‘But not right,’ Mark said firmly.
It was a long time ago, but Mark had strayed. Early in theirmarriage, he’d been seconded to the New York office for two months. The bank was advising an American client on a hostile takeover of a London listed company, and Mark was the expert on the intricacies of theBlue Book of Takeover Rules, on hand in the client’s time zone. He and Emily parted badly, rowing for weeks before he left. Mark felt rejected, claiming Emily was allowing a toddler to alter their relationship. The affair with the young American lawyer advising on the same deal had been exhilarating, spurred on by the adrenaline from the takeover battle.
On returning to London, fizzing with the combination of victory and illicit sex, he regretted putting his marriage at risk and ended the affair, resolving to live with his guilty secret. His lover wasn’t easy to shake off though, and one evening, while Mark was in the shower, Emily answered his phone. She was angry but forgave him. Mark still lived with the lingering fear that, one day, he might do something that would cause her to seek solace elsewhere. Especially now. Now that he was failing to deliver the tsunami of money she was accustomed to, would she too seek revenge for a past slight?
Mark returned to the villa with a confident swagger. He turned into his driveway and stopped. A black chain was blocking his way. He spun around, searching for a culprit. David was sitting in a deckchair running a tape measure over a length of wood. Mark could hear a strimmer in Tommy’s garden, and a yapping dog from his own.
‘David?’
The older man plucked a pencil from behind his ear. ‘Yo!’ he called out, marking the piece of wood.
‘Do you know anything about this chain?’ asked Mark, stepping briskly over the knee-high obstacle.
There was a guffaw of laughter. ‘Ask Tommy.’
‘Seriously?’ Mark felt his neck tighten. ‘We were only roundthere for drinks last night!’
‘Seriously.’ David nodded.
‘Right, we’ll see about this.’
He marched through Tommy’s open gates. His neighbour, in shorts and T-shirt, was waving a strimmer underneath a fig tree. Mark could see Tosca darting up and down the fence line, growling and barking as she ran.
‘Tommy . . .Tommy!’
The roar of the strimmer stopped. Tommy spun round.
‘A word,’ spat Mark.
Tommy put down the tool and removed his orange protective goggles.
‘Did you put that chain across my drive?’ demanded Mark, trying to keep his voice calm.
‘Might have.’ There was a sly expression on Tommy’s face.
‘Why?’
‘To show you what it’s like to be inconvenienced. Stop the bloody dogs barking, and it won’t happen again.’
Mark was incredulous. ‘Don’t be silly, man. The dogs don’t bark unless there’s something to bark at.’ He took a few breaths, felt his heartrate slow, then said, ‘Now let’s be reasonable men. I won’t say anything more about this if you promise me that’s the end of it. You’ve made your point.’
‘When the dogs are not barking, I’m a very reasonable man.’ Tommy grinned.
Mark raised his voice before he could stop himself. ‘Oh, grow up.’
‘No, you grow up,’ snarled Tommy, squaring up to him.
Through the haze of fury, Mark heard two female voices. Toni’s mop of curls danced as she ran towards her husband. ‘Tommy, inside this instant,’ she said, as Mark’s ears tuned in to Emily: ‘Mark, a word, please. Now!’
Later, a breeze blowing through his open office window, stillbristling from the encounter with Tommy, Mark logged onto the banking portal. Setup costs – including fifteen thousand euros to inject the damp walls – had taken its toll. He looked at his cashflow projections and gulped; Mark hadn’t been overdrawn since he was a student, but with a run rate of ten thousand a month, the Ellis buffer was a bit shaky. They needed London bookings; each night netted four thousand. Three nights, and the couple would be cashflow positive even before his noddy fees. Three paltry nights a month was hardly a punchy sales target. Mark massaged the London income and watched the bottom-line switch from red to a reassuring black. Reminding himself that the estate agents were confident both houses would soon be under offer, he opened a different spreadsheet.
Being a tax exile was proving challenging, and the paperwork was astonishing. Today’s struggle was to compress work and social commitments into ninety days. Anyone can be in the UK for ninety days without being liable for UK tax; if either Mark or Emily exceeded their personal 90-day limit, it would catapult them both back into the UK tax system. Records had to be kept, every trip home documented, which was ironic; as tax exiles, they would be completing time sheets like a jobbing worker. He played around with assumptions, cracked the problem, and went in search of Emily.
Outside, Mark shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand. He spotted Emily sunbathing on the lower terrace and trotted down the steps, catching a blast of the sweet coconut smell of sun lotion; this was a holiday for her, really, he thought. It was a small house, and they mostly lived outside, so there wasn’t much housework.
Emily lowered her book and said sarcastically, ‘Come to apologize?’
Mark loosened his tie. ‘The man is a menace.’ He felt his chest tighten. ‘And if I see that chain again ...’
