too.
She stomped downstairs, switched on the kettle, and wrenched open the fridge door. The bottles on the inside shelves clinked against each other. The fresh carton of milk made her smile – Svetlana, her little hero – but listening to the kettle rumbling away, she took out a half-full bottle of white wine, stoppered with the spent cork. Was that left over from two weeks ago? Who cares, she thought, pouring herself a glass, and perching on a barstool.
How dare Mark rant at her? Where was he when this house was ripped apart by that rave? The kettle clicked off, steam hissing from the spout. After the second glass of wine, Emily gotinto her stride. And what about Svetlana? She was a fully-trained housekeeper. Mark behaved like a feudal lord of the manor, and Alex wasn’t much better. Emily was the only one who treated Svetlana with the respect she deserved. The family were lucky she’d been so loyal; if Svetlana had resigned, how would they ever have run the London rentals? And who was responsible for that income drying up – Mark! He should’ve sorted out permission from the mortgage company.
Upending the bottle into her glass, Emily’s lips were pressed into a straight line. Who paid the mortgage last summer? It was her idea to run the B&B, and Mark had fumbled his pass there – it was a bed andbreakfast! How tricky was it to brief Pedro that the business planned to serve hot food? What would’ve happened if the council had done a snap inspection? And on top of doing most of the B&B work, Emily had brought in a regular salary. She took another slug of wine. What had Mark done these past twelve months? His noddy roles, the odd bit of DIY that was so shoddy – except where David was involved – it would make a cowboy builder blush, and a gargantuan amount of whingeing.
Taking the empty bottle through to the utility room, Emily had a pang of remorse. Was it fair to blame Mark? He’d explained why he didn’t ask the mortgage company – he knew they wouldn’t allow them to rent out the house, so he’d crossed his fingers and hoped they wouldn’t find out. And he was probably right about the hot food licence: with a single sink and the washing machine in the kitchen, it was unlikely Villa Anna would have passed a hygiene inspection. Still, he should’ve told her, instead of doctoring the website and letting her unknowingly run the gauntlet.
More importantly, was Mark right to be cross? Somewhere in the depths of HMRC, was there a record of the days she’d spent in the UK? No, she concluded, tossing the bottle into the recycling bin, she didn’t believe the border force recordedeveryone’s movements. How could they? She’d been super-careful not to use the electronic gates at passport control and, even if they did record the exact time that she handed over her passport, those records wouldn’t be sent to HMRC. It would swamp them with data.
But what if they did? Had she tripped the couple up? Had she worked her butt off for the past year to achieve nothing because they were going to have to fork out millions to the taxman? Mark would divorce her if she’d cost them all that money. Was that really what she wanted? Emily climbed back onto the bar stool and finished her wine.What had she done? She’d lived through a year of hell, for what? Surely a few extra hours in the UK couldn’t be that expensive?
She didn’t sleep well and was splashing milk into her first cup of tea the following morning when Alex called her. Emily tried comforting her son, but was upset herself, both with the news about Gwen and the realization that Mark hadn’t told her. He must’ve been devastated; he adored his mother.
Emily poured out her heart to Svetlana, describing her mother-in-law as a power-pack of positivity. Dear Gwen, she led such a simple life; she took her son’s money to make Mark feel good and never spent a penny. Emily thought about her own parents – long since dead – her mother’s dreary life slavishly following her husband’s military footsteps and never complaining when he was posted from one camp to another. Emily had never wanted to lead her mother’s life but, she realized, it wasn’t the drudgery she’d been so determined to escape, it was the passivity. Gwen’s position had been far worse than Emily’s mother’s, but Gwen wrested control of her own life in a way Emily’s mother never had.
In Portugal, Mark shuffled across the bed, reached out an arm and batted around until he hit the snooze button. He wiggled his feet in their cocoon of warm duvet – mornings were still cold –and humped over onto his side, tucking his knees up next to his chest. He groaned and bit his lip to choke back a wave of misery.His mother. His positive, uncomplaining mother. He would never set eyes on her again, never be able to hug her, inhale that warm baking smell, hear that purring voice. He’d hardly seen her these past ten months, and his sacrifice had been in vain, because of his selfish, arrogant, foolish wife. Not only was his mother dead, but all his hard work had been futile: Plan B was in tatters because of Emily.
He threw back the duvet and felt around for his slippers, then pulled on his dressing gown and padded out to the kitchen, running his tongue around his parched mouth. Water or coffee? He shouldn’t have had those whisky chasers. He probably shouldn’t have gone out at all. But he hadn’t wanted to sit by himself with Emily’s bloody dogs for company. Instead, he’d abandoned the car, caught an Uber down to Garao beach, and ordered a beer – a pint, not one of those tiny bottles the Portuguese drank. He’d needed a man-sized drink.
Mark had sat alone on his bar stool, blinking back tears, remembering his childhood as a close-knit team of two. Gwen’s pride as he excelled, initially at school, then university, and ultimately the bank. His mother always booked a day’s holiday for Prize Day, and she’d travelled all the way by coach from Colchester to Exeter with Deidre, to be there for graduation day. He smiled, recalling her School Prize Day outfit: a belted raincoat – her “smart” coat – and a peculiar, cloche-style 1950s hat that would’ve looked elegant on a lean lady with chiselled features, but which, squashed over her plumper face, looked more like a shower cap. How he wished he could see her in those clothes one more time.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and glanced up to see Fran. She stroked his arm as softly as his mother had done so often, and he gulped back the tears. Fran’s head was cocked to one side. ‘You,OK? You don’t look yourself.’
He shuffled on his bar stool. ‘Not really. I’ve had some bad news.’
She pulled out the seat next to his. ‘Want to talk about it?’
He didn’t, and he hadn’t, not even when Fran’s boss asked the same question, nor when Tim joined them. Instead, Mark bought a round of drinks, and then Martin bought one. When Fran suggested adding whisky chasers to the pints, Mark’s shoulders loosened, and life didn’t seem such an awful place.
This morning, life once again seemed bleak. Opting for a caffeine boost, he reached for a mug. He stopped, his hand on the cupboard door as if glued to it. He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to recall the later part of the evening. There had been some dancing, and he remembered jiving with Fran, swinging the girl around the dance floor, her tiny skirt displaying a lot of leg, and brief flashes of her belly stud. He struggled for a few minutes, but he couldn’t really drag anything back or see how the evening ended. It was all a blur after the third whisky chaser. He spooned instant coffee into a mug, stood watching the kettle until it clicked off, then poured boiling water over the granules. A fuzzy memory of someone getting frisky with Fran popped into his mind. His brow wrinkled.
A damp snout nudged his shin, reminding him of the other reason for his night at the bar. They were Emily’s bloody hounds, so why was he on dog duty? What was he going to do about the 90-day rule?He didn’t feel strong enough to contemplate the problems his wife had caused. He needed to get back to Essex, take responsibility for his mother’s funeral from Deidre, make sure there was a proper, dignified send-off, a fitting tribute. Effing Emily could wait. He let the pets out, glowering at them, sipping his scalding coffee as they scuttled around the garden, sniffing, squatting, and squirting, marking their territory, andexploring for evidence of an overnight invasion of their patch.
‘Get on with it, you pests,’ he muttered.
He left the door open and retreated to the kitchen, tutting as he poured more water into the kettle, remembering the battered one which would still be sitting on his mother’s gas hob. She’d never even owned an electric kettle, just as she’d shunned any material signs of wealth. She wouldn’t have wanted the fuss or expense he was planning for her send-off. Maybe something simple would be better – Deidre would know.
Why hadn’t she let him pay for her to go private? The number of times he’d offered! As he refilled his cup, he admitted that even if he had persuaded her, it would’ve made no difference. She might’ve had a new hip, but it wasn’t her dodgy hip that killed her, it was her heart. And he hadn’t taken those warning signs seriously, hadn’t pushed her to see a cardiologist privately. He should’ve taken her to that specialist appointment, delayed the ferry trip home, found a way to be there, learn the truth from an expert, and sod the consequent disruption to their plans. His selfish wife couldn’t even tolerate the inconvenience of a single late-night flight. If Emily was tax-resident in the UK, the rules meant he was too. Mark could’ve spent all year with his mother, ferrying her to and from any number of bloody specialist appointments.
He recoiled from the idea of breakfast and took his mug through to the sitting room where the dogs were curled up, nose to tail, in a single basket, snouts tucked firmly under their front paws. They were oblivious to the chaos caused by their mistress.
Collapsing onto the sofa, he spotted an empty porcelain bowl on the floor and picked it up, turning it around in his hands, trying to work out why it was there. He glared at the dogs, transferring his anger to their snoozing bodies.
‘More coffee?’ offered a female voice.
He looked up and gulped. Fran, a towel covering her middle,stood barefoot in the doorway. What the fuck was she doing here?He blinked. ‘No thanks.’
Her eyes were trained on him. ‘How’s the head? Taken any painkillers? Want me to speak more softly?’
Mark dropped the empty bowl onto the coffee table and rustled up a smile. ‘One of my worst. Not sure caffeine’s even helping.’
