‘You won’t be packing it up. We can still use it when it’s not booked, and Svetlana will still be here. She can run it as a holiday let, short-term bookings like Croyde. Anyway, think what you’ll be swapping it for.’ He tapped the brochure with his fingertips. ‘Look at the sun, there are over three hundred days of sunshine every year in Portugal.’
She finished her food then dabbed her lips with the napkin. ‘I don’t want to burst the bubble, but when I got up this morning, I thought we were buying a holiday home in Spain. Now you’re telling me you’ve lost your job, you want me to leave all my friends, my entire life, and emigrate to a country I’ve never been to, as well as sell a home I adore and never planned to move out of. Forgive me if I’m not as enthusiastic as you are. What’s the alternative adventure, please, darling?’
He clicked his tongue and looked away. ‘There isn’t one.’
Emily listened as Mark told her how he’d spent days flailing about, saying – a little melodramatically, she thought – that he’d felt like a deep-sea diver low on air trying to find an escape hatch, searching for a way out of the shipwreck of their lives, before he miraculously discovered this solution.
‘You go,’ she said. ‘Leave me here. I can come and visit.’
He pointed a finger at her. ‘Nope, that’s not possible. We both need to get out of the UK tax system for five years and, if you like it in Portugal, we can take advantage of the NHR for anadditional five.’
Listening to her husband, it dawned on Emily that she could either opt for an adventure in the sun or divorce a man she loved and lead a modest life in London with her share of the proceeds from selling up – after deducting a vast tax bill. She didn’t want to lead a modest life. For over twenty years she’d lived like a queen bee, and a queen bee can’t exist on a budget.
Emily sucked in a deep breath, then forced a smile. ‘So, it’s Portugal or bust, is it?’
He gave a tiny nod. ‘Shit happens.’
She’d hankered after a house in the sun for years. She would do as he asked and support him. She might love living in Portugal. And if she didn’t, she would find a way to come home.
Three
Departure day was dull and overcast. Emily had been up since six, and no one had brought her a cup of tea. By the light of the streetlamp, the couple laboured up and down the steps, ignoring the joggers panting past, the commuters and dog walkers going about their normal morning routine. What would her morning routine be in Portugal, she wondered, stretching to squash her tennis shoes into a crevice she could see behind one of the dogs’ travel crates. Through the open boot, she spotted Mark standing in the entrance porch, his printer in his arms.
‘There’s no room,’ she said.
‘This has to come. Leave one of the dog crates for the removals van. Your mutts can travel together.’
‘Theycannot. They’ll be too squished.’
He made his way down to the pavement, cradling his printer in his arms and peering around it before taking each tentative step. Emily didn’t help.
‘Why does my comfort and wellbeing come second to those blasted dogs?’ He raised a knee and balanced the printer on it while he hooked the back door of the car open with his foot. ‘One of the monsters can lie by your feet,’ he suggested, releasing his load onto the back seat. Emily looked across the top of the dog crate at him and huffed.
‘I don’t see why the three of us should suffer because you’velost your job.’
‘A bit low?’ he snipped.
She straightened, massaging her neck. ‘I’m tired.’
‘Hey, come on,’ he said. ‘It’s a three-day journey, buck up. Think of the sun waiting for you at the other end.’
She managed a thin smile. ‘Couldn’t we catch a ferry later this week? I feel so rushed; I might leave something behind.’
‘You can always come back and get it. We must catch this ferry, it’s the last one before the start of the new tax year.’
Travel by ferry was a new experience for Emily. For the last twenty years Mark had paid to ensure she never had to wait. Anywhere. Groceries were delivered; Svetlana tasked with anything else that might involve queuing; first-class tickets fast-tracked them through airport check-in and security. Mark reported that enquiries with Brittany Ferries about preferential boarding arrangements had resulted in an exhaustive explanation about the technicalities of loading a ferry, but no route to the nirvana of being first on board.
Emily sat staring out of the windscreen, trying to block out the stream of obscenities being spat by Mark like an out-of-control vending machine. There was a loud tut, then a huff. ‘I’m sure that car arrived after us ... Look, look, they’re already bloody boarding!’
She stroked the head of the dog at her feet and tried to ignore Mark’s fingers drumming on the steering wheel.
‘Sit still, Mark,’ she snapped.
When had he become so tetchy? Had their lives become so separate that she hadn’t noticed how the occasional outbursts she’d dealt with so deftly in their early years were now omnipresent? Why did he think he was entitled to preferential treatment over other passengers? Had her father been right to warn her off? Would she have been happier married to an army man? Emily glanced at Mark who was scowling out of hiswindow.
‘Why aren’t we moving?’ he demanded, slamming his hands against the steering wheel.
Emily opened her door a crack.
