Six
April 13th
Ellis bank balance: ￡35,467.12
It was staggeringly hot, but crunching down the dirt track, her shoes chucking up puffs of dust, Emily noticed every tennis court was busy. She squatted and retrieved a couple of balls that had strayed beyond the fence, lobbing them back over.
In the clubhouse, behind the counter, was a young suntanned man. He was built like a long-distance runner – slim, athletic, with a mop of sandy hair anchored in place by a golfing cap. She asked for a copy of the timetable.
‘On holiday?’ he asked, handing her a single sheet of paper.
‘Sort of a sabbatical. We’ve just moved into Villa Anna.’
‘On the NHR?’
Emily coughed, and the young man snorted. ‘Welcome to Martin’s,’ he said. ‘You might like to join, it’s cheaper if you’re a member. Although you’ve got your own court, haven’t you?’
‘But no one to play with. I don’t know anyone yet. Are you Martin?’
‘No, I’m Tim. That’s Martin.’ He pointed to a man walking towards them. ‘Martin, this is the new owner of Villa Anna; thought you might like to offer her the same deal you had with the Harrisons.’
An hour later, Emily let herself back into Villa Anna. It still smelt musty. Each morning she opened all the doors and windows that she could; several wouldn’t budge even with the aid of Mark’s shiny new hammer. She’d asked him to help, but he snapped back that she should add it to his ever-growing DIY list. Emily helped herself to a bottle of cold water and went out onto the terrace. She sat in a soporific daze with the sun full on her face, eyes closed, listening to the dogs lapping at the water bowl by her feet. She could do this. This was temporary. The London house would get bookings, Mark would hire help, friends would come and visit. And once the houses sold, this villa would be transformed.
She heard a squeak as someone sat down on the sofa. ‘How did you get on? Meet anyone nice?’ asked Mark.
Emily kept her eyes shut. ‘Yes. I met the owner, Martin, and I’ve done a deal. In exchange for the use of our court as an overflow, you get a free lesson with his junior coach Tim once a week. He’s a nice lad, bit older than Alex, and we get half the court fee, so,’ she faced him, a smug smile on her face, ‘that’s twenty euros each hour our court’s used.’
Mark fanned himself with a slim file.
‘Pleased?’ she said. ‘I think it’s the only way we’ll meet people, and your game is a little rusty.’ She pointed at the file. ‘For me?’
He pulled out a page and passed it over. ‘Spreadsheet for London and Devon bookings.’
Her eyes flicked over the numbers. Apart from the August bank holiday weekend, Croyde was booked solidly from the first May bank holiday weekend to the end of September. London was a different picture. Reservations were sporadic, and, unlike Devon, where each stay was for seven days, in London, the bookings were for a few days only and mostly at weekends. She totted up the income and smiled inwardly. Temporary was over. ‘You must be thrilled. Can I get someone to help with the chores now?’
Mark inhaled deeply, tutted, then took the spreadsheet back.
‘That’s income, not profit. We’re not even breaking even.’
‘Why bother showing me, then? I want good news not bad.’
‘Don’t be so impatient. I’m pleased with what we’ve got. London will get decent reviews; bookings will pick up. This is temporary.’
That word again. Emily stopped herself from snapping back – how temporary?
The machine coughed, shuddered, then spluttered into life. Emily leaned against the handlebar, but the lawnmower didn’t budge. She gave it a gentle shove, feeling the weight push back against her, then tensed her body, and heaved. It moved forwards a fraction. She stood up, swiping the back of her hand across her sticky brow, and surveyed the half acre of lawn. Mark wouldn’t get the stripes in a straight line, but if she was going to do the work, he could buy a ride-on mower to replace this relic from the last century.
Later, feeling like she’d just completed two back-to-back spin classes, she guzzled a bottle of water, admiring her work, then swept the upper terrace and the huge lower one round the pool, a dog at her heels, its jaws inches from the brush, jabbing at it as she worked. Sweat poured off her face and trickled down her arms, making the broom handle greasy. She put the brush away and went to the back of the house to the two orange gas tanks, bending over to check the gauge. There was a rustling sound behind her, then she heard a voice. It sounded petulant like a spoilt child.
‘Hope you’re going to be better than the last lot.’
She turned, fixing a smile on her face. ‘Hi, I’m Emily.’
The stranger, a short scrawny man, clad in shorts and a ragged T-shirt, scrambled through a gap in the oleander hedge and up to the sagging fence. He introduced himself as Tommy, then spent ten minutes complaining about the previous owners of Villa Anna.
Emily angled her head towards his loppers, currently busy pruning plants on the Ellis side of the boundary. Why didn’t he tidy up that bit of land next to her tennis court if he had spare gardening time? ‘I know parts of our garden are a bit straggly. We will sort it out once we’ve settled in.’
Snip, snip went the shears. The man was virtually standing in her garden!
She chewed at the inside of her cheek. ‘Well, must get on ... lots to do. Nice to meet you, Tommy.’
The shears were being waved at her. ‘Come round for sundowners tonight. o’clock?’
‘Sounds great. Let’s exchange contact details. I’ll check with my husband and let you know?’
In the afternoon, Emily was returning from the recycling bins, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the Bentley’s temperature gauge registered 32 degrees. She was planning to take a dip when she got home. She rounded a corner and slammed on the brakes. On the road immediately in front of her was an old-fashioned horse-drawn wooden cart. There were two passengers, a slim, deeply suntanned man holding the reins, and an elderly lady dressed in black, her grey hair held in a straggly ponytail, shoulders wobbling with the sway of the cart. Neither turned Emily’s way. She crawled along behind them, listening to the clip-clop of hooves on tarmac.
The road was windy and, behind the cart, in a right-hand drive car, Emily couldn’t see if there was any oncoming traffic. She glanced in the mirror. A queue of traffic was building up. With just her left hand on the steering wheel, she leaned across the passenger seat, straining to see in front of the horse. With a whoosh, a car darted past. The horse clattered on.
Forced to loiter behind the cart, when she finally turned off by the tennis centre, Emily sped up the dirt track leading to Villa Anna, turned left and, for the second time, slammed on the brakes. A knee-high rope of black chain was blocking access to her driveway. She tutted; it was the second time this week. Who was doing this and why? She left the engine idling and got out. From Tommy’s garden she could hear the tinny noise of a strimmer, and from her own, the dogs barking. In the garden on the other side, a man was kneeling, dabbing a paintbrush at his garden wall. He got up, unfurling his six-foot frame, and walked to the fence, brush in one hand, running his other across his cropped grey hair as if checking it was short enough. This was David; he’d come over and introduced himself a few days after they arrived. Such a useful man. David was in his late sixties, divorced, and had lived alone, in the same house next to Villa Anna, for fifteen years. And unlike Mark, David was practical. There was always a tool in his hands. It was David who released the frozen windows and burglar bar gates, squirting a magic liquid he referred to as WD40 on them.
‘The dogs seem happy out here,’ he chirped with a lopsided smile.
She pushed her sunglasses up her nose. ‘The dogs love the freedom. The gardens are so much bigger out here. Is that why Tommy doesn’t look after the patch by our tennis court? Is his plot too big for him?’
‘Not sure who that land belongs to, but that’s rustic land,’ said David.
‘Does it mean it can’t be used as a garden?’
‘No, just that it can’t be built on.’
She stepped over the chain and walked to the fence. ‘I don’t suppose you know who put this chain here?’
He gave a short laugh, flicking the paintbrush at the barrier. ‘That’ll be Tommy.’
‘ Tommy ?’
‘First time?’
She shook her head, lips pulled back into grimace. ‘No.’
‘It’ll be revenge for the barking dogs. He hates the noise.’
Emily tutted, bent down, and removed the chain. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, they only bark when he makes a racket.’ She tried pulling the chain free, but one end was padlocked onto Tommy’s side of the fence. She hurled the chain which fell clanging onto the drive.
‘I only communicate with that git through my lawyer,’ David said.
Emily screwed up her face. Would Tommy do this, even though they were invited for drinks later tonight? There was obviously a feud between their two neighbours, and Emily didn’t have the bandwidth to fight other people’s battles.
She parked the car and jogged to the washing line, unpegged the sheets, folding them into neat squares. Feeling a hint of dampness in the socks, she left them and carried the basket up the stairs, dropping it onto a side table. She opened the fridge for a bottle of water, but her eyes were drawn to the sink.
‘Oh no you don’t!’
She darted over. There were two mugs inside, each stained with dark rings. There was also a marmalade-encrusted knife, and the remains of a sandwich, both crawling with an army of ants. She snatched up a mug, charged through the house, and wrenched open the glass door to Mark’s study. He had his back to her, but he turned around, frowning, and jabbed a finger at the computer in front of him.
‘I can see you’re on a zoom call, but this is important,’ she snapped.
He switched his gaze to the screen. ‘Sorry, can you excuse me for a moment, please?’ Then he turned her way. ‘Right. What’s wrong?’
She thrust the mug his way. ‘This is.’
He cocked his head to one side and said slowly, ‘I’m in the middle of a meeting. This is a mug.’
‘Two mugs, a dirty plate, and a knife to be precise. I’ve told you I am not the housekeeper. I may clean the house and do the laundry, but you can do your bit. I’m not mopping up after you.’
‘Fine,’ he snipped. ‘Message received and understood. Now can I return to earning us some money?’
An hour later, Emily was still smarting about the dirty mugs. She snatched the socks from the washing line, sending pegs spinning, and hurled them at the basket. In Tommy’s garden she saw an attendant edging his way around the infinity pool, navigating a line of beautiful rattan sun loungers topped with cream-coloured mattresses. It was a glorious setting, and an overhanging branch from her mature pine tree would provide protection from the harsh afternoon sun. Emily compared Tommy’s pool area to the one her side of the fence: the old-fashioned fried-egg-shaped pool, with square beige sections of exposed concrete where tiles had fallen off, and the cheap, unforgiving mesh-netting sunbeds. Alex must be wondering what on earth they were doing there, she thought. Next door, the pool attendant was scooping out debris with a long-handled net. She’d bet Tommy had a cleaner too, and they didn’t even have dogs moulting everywhere.
Where were the dogs, she wondered, doing a quick scan of the garden. Floria was asleep under a lemon tree, but she couldn’t see Tosca. She called out, but there was no response. Emily ran inside, yelling for her pet. She checked each room, feeling a mounting sense of panic as the number of unsearched areas dwindled. She yanked open the study door again.
‘Have you seen Tosca?’
Mark turned around, an exasperated expression on his face. ‘What is it this time?’ he demanded.
‘Have you seen Tosca?’
He shook his head.
‘Help me, please ... I think she may have got out!’
Running out the front door, Mark wondered where to start. He should have reinforced that sagging bit of boundary fencing, but the estimate had been a bewildering ten thousand euros ... for a fifty-foot stretch of fence? Tosca was a veritable Houdini, and Emily would never forgive him if something happened to that dog. Through the bars, he spotted David practising his putting on his little mini golf course: a raised twenty-foot length of pristine emerald-green grass cut so low it looked like it had been pasted there with an icing slice. He called out, ‘You haven’t seen a dog, have you? Emily thinks she may have escaped.’
David lined up his putter, swung the club, and tapped the ball, his eyes following the white dot shooting across the grass towards one of the foot-high flags. ‘She’s not in my garden,’ he said, shifting his stance and aiming at another ball. ‘You could try Tommy, but he hates dogs. He’d soon push her back your way.’
‘Thanks,’ muttered Mark.
From the main road he heard the blast of a car horn, then screeching tyres. He sprinted down the driveway, trying to dispel an image of Tosca dodging cars in front of the tennis centre. At the top of the drive, he heard whooping noises and hurtled down the track towards the road. Tosca was below him on the left, being chased around the middle court by four women in tennis dresses, a yellow ball clenched in her jaws. Mark slowed down to catch his breath, then walked over to the fence.
‘Sorry, ladies. I’ll come and collect the rascal; let you get on with your game.’
Returning with the escapologist in his arms, Mark was rewarded with a shower of kisses, followed by a cup of tea and a biscuit. Emily even returned to his office, collected the dirty crockery, kissed his shoulder, and reminded him they were due at Tommy’s for drinks at six o’clock.
It was Tommy’s wife Toni who let them in. Toni was not much taller than Emily, with a mop of grey curls, and a face that crinkled into a smile at any opportunity. She wore a short sundress that revealed limbs tanned to the sort of dark caramel Emily dimly recollected her cookery books telling her to have the courage to wait for. Toni ushered the Ellises up a flight of stairs to a roof terrace shaded by a vine-covered trellis. Emily looked down at the crystal-clear infinity pool – now entirely shaded by Villa Anna’s pine tree – and beyond that to Martin’s tennis club. Apart from the rustic land bordering Villa Anna’s tennis court, the garden was beautifully tended with exotic bushes and mulched flower beds. Maybe the untended land didn’t belong to Tommy and Toni.
Tommy was sitting in a deckchair, a can of beer in one hand, the other shoving handfuls of snacks into his mouth. He grunted a greeting, spewing out a few specks of crisp.
‘Sit, sit,’ said Toni. ‘Now what can I get you both to drink? Tommy’s on the beer, but I have a bottle of Vinho Verde open?’
‘Isn’t this a charming spot for sundowners?’ remarked Emily, taking a seat. ‘My you’re so lucky with this plot!’ She beamed at their hostess. ‘I’ll join you in a glass of wine, Toni.’
‘Beer for me, thanks,’ said Mark, sitting beside Emily.
‘Sun goes too early by the pool. When you’ve a moment, Mark, I’d like to discuss chopping down that pine tree of yours.’ Tommy reached past the guests, picked up the crisp bowl, and placed it snugly on his lap.
Emily bristled – it was their house not just Mark’s. She hid her irritation by launching into the afternoon drama with Tosca while Tommy crunched his way through another handful of crisps. ‘So, the hero of the day,’ said Emily, patting Mark’s leg. ‘He found her just in time, yards from the road ...’
‘Is that where she ended up?’ said Tommy, exposing a wodge of masticated crisp. ‘I saw her clambering over my fence, had to chase the blighter around the garden for five minutes before I managed to shoo her out the front gate.’
Emily’s eyes bulged. She saw Mark stiffen, his jaw slack. Emily kicked him in the shins. ‘If it happens again, could you just give me a call?’ she suggested, trying not to snap the stem of the wineglass Toni was handing over. How had they landed between the kindest of neighbours on one side and this odious man on the other?