Thirty
March 23rd
Ellis bank balance: (￡132,746.39) Overdrawn.
90-Day Rule Tally: Emily: 91 Mark: 86
Why was Mark so angry? Emily dumped her overnight case on the pavement and rummaged around in her handbag for the London housekeys. Her bag felt heavier than it had in Portugal, and she bounced it up the stairs, her shoulders sagging. She unlocked the front door, turned off the alarm, and rolled the case to the foot of the stairs, thinking Mark had no right to shout at her. If he’d been forced to use as many of his precious ninety days as she had, scrubbing this house, he’d have found a way to pad out his allowance too.
She stomped downstairs, switched on the kettle, and wrenched open the fridge door. The bottles on the inside shelves clinked against each other. The fresh carton of milk made her smile – Svetlana, her little hero – but listening to the kettle rumbling away, she took out a half-full bottle of white wine, stoppered with the spent cork. Was that left over from two weeks ago? Who cares, she thought, pouring herself a glass, and perching on a barstool.
How dare Mark rant at her? Where was he when this house was ripped apart by that rave? The kettle clicked off, steam hissing from the spout. After the second glass of wine, Emily got into her stride. And what about Svetlana? She was a fully-trained housekeeper. Mark behaved like a feudal lord of the manor, and Alex wasn’t much better. Emily was the only one who treated Svetlana with the respect she deserved. The family were lucky she’d been so loyal; if Svetlana had resigned, how would they ever have run the London rentals? And who was responsible for that income drying up – Mark! He should’ve sorted out permission from the mortgage company.
Upending the bottle into her glass, Emily’s lips were pressed into a straight line. Who paid the mortgage last summer? It was her idea to run the B he adored his mother.
Emily poured out her heart to Svetlana, describing her mother-in-law as a power-pack of positivity. Dear Gwen, she led such a simple life; she took her son’s money to make Mark feel good and never spent a penny. Emily thought about her own parents – long since dead – her mother’s dreary life slavishly following her husband’s military footsteps and never complaining when he was posted from one camp to another. Emily had never wanted to lead her mother’s life but, she realized, it wasn’t the drudgery she’d been so determined to escape, it was the passivity. Gwen’s position had been far worse than Emily’s mother’s, but Gwen wrested control of her own life in a way Emily’s mother never had.
In Portugal, Mark shuffled across the bed, reached out an arm and batted around until he hit the snooze button. He wiggled his feet in their cocoon of warm duvet – mornings were still cold – and humped over onto his side, tucking his knees up next to his chest. He groaned and bit his lip to choke back a wave of misery. His mother . His positive, uncomplaining mother. He would never set eyes on her again, never be able to hug her, inhale that warm baking smell, hear that purring voice. He’d hardly seen her these past ten months, and his sacrifice had been in vain, because of his selfish, arrogant, foolish wife. Not only was his mother dead, but all his hard work had been futile: Plan B was in tatters because of Emily.
He threw back the duvet and felt around for his slippers, then pulled on his dressing gown and padded out to the kitchen, running his tongue around his parched mouth. Water or coffee? He shouldn’t have had those whisky chasers. He probably shouldn’t have gone out at all. But he hadn’t wanted to sit by himself with Emily’s bloody dogs for company. Instead, he’d abandoned the car, caught an Uber down to Garao beach, and ordered a beer – a pint, not one of those tiny bottles the Portuguese drank. He’d needed a man-sized drink.
Mark had sat alone on his bar stool, blinking back tears, remembering his childhood as a close-knit team of two. Gwen’s pride as he excelled, initially at school, then university, and ultimately the bank. His mother always booked a day’s holiday for Prize Day, and she’d travelled all the way by coach from Colchester to Exeter with Deidre, to be there for graduation day. He smiled, recalling her School Prize Day outfit: a belted raincoat – her “smart” coat – and a peculiar, cloche-style 1950s hat that would’ve looked elegant on a lean lady with chiselled features, but which, squashed over her plumper face, looked more like a shower cap. How he wished he could see her in those clothes one more time.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and glanced up to see Fran. She stroked his arm as softly as his mother had done so often, and he gulped back the tears. Fran’s head was cocked to one side. ‘You, OK? You don’t look yourself.’
He shuffled on his bar stool. ‘Not really. I’ve had some bad news.’
She pulled out the seat next to his. ‘Want to talk about it?’
He didn’t, and he hadn’t, not even when Fran’s boss asked the same question, nor when Tim joined them. Instead, Mark bought a round of drinks, and then Martin bought one. When Fran suggested adding whisky chasers to the pints, Mark’s shoulders loosened, and life didn’t seem such an awful place.
This morning, life once again seemed bleak. Opting for a caffeine boost, he reached for a mug. He stopped, his hand on the cupboard door as if glued to it. He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to recall the later part of the evening. There had been some dancing, and he remembered jiving with Fran, swinging the girl around the dance floor, her tiny skirt displaying a lot of leg, and brief flashes of her belly stud. He struggled for a few minutes, but he couldn’t really drag anything back or see how the evening ended. It was all a blur after the third whisky chaser. He spooned instant coffee into a mug, stood watching the kettle until it clicked off, then poured boiling water over the granules. A fuzzy memory of someone getting frisky with Fran popped into his mind. His brow wrinkled.
A damp snout nudged his shin, reminding him of the other reason for his night at the bar. They were Emily’s bloody hounds, so why was he on dog duty? What was he going to do about the 90-day rule? He didn’t feel strong enough to contemplate the problems his wife had caused. He needed to get back to Essex, take responsibility for his mother’s funeral from Deidre, make sure there was a proper, dignified send-off, a fitting tribute. Effing Emily could wait. He let the pets out, glowering at them, sipping his scalding coffee as they scuttled around the garden, sniffing, squatting, and squirting, marking their territory, and exploring for evidence of an overnight invasion of their patch.
‘Get on with it, you pests,’ he muttered.
He left the door open and retreated to the kitchen, tutting as he poured more water into the kettle, remembering the battered one which would still be sitting on his mother’s gas hob. She’d never even owned an electric kettle, just as she’d shunned any material signs of wealth. She wouldn’t have wanted the fuss or expense he was planning for her send-off. Maybe something simple would be better – Deidre would know.
Why hadn’t she let him pay for her to go private? The number of times he’d offered! As he refilled his cup, he admitted that even if he had persuaded her, it would’ve made no difference. She might’ve had a new hip, but it wasn’t her dodgy hip that killed her, it was her heart. And he hadn’t taken those warning signs seriously, hadn’t pushed her to see a cardiologist privately. He should’ve taken her to that specialist appointment, delayed the ferry trip home, found a way to be there, learn the truth from an expert, and sod the consequent disruption to their plans. His selfish wife couldn’t even tolerate the inconvenience of a single late-night flight. If Emily was tax-resident in the UK, the rules meant he was too. Mark could’ve spent all year with his mother, ferrying her to and from any number of bloody specialist appointments.
He recoiled from the idea of breakfast and took his mug through to the sitting room where the dogs were curled up, nose to tail, in a single basket, snouts tucked firmly under their front paws. They were oblivious to the chaos caused by their mistress.
Collapsing onto the sofa, he spotted an empty porcelain bowl on the floor and picked it up, turning it around in his hands, trying to work out why it was there. He glared at the dogs, transferring his anger to their snoozing bodies.
‘More coffee?’ offered a female voice.
He looked up and gulped. Fran, a towel covering her middle, stood barefoot in the doorway. What the fuck was she doing here? He blinked. ‘No thanks.’
Her eyes were trained on him. ‘How’s the head? Taken any painkillers? Want me to speak more softly?’
Mark dropped the empty bowl onto the coffee table and rustled up a smile. ‘One of my worst. Not sure caffeine’s even helping.’
‘The kettle’s on if you change your mind. Be out of your hair in a jiffy.’ She turned to leave, then seemed to change her mind, adding, ‘Oh, and thanks for last night.’ She winked at him. ‘It was fun.’
The room seemed to lurch out from under him and his eyes widened. What was fun? Who else knew what had been fun? And did “fun” need to be kept secret from Emily?
For the next half hour, he tried to recall the events at the beach bar, but his mind kept flickering back to his mother. Despite his head thumping like an out-of-control washing machine on the final spin cycle, he called Deidre. Had Gwen been in pain? Had she called out for Mark? Deidre kept dissolving into tears and passing the phone to her husband until, eventually, Mark stopped hounding his mother’s friend.
Mark stared into his coffee mug. What was he going to do about Emily? He still hadn’t spoken to her, allowing her calls to transfer to his voicemail. Plan B was not arduous. People dreamed of retiring to Portugal. She knew the rules – it wasn’t an innocent mistake. Dare he risk the taxman discovering what she’d done? Maybe she was right, and no one would question her claim to have spent only ninety days in the UK. Mark swallowed a mouthful of tepid coffee, wrinkling his nose as it slid down his throat.
Had he let his mum down? Did she understand that he loved her but just couldn’t be with her in Essex? How could she when she never knew the underlying reason why he didn’t visit? Mark groaned loudly. The dogs sat up, barking. He shouted at them, and they sank back down. He hung his head in shame, realizing that his mother must’ve assumed her son was too busy enjoying life in the sun to be bothered trekking back and forth to spend a few days with her. When she’d needed him most, the one time she ever asked him to do something for her, to accompany her to the cardiologist, he’d let her down. His mother never asked him to buy the house in Chalkwell, never asked him to pay her utility and council tax bills or give her a monthly allowance. She’d probably donated all that money to charity because there was never any evidence of her spending it on herself. No new clothes or hats, no fancy gadgets, no car. She’d never even learned how to drive, always relied on the bus. Gwen had turned her life around after his father left; Mark couldn’t remember ever thinking he was disadvantaged. The two of them had led a modest but good life together, so where had Mark got his streak of ambition from? Had he inherited it from his useless father? If so, it was something else he didn’t want to emulate from his dad; his childhood had been considerably better than most of his adult life.
At least Gwen died believing her son had made a success of his life. He’d shielded her from the shame of his redundancy, his downfall from being an important man at a top-notch bank to his part-time, non-exec roles. How he missed that job! It had defined his life, it was his persona. It was what he wanted to do today: forget his problems by immersing himself in the complicated tactics of a hostile takeover.
No, he’d done well on the deception stakes. His mother died believing her wonderchild was a roaring success, not the total failure he felt this morning. Was it really something to congratulate himself on? Surely his mother would’ve preferred to see more of him as a failure, than hardly at all as the impostor he paraded each time he showed up last year.
And what about his latest problem? Why did he get so drunk he couldn’t remember what happened last night? He wasn’t going to ask Fran, but maybe Tim could fill in the missing hours when he ran into him. He wouldn’t need to ask. Mark had been to enough office Christmas parties to know how people reacted towards colleagues who’d let their hair down a little too loosely the night before.
He went back to the kitchen, poured the cold coffee down the sink, and made himself a fresh mug, carrying it into the bathroom, stopping to drink hot mouthfuls as he shaved. Stepping into the shower, he let cold water trickle over him, torturing himself with memories of his childhood, his myriad problems spinning through his mind. He marshalled them into priority – sort out his mother’s funeral, get to the bottom of last night’s missing hours, and ensure he wasn’t arrested by the Portuguese police. The UK taxman and Tommy’s planning permission didn’t even make it onto the list.