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.’
‘They cannot . 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’ve lost 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 his window.
‘Why aren’t we moving?’ he demanded, slamming his hands against the steering wheel.
Emily opened her door a crack.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I want some fresh air.’
‘What if I need to start the car?’
She took a deep breath. ‘Then I’ll shut it.’
On the backseat, Floria started scratching at the bars of her crate. Mark peered into the rear-view mirror and shouted, ‘Shut up now or we’ll leave you behind!’
Emily closed her eyes. ‘Mark, she’s a dog, not a child!’
Once on board, Mark’s temper switched from the dogs to the ferry marshals directing him where to park, how to park, and firing instructions about handbrakes and alarm systems. He yelled at a woman encased entirely in bright orange, spittle flying from his mouth. ‘Don’t be stupid, woman! I’m not leaving my car alarm off for twenty-four hours!’
Emily grabbed his arm. ‘Stop it!’ she hissed. ‘Listen to her. If the movement of the ship sets the alarm off, our battery will be dead by morning.’
He banged his fists on the steering wheel and swore but turned off the alarm and picked up their overnight case. Emily walked behind him to the queue, a dog lead in each hand, stifling a laugh at Mark being pushed and shoved by fellow passengers jostling to reach the lift.
With the dogs tucked into their on-board cages, the Ellises located their own accommodation. Emily inserted the little cardboard key into the lock. The door swung open, and she lurched forward, staring at the 7×12-foot cabin that, according to the ferry company’s website, was supposed to sleep four. She spun around. ‘Compact, darling, and hardly the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express!’
‘Sorry,’ said Mark, ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel. There are better cabins, but you’ve got to book early.’
She stalked into the cabin and threw her bag at one of the bunks.
‘So, now you expect me to slum it because of your poor organizational skills. I may have been sucked into this mess, but I’m dammed if I’m lowering my standards.’
There was a pained expression on his face. Mark chewed his bottom lip, each bite sending a guilty pang through her. ‘I’m not enjoying this any more than you are. I promise you, this is temporary, but we do need to economize.’
The ferry journey was uneventful, and the Bentley was one of the first cars to disembark. They were soon past the outskirts of Santander and into a region of Spain with which Emily was unfamiliar. She gazed at a scattering of cows tucked onto a steep hill as they hurtled past, a flash of black and white against the vibrant green. They burrowed their way through the mountains, down tunnels, some over two miles long, before clawing their way up yet another hill.
They soon reached the Autovía Cantabria–Meseta where the landscape changed from rocky escarpments to sparse plains with distant green patches of dense trees. She caught glimpses of little villages clustered in the valleys, a church spire rising from the middle of the bright orange roof tiles, sometimes adjacent to a large factory, sitting like a peculiar medieval manor house overshadowing the village.
Ten miles outside Valladolid, they swapped places.
‘Those bloody dogs honk!’ said Mark.
‘They probably think you stink too.’
She heard his window slide down and felt the rush of warm air. Glancing across, she saw that his head was outside, his thick hair slicked back in the wind. ‘I can’t sit next to this pong,’ he said. ‘When did they last have an effing bath?’
‘Oh, do shut up.’
Emily indicated to overtake a lorry.
‘No!’ Mark screeched. He leaned forward and took an exaggerated look in his wing mirror. ‘Wait. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to pull out.’
‘Pack it in. I can see your wing mirror when you’re not in the way.’ Her tone softened. ‘It’s odd sitting on that side, I mean in the middle of the road, and not driving, isn’t it? I got used to it, but it took a while.’
‘Can’t this dog go somewhere else? I’ve no room for my feet. Shove over, Tosca!’
‘Leave her be. I managed.’
‘My legs are longer than yours.’
Detecting the unmistakable sound of a dog in the early stages of throwing up its breakfast, Emily squirmed in her seat and swallowed her temper, relieved Mark was preoccupied with the footwell skirmish. There was a scrabbling noise on her left, then silence. Emily cocked her ears and held her breath; she could still hear Floria in distress.
‘What the heck is going on back there?’ asked Mark.
She glanced sideways. His head was craned around towards the backseat. ‘Tell me that dog is not being sick. I am not putting up with the honk of dog sick six inches behind me.’
They were on the outskirts of Valladolid, which reared up, a depressing series of tall tower blocks reminiscent of Soviet-era housing. The road stretched out in front, a glorious dual carriageway, but with no sign of a layby or service station. She had never considered the sheer size of Spain.
‘I can’t stop here. Man up and deal with it. It’s your fault we’re in this bloody country to start with.’
Mark’s response was to fold his arms and stare out the window.
She heard a whimpering noise behind her.
‘For crying out loud, shut that blasted animal up!’ Mark yelled.
‘They’re dogs. Unlike you, they’ve no idea how far we’re going. Just give it a break.’
‘They need to fit in with my life, not me with theirs.’
‘Why? It’s not their fault you’re suddenly spending so much time around them. I don’t expect they enjoy it any more than you do, but unlike you, they’re not complaining.’
‘Stop defending the dogs all the time!’
‘Stop being horrid and start behaving like the man I married!’
With her head cushioned against the car window by a jumper she hadn’t worn since the ferry, Emily was dozing. She heard the indicator, then the car turned left, and her body jerked. She sat up rubbing her eyes. They were driving along a steep dirt track.
‘Nearly there, the house is at the top,’ said Mark, smiling at her.
She stretched her arms above her head, gazing around at the umbrella pine trees lining the road. On her side of the track was a burned-out tree with an electricity line suspended through its charred limbs – that was odd. Through Mark’s window she saw four tennis courts, and beyond them, a large terrace dotted with ladies in tennis skirts and short-sleeved tops sitting in dazzling sunshine. Her eyes flickered to the temperature gauge: 26 degrees!
At the brow of the hill, the car turned sharply left, and swept down a narrow driveway sandwiched between two startlingly green, fenced-off lawns, then drew up in front of a set of tall, barred gates. Emily could see through the rails and drank in the view. Facing her, was a gravelled parking area and the whitewashed house with an ochre-coloured roof. Recalling the brochure, she recognized the hedge hiding the pool, the huge lawn, the palm trees, and hibiscus bushes; the roses were flowering – in early April! To the left was her own fenced tennis court then an area of untended land backed by a dense pine forest. She felt that childlike ripple of joy you get when you’re shown your holiday villa, only this was her new home, she wasn’t just here for a fortnight. Wow!
‘Excited?’ Mark asked, widening his eyes at her.
‘Can’t wait!’
The gates juddered open, and the Bentley shot in. There was a yap of excitement at her feet.
‘Shush, off you get now,’ she scolded, pushing away a cold moist snout.
Emily opened her door, and the sun hit her with a blast of warmth. She shuddered. ‘Oh, that is lovely, isn’t it? Let’s settle the dogs and explore!’
Mark unlocked the front door, and she rested her chin on his shoulder, peering into the entrance hall which was darker than she’d expected. She walked inside her new house, and a musty smell hit her. She sniffed loudly.
‘She just needs airing, darling. You have a poke about; I’ll open her up.’
Emily unlatched a door on her right into a windowless room, with a sink so small it would make a bird bath look like a pool; cheap linoleum covered the floor. She closed that door, and walked a few paces further, to an architrave – no door – and her face crumpled. It was the kitchen, but it didn’t resemble either the bright room pictured in the brochure or the spacious Blakes kitchen with its concealed appliances in Ovington Square. At the far end of the room there was a glimmer of natural light from a tiny window above a single sink. Her eyes travelled around the dingy brown cupboards, over the plastic worktop, and past an exposed small fridge, settling on an equally unconcealed washing machine. She swallowed and left.
In the master bedroom, Emily did a double-take. Shiny white and grey floor tiles led through to the en-suite bathroom, a long narrow room cluttered with sanitary ware and a door which inconveniently opened inwards. On the way out she banged her elbow, a jolt of pain shooting up her arm. She glared at the guilty door handle.
The other bedrooms – one on the same floor as the master, the other two below – were all dingy with iron bars over the frosted windows and bathrooms that looked like they were fitted in the eighties. Emily couldn’t even bring herself to check out the basement. Standing in the suite below the master bathroom, laughter gurgled in her throat. Bubbles of flaking paint covered the wall above the headboard, and the room smelt dank like a Victorian coal cellar.
Mark walked in. ‘It’s not quite what we were sold from the brochure, is it?’ she moaned.
He took her hands in his and kissed her. ‘Come outside, cos that’s where you’ll really spend your time.’
The couple stepped through a sliding door and onto the first-floor terrace. Emily walked to the edge, leant against a railing, and gazed down at the huge patio surrounding the pool. She could hear birds trilling, the melodic hum of a lawnmower – no cars honking, no sirens wailing, no builders shouting at each other. The sun was scorching the back of her neck. This is amazing, she thought. Below the terrace was a basement, but as the house was built on a slope, it was at ground floor level, and she guessed it was probably where the pool and garden equipment was stored. Mark led the way down a narrow, winding stone staircase with chipped floor tiles, reminding Emily that the inside of her new home wasn’t as amazing as the outside; not yet. They stood together by the glistening water. He pointed up at a tiny room jutting out from the side of the house. ‘That will be my study, so no noisy pool parties, please!’
Emily cast her eyes over her new garden, imagining playing a lady’s foursome on her own court. It was carefully positioned, a mature pine tree providing shade for half the court during the peak afternoon sun.
‘What’s that bit of scrappy land the other side of the fence?’ she asked, pointing to the patch between their boundary and the pine forest.
Mark shrugged. ‘It’s the bottom of our neighbour’s garden. Maybe they’re elderly and the plot’s a bit big for them. Lots of retirees in the Algarve.’
Spotting missing tiles on the steps into the pool Emily snipped, ‘We’re going to have to do some work here.’
‘Not before the London rentals kick in, and nothing serious until a house sells. I don’t mind risking some of the cash buffer, but a makeover will have to wait.’
Emily spun round, her hands on her hips. ‘Well, you’d better hope something sells fast. Because I’m not living here.’