Two
On Tuesday morning, Emily woke again to the chirp of crickets. She snuffled, turned on her side, and allowed the sound to conjure memories of sitting on romantic terraces, the heat of the evening on her bare arms. Twenty seconds later the crickets were still singing. She rolled back to face her husband and grunted, ‘Mark, alarm.’
A hand shot out. The room fell silent. She drifted back to sleep.
An hour later, Emily rose, showered, and dressed before breakfast, then rode the lift to the basement. The door slid open. She breathed in the smell of chlorine and grinned. Svetlana was bustling about, jabbing fingers, and issuing instructions to an army of men gathered around her pool. They were dressed in light-blue overalls with a picture of a wave on their breast pockets, the words “ Blue Dreams ” picked out in white.
The housekeeper’s eyes switched from the men to her employer. ‘You want me to walk dogs, or sort men?’
‘Men please, Svetlana,’ Emily said, her eyes dancing with excitement.
An automatic pool cover, how thrilling, she thought, her mind racing through the rest of the “shopping list of treats”. Now she’d given the list to Mark, she was in for a wonderful week of fun.
The night before, Mark had come home earlier than usual, for a Monday. At 8 o’clock, she’d unfurled herself from a sofa as the door clicked shut. ‘Darling, what a lovely surprise,’ she said, bouncing into the hallway, a glass of wine cupped between her hands like a communion goblet.
He hung up his overcoat and plodded towards her. He looked exhausted, like it was already the end of the week. She put down her glass and hugged him. ‘Tough day?’
He sagged against her, eyes closed. ‘You’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘Bloody effing Paul.’
Her hands tightened round his arms. ‘Paul?’
‘Forget it,’ he mumbled. ‘I’d like to.’
‘Poor you.’ She took his hand and led him downstairs to the kitchen. Her Blakes kitchen, with its bank of moss-green cupboards and shiny, marble central island where she liked to sit and gossip with Svetlana. Emily opened the door to the concealed American fridge. ‘Let’s get you a beer.’
Flipping the top off the bottle, she passed him the drink then lowered her eyes. As demure as a young child handing their letter to Santa, she’d handed him her shopping list.
‘What’s this?’ He held the paper limply in his hands and raised his beer to his lips.
She batted her eyes at him. ‘I’ve given you the quotes for everything except the holiday villa, but I guess you won’t set the budget for that until we’ve done a bit more research.’ Emily stood behind him as he read, massaging his shoulders; it was like trying to knead stone. ‘Wow, you’re tense. Is that helping?’
He screwed up the list, tucked it into his trouser pocket, finished his beer in one long pull, then turned around, and folded her into his arms. ‘Come here, you,’ he mumbled softly into her hair. He kissed her, and she tasted the earthy sour flavour of lager.
‘Let me have a shower. Fancy an early night?’ he asked, nibbling her earlobe.
Her eyes answered for her as she led him out of the kitchen.
It was a busy week at Ovington Square. On Wednesday, under the watchful eyes of Svetlana, the new gym equipment was installed in the precise spots dictated by the diagram Emily left with the housekeeper. The old machines were taken away to a local homeless shelter – there was nothing wrong with them, and the manager was optimistic they would entice some of the homeless former soldiers into the centre. Emily found time to transfer more money to Alex, and in between a Pilates class and visiting a facial clinic, she called round to see her girlfriends, sounding them out on a trip to the Californian health spa. By the evening, she was tired and cancelled her dinner arrangements.
On Thursday, before a shopping expedition on Sloane Street, Emily rearranged her wardrobe with Svetlana, who walked away with three designer handbags for herself and two black bags full of virtually unworn clothes for a specified charity shop. Emily rang her girlfriends, coaxing them into buying tickets for an upcoming charity ball. Emily had paid for the whole table already and would donate any spare tickets to the Dogs Trust – a treat for a fellow dog lover who couldn’t afford ￡500 to attend an event.
At nine-thirty on Friday morning, Emily opened the door to her husband’s dressing room. It was pitch dark. She flicked on the lights and spotted a lump under the bedclothes. There must have been a late-night drama on that deal; Mark always slept in his dressing room if he came home after she’d gone to bed.
‘Darling, you’re still here. Svetlana thought so.’
The lump pushed itself into a sitting position. Mark’s head was drooping – poor lamb, he was having a ‘mare of a week. He’d returned in a foul mood on Tuesday night and Wednesday. Her heart went out to him, but her mind was focused on the overseas property show the following day. How would she get him there if he could justify spending the weekend in Canary Wharf instead?
Mark raised his head and blinked a few times. ‘I’ve hardly slept.’ He ran his tongue slowly over his lips. ‘That client lunch poisoned me.’
‘Ugh, should I call a doctor?’
He scrunched his eyes closed. ‘No, I just need sleep. I can work from home today.’
Her eyes widened; the only time Emily could recall Mark working from home was during lockdown or on holiday. ‘Gosh it must be bad.’ She gave a short burst of laughter. ‘It’s not the day today, is it? You don’t want to miss that, boyo.’
‘Do you ever think about anything but money?’ he asked in a flat voice.
‘Don’t be like that. My life is always on hold at this time of year.’
‘How tragic, being asked to wait a few weeks before you can spend chunks of money that would keep a normal family ecstatic for a lifetime.’
She toyed with the door handle, pouted, and said in a slightly petulant voice, ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like waiting.’
He glared at her. ‘You haven’t waited. I’ve seen the pool cover.’
She recoiled, hiding half her face behind the door. ‘I had to do that. I was worried the dogs might fall in.’
‘They’ve managed the last few years,’ he snapped. ‘And what about those flattened cardboard boxes I clocked on Wednesday evening? There was nothing wrong with our gym equipment. Jumped the gun a bit this year, haven’t you?’
She swallowed and stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. ‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’ she whispered, crossing to her husband.
‘Nothing,’ he mumbled, lying back down. ‘I just don’t feel well. I’ll stay here today.’
‘I just want to get on with things!’
‘Well, you can’t. No more spending. Please.’
Her voice croaked. ‘Why?’
‘Because I say so.’ He thumped onto his side, pulling the duvet over his head, adding in a muffled voice, ‘Now turn off the lights and let me rest.’
Emily withdrew. She’d been the verbal punchbag for rollercoaster deals before. Once Mark got the transaction back on track, he’d apologize.
Shaking out the Saturday edition of the Financial Times and propping it against the cafetière, Mark sniffed. Bacon. Svetlana was expensive – with payroll taxes, over ￡3,000 a month – but Emily didn’t cook anymore. He wasn’t sure what she did on weekdays when he was entertaining clients, but at weekends, the couple invariably ate out. He tried to concentrate on an article speculating about the direction of interest rates – inflation was picking up, but economists expected it to be temporary – but like a bee stuck in the tempting nectar-filled flowers of a snapdragon, his mind drifted back to the topic of domestic costs: on top of Svetlana, Emily had announced a new gardening team was starting soon.
He was still perusing the pink pages, worrying at the problem like a dog at a favourite toy, when Emily walked in, dressed in pale-blue Lycra. He rustled the paper shut.
‘Sleep well? You look great in that!’
Emily stroked her sides, wriggling her body suggestively. ‘It’s a new range. I only bought it yesterday.’
She spooned raspberries and strawberries onto her plate. Recalling his own childhood bowls of porridge and stewed apple, Mark remembered he hadn’t spoken to his mother all week.
A dollop of yoghurt was added to the fruit. ‘It’s supposed to be more flattering to us older gym bunnies!’ she said. ‘Shall I give you a quick run through the weekend agenda?’
Fuck, please not a charity ball where he was expected to bid thousands to secure some overpriced piece of shit!
‘Today it’s the Overseas Property Show! Let’s leave about ten- thirty. Give you plenty of time to work first.’
Mark dropped his cutlery and pushed his plate aside, unable to finish his food. There was a rat-a-tat sound, and Svetlana walked in, stacked a tray, then melted away, shutting the door behind her.
Emily lowered her voice. ‘Do you know which day it is yet?’
‘What?’ he snapped.
She leaned closer. ‘Come on, boyo,’ she teased.
He felt a ripple of pleasure at the use of her pet name for him; she’d even copied his mother’s Welsh accent.
‘You know what I mean! I love this time of year! I’ve such plans. I gave you the big list, but I’ve got so many other ideas to discuss with you.’
He chewed his lower lip. ‘No,’ he said, refilling his coffee cup.
She arched her eyebrows at him and leaned over, batting her eyelashes. ‘But it must be soon,’ she coaxed.
‘Think I might take that blue Lycra off you,’ he offered, standing up and holding out a hand.
She laughed, pushing herself away from the table. ‘Later, darling. I’m giving Mary a lift to Pilates!’
Having devoured every page of every section of the newspaper, Mark tossed it aside. Over the previous twenty years, gradually, everything except work had been eliminated from his life. Emily ran domestic affairs, and he had no outside interests. Hobbies and a career as a mergers and acquisitions banker were a contradiction. Tennis, friendships, they’d all been sacrificed at the altar of his career and shrivelled to nothing, like an untended houseplant that struggles, parched, then curls up and dies.
He rang his mother.
‘Gwen Ellis,’ purred the voice he’d loved all his life.
Despite living in Essex for nearly fifty years, his mother still spoke with a Bargoed accent, the soft lilt of the Welsh mining town she was born into, where she’d lived happily until she was eighteen, before being enticed away by the exotic future promised by Mark’s wayward father. For the first decade of Mark’s life, the wastrel had played a walk-on part, confusing the young boy for those occasional periods when, briefly, a father figure was present at the cramped kitchen table. He bellowed out instructions and advice to both son and wife, who, it seemed to Mark, coped remarkably well without any interference from this comparative stranger. When Mark was ten, his parents divorced; no one stepped in to be a father figure.
‘Mum. It’s me.’
‘Oh, lovely boy. Where you to then? I know you’re busy, but I love to hear from you.’
He fished around for things to say, listening to his mother jolly along about her little triumphs in the garden, then talk about her corgi Romeo’s latest bid for fatherhood, and how he’d been returned by a glowering neighbour with a red setter. Mark let the words rumble on, comparing his mother’s life to his wife’s. One spent all the money he could earn, the other hardly any.
‘Gotta dash, Mum. Emily’s organized tickets to a show, and I’ve got some work to finish first.’
The couple left the house at ten-thirty. Mark hailed a taxi and held the door open for his wife who was chattering like a schoolgirl reunited with friends after the long summer holidays. He climbed in behind her, dodging the gushing words by pulling out his phone.
At Olympia, they passed through security and into the main hall, where exhibitors had gone to extraordinary lengths to metaphorically transport potential clients to the sunny shores they were selling. There were exotic plants, fat terracotta pots, straw hats, and brightly coloured pool towels. There were huge posters featuring powder-blue skies, landscapes filled with olive groves or vineyards, and sandy beaches with happy swimsuit-wearing families, hand in hand, enjoying the brilliant sunshine.
Banners advertised the hotspot each stand specialized in. Exhibitors were clustered geographically, the more off-beat locations relegated to the outskirts. The couple passed stands for Turkey and Croatia. Mark even noticed a few trying to tempt customers as far afield as Florida. There was a buzz of excited conversations, and he caught snatches of laughter as he was steered towards Spain and a firm of estate agents. Emily announced that she had an appointment with Margery.
Margery – “call me Marge” – was identified, and the couple were fawned over for half an hour. Marge worked her way down a questionnaire pinned to a clipboard, directing the pitch entirely Emily’s way. Was access to a golf course important? How crucial was it to be close to the airport? Marge’s sales patter didn’t falter when, after twenty minutes discussing the merits of buying on or off a condominium, Mark announced he needed to make a phone call and left.
Emily did falter. She’d earned this villa; Mark wasn’t going to wriggle off this hook. But there was no mileage in fighting the phone: maybe the big deal was still teetering. It would explain why he’d yet to apologize for being downright rude yesterday, sniping at her for spending less than ￡100,000 on gym equipment. And he was keeping Bonus Day a tight secret. She was pretty sure it had been yesterday; even if her source was fibbing, Mark must know the date – the boss always tipped the wink to his star MD.
After another ten minutes of Marge and still no sign of Mark, she went husband-hunting, clutching a wodge of brochures and promising to be in touch with dates for a house-hunting trip. Where was Mark? Surely, he must be off the phone by now. Not considering French property, she concluded, circling the stands twice. After walking through Italy and Greece, she saw him, in animated conversation wearing that focused look, typically reserved for relating tedious war stories about City deals. As she watched, her husband threw his head back and laughed. Her eyes searching for clues, spotted a banner: PORTUGAL. Ok, that’s tacked onto the side of Spain. The happier he was, the bigger the budget.
She made her way over. Mark stood up and pulled out a chair like an attentive ma?tre d’. ‘Emily, meet Peter Mathews, my new best friend.’
‘I think your new best friend is the NHR scheme,’ said Peter, winking.
Both men erupted in laughter. This was no polite forced titter: Mark was guffawing.
‘I’m sorry, guys, you’re going to have to share the code,’ she said, standing beside her husband. He was reaching out a hand for one of hers. Emily shot the estate agent a quizzical look, before arching her eyebrows at Mark, who was still grinning like a child on Christmas morning. He put his arms around her.
‘It’s time for an adventure. We are emigrating to Portugal .’
No consultation, no explanation. Her husband – the architect of their game plan for over 20 years – expected her to uproot her perfect life in London and decamp to a country she’d never even been to.
Why?
She was given a loving look, but no explanation. Emily stood to one side, her mind a scrambled mess of worries – she didn’t want to leave London permanently, just occasionally. She watched Mark scoop up a pile of papers, pump Peter’s arm, and with her hand in his, he kissed her forehead, promising to explain everything over lunch. Where would she like to go? Money no object. He whisked her out of the exhibition, bouncing like a teenage Alex on the first day of a half-term trip to Devon, anticipating hitting the surf after weeks away.
It was shortly after noon and the exhibition was open until late. In the entrance lobby Emily and Mark were heading against the tide, forcing them to weave their way through a throng of incoming customers. Once they escaped that obstacle, the couple emerged onto the forecourt into a teeming mass of excited arrivals who were not looking where they were going, shaking off umbrellas and stumbling into departing customers. None of these normally intensely irritating encounters with the public provoked a reaction from Mark.
Fifteen minutes later they were being shown to a table. Vintage champagne was ordered, that’s a little presumptive. The bottle was opened, poured, then left on a nearby trolley in an ice bucket.
Mark raised his glass. ‘To you.’ He reached across the white linen tablecloth, and she felt his fingers stroking the back of her hand, then he took a deep breath, leaned back in his chair, and said, ‘I have quite a lot to say.’
It was forty-five minutes since he’d announced they were emigrating, Emily thought, and the verb ‘to discuss’ was yet to make an appearance. Her stomach clenched as her mind circled through possibilities. Was he ill? Was there more to working from home yesterday than he’d led her believe? Was there another woman? She reached for her glass, took a gulp of champagne, swishing it round her mouth and allowing it to dribble down her throat, before taking another slug.
‘The first piece of news is ...’ He drained his own glass before rushing on – ‘I’ve left the bank and I’m not joining another one.’
Emily swallowed her mouthful of champagne, coughing as the bubbles swamped her throat and fizzed uncomfortably at the tip of her nose.
‘I’ve decided on a new career. One that gives me more time to spend with you and Alex.’
Emily glared at her husband as she hissed across the linen. ‘Oh, please,’ she said, drawing out the words. ‘You’ve just told me we’re relocating to Portugal, a country we’ve yet to even visit, and now you announce you’ve decided to cast aside your job, which certainly for the first twenty-three years of our marriage has been your entire life.’ She shook her head. ‘And this selfless act of sacrifice has been motivated by your sudden desire to spend more time with our son, with whom you can’t hold a civilized conversation?’ Fixing Mark with a pitiless gaze, she demanded a little respect, and ‘a little more of the truth, please.’
His lips pulled into an unattractive grimace. He ran a hand through his hair, then down his face, and around the back of his neck. Emily felt her heart fluttering, like a trapped butterfly. She twisted the stem of her glass. What was the truth?
Mark ran his tongue around his dry lips, blinked, then looked across at the woman he loved. She was sitting upright, her spine straight, and he had a fleeting memory of Emily’s father, ever the military tactician, and his favourite piece of advice: Always face your foe with conviction, shoulders back, chest out, show them you can handle whatever they throw your way . What would his father-in-law – if he was still alive – have to say about this mess?
‘OK. The truth is my luck has run out.’ He spoke calmly, his voice disguising his inner angst. ‘The enemy has outmanoeuvred me.’ He clicked his tongue and huffed. ‘I’ve been skewered. I need to let the dust settle for a few years. The shit who shafted me isn’t half as good as he thinks he is.’
Mark groaned as he recalled Monday morning. Like most Mondays, it had started with him sitting in the back of a black taxi, working his way methodically through overnight emails. He was firing off replies as the cab sped down the Embankment, past early morning joggers puffing out their weekend extravagances, and the straggling reluctant commuters bundled into thick winter padding, heading for the shelter of the comparatively warm tube stations. The taxi arrived at its destination without so much as a grunt passing between driver and passenger, and Mark joined the silent army filing through the doors, all keen to reclaim their foothold on the financial opportunities beyond the security turnpikes.
Using his electronic security pass for a second time gained Mark entrance to the Mergers and Acquisitions department and the haven of his own office. His lair was spotless, just as he had left it, reluctantly, late on Friday evening. He remembered the stilted conversation with Paul about shooting – had that man been inwardly gloating, knowing Mark’s fate? Then preparing for the call, the knock on the door ... but it wasn’t the director with his second coffee. It was Stephanie from the Human Resources department. He liked Stephanie; she was from Essex too.
‘Not now, Steph, I’ve got a call. I thought you were the director; she’s gone AWOL. Buzz off, and I’ll call you when I’ve got a moment, probably won’t be until this afternoon.’
‘I’m sorry, Mark, but I need you to accompany me to Boardroom 3.’
Mark was good at hiding emotions, but not that good. His head shot forward, his mouth gaping wide, his eyes large gawping at Steph like a child at a movie star. He closed his mouth, but discovered he couldn’t swallow. Was he being sacked? Mark Ellis, Managing Director, and biggest fee-earner in the department, a casualty of the January cull? He couldn’t be. Not with his track record!
As an M it’s too expensive to borrow with Mum living there – and then we borrowed another million to fund the basement dig.’
How would they pay the mortgage without his salary? She raised her voice. ‘So how much does this ginormous mortgage cost?’ She emptied her glass, slamming it back down. ‘Am I expected to get a job? I will not be like my mother!’
He reached for her hand, but she withdrew it.
‘The mortgage is six and a half grand a month. Then there’s Svetlana.’
She stiffened. ‘We are not sacking Svetlana!’
‘Calm down,’ he said soothingly. ‘I haven’t suggested that. When you add on utility bills, the run rate is about ten K a month. I got an exit package: three months’ salary in lieu of notice, and redundancy. After the taxman, it’s over sixty grand, which covers six months, and I can sort this if you give me a chance.’ He refilled her glass.
She took a large sip; this wasn’t a discussion to have sober. Everything would be OK. Mark had a plan. ‘Well, as you City guys say, if you will insist on hanging out with gunslingers and hatchet merchants, eventually you’re bound to get hurt.’ He huffed a tiny laugh. ‘I presume this happened sometime last week,’ she said. ‘I’m only sorry you didn’t want to share it with me. It must’ve been agony going through it alone.’ She set her glass back down, this time gently, and asked, ‘What have you been doing? Where did you go?’
‘Balham,’ he confessed, peering over the rim of his glass at her. ‘I had to buy a phone and I didn’t want any of our friends speculating what I was doing in a phone shop in Knightsbridge on a weekday.’
‘I didn’t think you even knew where Balham was!’
His eyes seemed to brighten. Mark reached across the table for her hand. She inched forward and felt his warm fingers enclose hers, almost clinging to them as he said, ‘Hey, I know you’ve built your life around helping your chosen causes and spending what I earn. I know the deal. That doesn’t need to alter much if we move to Portugal.’
She wasn’t moving to Portugal. He could go and work there if he wanted, but she was staying in London. She pulled an incredulous face. ‘Well, that’s the first piece of good news. What is this miraculous part-time Portuguese job which allows you to spend more time with your family without interrupting the money flow? Diversifying into gunrunning?’
Their first course arrived. Mark ordered a second bottle.
‘It’s not the job, it’s the taxman,’ Mark whispered.
Her forkful of food stopped halfway to her mouth. ‘The Portuguese taxman is going to supplement our income?’
He put down his own cutlery. ‘Well, both the British and the Portuguese, but yes, that’s about the size of it.’
Without interrupting, she let Mark outline the plan, or “our new adventure” as he referred to it. The route to financial security relied upon them selling their London and Devon houses. She could cope with selling the gorgeous house in Croyde built on the cliff road with a long terrace facing the sea, but selling Ovington Square would be a wrench. Mark explained that it wasn’t as simple as just selling up; there was a wrinkle. A few years ago, they’d claimed a cottage in Devon – owned since before they were married – as their principal private residence, avoiding tax when they sold it. That little wheeze meant their London house was a second home, and the taxman’s axe would slice off a third of the proceeds. But they’d never intended to sell it.
‘Portugal has a little-known tax loophole called the non-habitual residence scheme – the NHR. It’s totally legit. Avoidance, not evasion,’ he explained.
‘That doesn’t make it right.’ There was a note of concern in Emily’s voice.
He slid a brochure across the table.
Portugal’s ‘non-habitual residents’ (NHR) scheme offers preferential tax treatment to new residents for their first 10 years in the country. If employed in Portugal in a ‘high value’ activity, your tax rate is set at an attractively low 20%. The scheme also allows you to receive some foreign income tax-free.
‘That means virtually no tax from the UK, or Portugal.’ His voice rose, bubbling with excitement. ‘Once we are on the NHR, we can sell Ovington Square tax-free, which saves us ￡2 million of capital gains tax. We can tell everyone that, with Alex grown up, we’re downsizing and buying somewhere smaller.’
Emily didn’t mind downsizing. She wasn’t sure about dodging the tax bill – Alex would hate the idea – but neither did she want to part with that much money.
Mark salved her conscience, saying, ‘The rules aren’t meant to catch Ovington Square. It’s our home. If we’d paid a hundred grand in tax on the Devon cottage, we wouldn’t have to pay tax when we sell London.’
That made her feel better. They were just finding a way of escaping a whopping tax bill they shouldn’t be paying in the first place and wouldn’t be facing if Mark hadn’t been fired. And he didn’t deserve to be fired.
‘Let me get this straight. The goal is to sell our home tax-free and then come home to a slightly smaller house, still in Knightsbridge, and I can live the same way as I do now, and we won’t be doing anything dodgy?’
‘Yes.’
‘But until we come back, what do we live off? You say our basic costs are ten grand a month, but I must blow an additional ten.’
He coughed a laugh. ‘Sometimes more than that! I’m going to take on a couple of noddy roles.’
‘Noddy?’
‘Sorry, slang, non-executive directorships.’
‘Will that fund our current lifestyle?’ she asked, eyebrows raised.
‘Not on their own, no.’
‘So, what will?’
He sat back, a confident expression on his face. ‘Simple. Until it sells, we rent out Ovington Square, just like Croyde.’
Her bottom lip quivered. ‘No! Not London. Where would we live?’
He pulled something from his jacket pocket, beaming at her. ‘I’m buying this house for you. It will drain our entire reserve fund though.’
She took the page, unfolded it. ‘Wow,’ she said, her gaze bouncing back and forth between the pictures and him.
‘It’s got two acres of garden,’ gushed Mark, ‘all fenced off for your dogs. It’s next door to a tennis club, and it’s in the heart of what the estate agents call the golden triangle.’
There were four bedrooms, all with en-suite bathrooms – two upstairs and two on the ground floor – a small study, outdoor pool, built-in barbeque surrounded by terraces, manicured lawns, flower beds bursting with colour. Every photo showed blazing sunshine. She shivered at the thought of all that heat. This would be fine. She could just base herself in Portugal, come home whenever she wanted to.
‘Boyo, this is stunning!’
‘She comes fully furnished, so we can move straight in. The sellers are even leaving the linen!’
‘Not so sure about that idea.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t want to pack up the London house, it’s our home.’
‘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 an additional 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.