Twenty-two
August 13th
Ellis bank balance: ￡176.08
90-Day Rule Tally: Emily: 30 Mark: 21
Sunday dawned hot and sunny – like every day for the past two months – and the Ellises took a taxi to a popular restaurant overlooking the beach below Vale do Lobo. It was a treat to celebrate the first August day that Villa Anna was free of paying guests. Mark reached out for Emily’s hand. She wound her fingers through his.
‘Everything OK between you and Mary?’ he asked.
Emily let go of his hand. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I called her when I was in London. She was a bit off-hand.’
Emily chewed at a fingernail. ‘Maybe just hormones?’ she said.
Closer to the wooden building, Mark smelt the barbeque smoke. ‘The grilled fish is supposed to be amazing, and we won’t be serenaded by a leaf blower.’
The restaurant was nestled into the dunes at the back of the beach, less than a hundred metres from the lapping waves. The two-storey structure, open on all sides, allowed a warm, gentle breeze to blow through. The couple were shown to a table at the front of the second floor with a direct view of the sweeping sand and the ocean beyond. They watched the sea rolling in, the waves breaking gently, white foam bubbling up and leaving its footprint in arcs across the wet sand, before receding back down the slope. The beach was speckled with lazing bodies: mostly white, a few bronzed, and some streaked a painful red.
Mark asked for a beer and a bottle of champagne and ordered crayfish and grilled tiger prawns. The bank account had money in it; Emily had earned this treat. A woman with a jarring nasal voice was bossing her companions around at the adjacent table, dictating where she wanted them to sit, telling her husband to order a bottle of white wine, but to remember it was his turn to drive. ‘So, don’t go ordering beer by the litre. Oh, and don’t forget the fizzy water. No, not there, you ninny. That’s where I’m going to sit. Over there.’
Curious, Mark glanced up from the menu and into the face of his tennis coach.
‘Hey, Mark,’ said Tim. ‘Howzit? Let me introduce you to my folks. Dad, this is one of the guys I train. Mark, this is my mater, Shirley, and pater, Dave.’
Tim’s parents pushed their chairs aside.
‘So, now you’ve discovered the best beach restaurant in the Algarve, you gotta order the grilled fish,’ suggested Tim.
Tim’s parents stood either side of him. The father had the same tall slim build, his mother slightly stockier and deeply tanned, her face a bronzed spider’s web of sun damage. Mark dropped his eyes and waggled the menu and, when Tim didn’t take the hint, raised it protectively, hiding behind the plastic sheet.
‘Must finish our order,’ he mumbled into the card while the others chattered on.
Emily introduced herself, then thanked Tim for his coaching. ‘I gather Mark’s backhand is getting there,’ she said.
‘It’s not so shabby. He really should play regularly if he wants to improve, preferably with good players.’
Mark heard Emily laugh. ‘You’ve met my husband, have you? Mr Last-Word-in-Modesty-Happy-to-be-the-Butt-of-Another’s-Jokes?’
There was a burst of laughter. Mark squirmed behind his protective shield. He felt the menu judder as it was dragged away from his face by a suntanned finger.
‘Is it lonely up there on the perfect step?’ asked Shirley.
He clamped his lips shut, glaring at the fat crows’ feet chiselled into the skin by Shirley’s eyes. Nasty bat!
‘Come down and join us normal people whenever you like.’ She chuckled, then shepherded her men towards their table. ‘Tim, I said sit over there. Now where’s that bottle of wine? Did you order the wine yet? I’m gasping.’ She called over to the Ellis table: ‘Let’s have a coffee sometime, Emily.’
The Ellises feasted like tourists, butter oozing down their chins which they scrubbed at carelessly with greasy hands.
‘Do you think I should nudge up the rates for the B she was watching him, a weariness in her eyes. ‘And it’s just that sometimes I wonder ... I mean ... is this it? Is this all I’m going to do with my life? What have I achieved other than raising Alex?’
He chuckled. ‘That’s no small achievement, and your job’s not done. I haven’t heard of a job yet. More wine?’ He leaned over with the bottle. ‘We’re going to be OK, you and I, aren’t we?’
The silence lasted a beat longer than it should have.
‘Shall we get the bill?’ suggested Emily.
Spotting cheap flights to Faro, Alex booked, and hitchhiked to Bristol airport, imagining his mother’s face when he turned up at Villa Anna. He sat with his nose pressed up against the plane’s window, comparing Jess’s family to his own. She must think they were a dysfunctional bunch – her brother apprenticed in the family business when Alex could barely manage five minutes in the same room as his father.
In the passport queue, he cadged a lift to Almancil with a stag group who’d organized a minibus to take them to Vilamoura. They dropped him at the edge of the Almancil bypass, and he walked the last few dusty miles, the sun scorching his bare arms, his T-shirt sticky with sweat. He should make more of an effort with his father on this trip.
Alex pushed the gate bell, running his tongue over his cracked lips – hug first, then he would have a drink and flop in the pool. The door opened. Alex grinned. Tosca shot out and woofed a greeting.
His father leaned around the door, scowling. ‘What are you doing here?’ Miserable man.
‘Hi! Where’s mum?’ Alex asked, slipping sideways through the opening gates.
‘London, back tomorrow,’ said Mark, walking back inside, leaving the youngster staring at his father’s back.
After a swim, Alex made himself lunch and sat in the shade, chomping on a sandwich, sipping a beer, listening to the grinding sound of a chainsaw. During a gap in the noise, he heard a whine and looked down; four black eyes looked back up. He’d missed the dogs when he was in Devon. He tore off a piece of bread and tossed it onto the terrace, followed by the crusts. The door slid open, making a rasping sound, just as the jarring noise of the saw restarted.
‘What’s that bloody racket?’ demanded Mark. He pointed at the crusts on the terrace with his foot. ‘Your mother will be at you about ants.’
‘Not if she’s in London,’ said Alex. ‘And there’s no chance of ants. This pair lick every crumb off the floor in a nanosecond.’ Telling himself to relax in his dad’s company, Alex swung his can in the direction of Tommy’s house. ‘That screeching is Tommy sawing his hedge. He must be bloody hot.’ He angled the beer at his father, who was dressed as if he still worked at the bank. ‘Aren’t you hot in all that gear?’
His father glared at next-door’s garden. ‘He’s bloody inconsiderate. It’s lunchtime, and I’ve got a board meeting to prepare for.’
Alex pushed his plate away, glugged his beer, then belched. ‘Sorry, this is the last beer.’
‘Why don’t you go up to Pingo Doce, and stock us up?’
‘I can’t drive that manual car. Why don’t you run me up?’
‘Catch a bus,’ suggested Mark.
Alex pulled a face. ‘I don’t have any money; I blew it on the flight.’
‘Get yourself a job and you’ll soon have money.’
‘Not allowed to work out here,’ Alex said, smugly.
‘Didn’t stop your girlfriend earning her keep in Sagres. She was working as a cleaner and she’s a qualified accountant.’
‘Yes, but Jess speaks Spanish. Portuguese and Spanish are very similar. If you speak one you can understand the other.’
‘Well, you speak English, and the only thing preventing you from working in the UK is you.’
Alex got up, finished his beer, and threw the rest of his sandwich on the floor. ‘Do you ever stop complaining?’
‘Pick that up right now!’ roared his father. ‘How dare you!’
‘I don’t know why mum stays. She should have left you years ago when you had that affair.’ He flung himself upright, a little thrill rippling through him at his father standing with his mouth hanging open. ‘Didn’t think I knew about that, did you? Mum told me when I took my first girlfriend out for dinner. She explained how important trust is in a relationship. I won’t ever cheat on Jess. You disgust me.’ Alex shook his head. ‘I’m off. When Mum gets back, you can tell her I came to see her.’
Mark told Emily how Alex had stormed off to Sagres in a huff, but the wounded look in her eyes steeled him with determination to make her happy. He made her a cup of tea, fetched the ironing board and the basket of bed linen, and plugged in the iron. He draped a sheet over the board like a tent, picked up the iron, and dabbed a hand on the face like he’d seen his mother do, feeling the heat on his fingers, then smoothed it across the linen, releasing a spurt of steam and a hissing noise. He stood the iron upright and tweaked the sheet, but gravity sent it slithering to the floor in a wrinkled white heap. Damn.
‘Emily, could you help fold this monster?’
He picked up the sheet, handing her the first corner he came across, then running it through his fingers, groping for another one.
‘Gwen should’ve taught you how to iron.’
‘Did your mother teach you?’
‘No, my father did. The army taught him; Sandhurst teaches all officers how to iron. Your ex-boss Paul still slept on pristine sheets during lockdown while his housekeeper was furloughed.’
‘I’m wondering which part of that I find most irritating. Discovering that effing bastard is good at something, or the cheek of him using taxpayers’ money to pay for his cleaner.’
‘Move on Mark, ancient history,’ snipped Emily.
Mark felt his insides shrivel. They wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for Paul! And why did she have to snip and snap whenever that man’s name came up- was she still angry he’d lost his job?
Emily snatched the iron up and pushed Mark aside. ‘Oh, go and hide in your study. I’ll finish these.’
Mark reread an email from Pedro for the third time. He’d thought it was odd the lawyer hadn’t invoiced him for the work on the couple’s residency certificates. No other Algarve supplier delayed raiding the Ellis bank account. But here it was, weeks later. He found Emily lying curled up inside on a sofa. The room was freezing cold, and there was a soft purring noise. He picked up the remote control for the air conditioning, jabbed his thumb on the off button, and paced the room, closing the sliding door, then the two windows overlooking the terrace. Mark coughed. Emily stirred, and sat up, making a soft moaning noise, and rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands.
‘Pedro has sent me a bill,’ said Mark.
‘Is it enormous?’ she asked.
‘No. The opposite.’
Yawning, she said, ‘That’s a change!’
‘The thing is there’s a rather odd reason why it’s so low.’
‘Which is?’
‘Firstly, no tax, and the reason for that, which is what I want to discuss, is, well ... Pedro has asked me to pay the money into his personal bank account.’
She pulled a quizzical face. ‘Our lawyer is billing us directly, diverting income from his partners and bypassing the taxman?’
He sat by her feet. She shifted her legs and sat upright, wrapping her arms around her knees.
‘Yes. Well, that was my initial reaction. Then I thought about it from Pedro’s point of view. We aren’t paying tax in his country, so why shouldn’t he game the system too? His partners probably do! The only loser is the taxman.’
‘Hold on a minute,’ she said, dragging out the words. ‘There’s a world of difference between what we’re doing, which is legitimate, and what he’s doing!’
‘Is there really? I mean, in the long run, the result is the same, isn’t it? Does the end justify the means?’
‘I can’t believe you said that’ she said, unfurling her legs.
In the evening, the couple sat alone on their terrace. It was dusk, and the garden lights were on, illuminating the pine trees and casting arcs of yellow over the terracotta pots, turning the honey-coloured paving stones a rich gold. The faint scent of lavender wafted towards them, mixed with the resin of the pines. Mark sat with a beer in his hand and the warm breeze on his bare arms.
‘Any news from the UK agents?’ asked Emily.
He didn’t want to poison the atmosphere. Despite Mark lowering the price, the Devon buyer had withdrawn, unable to fund his purchase. Mark answered with feigned confidence, ‘It’s still only August. Have faith.’