Means to an End

by Lucy Gillen

  It was amazing how different the coast looked from the offshore side, she thought, as they skimmed over the water, making creamy vees of foam on the blue where their bow wave curled back swiftly before them. The wind was cool and fresh on her face and lifted her short hair, tumbling it into a riotous mass blown back from her face.

  Stefano handled the boat as well as he did the car, and she thought ruefully that he was probably one of those men who did everything well or not at all. She watched him as he stood at the wheel, his long

  legs braced, feet slightly apart, his black head lifted to the wind as hers was, strong brown hands guiding the boat easily, or so it seemed.

  He turned back after a while and smiled at her, a raised brow implying that she should come and join him, and she went, clinging on warily as the boat bounced over the water. ‘You would like to take her?’ he asked, and Alison stared at him for a moment.

  ‘Oh no!’ she said then, realising what he meant. ‘I—I couldn’t handle it.’

  ‘Of course you could! ‘

  He moved back from the wheel without taking his hands off it and she slid in front of him, seeing no future in arguing with him. He put her hands, one at a time, on to the wheel and covered them with his own, and she experienced the thrill of control over the speeding craft, even though it was second hand.

  They were rapidly approaching the creek, she could see the shining swathe it cut into the coastline only a short distance ahead, and Stefano bent his head to speak close to her ear. ‘I had better take it now, piccolo, we shall be turning soon.’

  She relinquished her hold almost reluctantly, and went and sat on the seat again, wondering if she would ever have another opportunity of coming with him. She had always enjoyed messing about in boats, although she had never before been in anything remotely resembling this shiny, powerful beauty. Perhaps, she mused as she watched their wash swathe past the side, she might even have one herself. She could afford it, and surely Stefano would be in sympathy with that sort of acquisition.

  Thinking of that reminded her that it was unlikely Danny and she would be able to afford luxuries at all, especially if Stefano still refused to let her buy the garage, and she sighed—audibly, although she did not realise it. Stefano turned and looked at her curiously, but he said nothing.

  Instead of turning right round to go back to Peggs Bay, as she expected, he took them right across to the mouth of the creek and along it for some two hundred yards, then cut the engine and tied up at a wooden-topped jetty. Alison looked at him curiously, as he held down a hand to help her ashore.

  They appeared to be at the bottom of someone’s garden, as far as she could tell, and she frowned her curiosity when he started up the slight slope of grassland towards a house some fifty feet back. ‘Where are we?’ she asked, and he smiled.

  ‘Creggan Creek.’

  ‘I know that,’ she retorted. ‘I mean where is this house, why are we here?’

  `To see the house,’ he told her, and stopped about twenty feet in front of the building, taking off his sunglasses and gazing at the rather shabby exterior speculatively. ‘It has prospects, do you not agree?’

  Alison stared at him, uncertain just what she was expected to say. Why on earth he should want to come and look at some rather unprepossessing house on Creggan Creek, she could not imagine, and she meant to find out. ‘I’m not sure,’ she told him.

  ‘You do not like it?’

  Alison took a deep breath and turned to look at him, frankly curious. ‘I don’t know whether I do or not,’ she said. ‘And quite frankly, Stefano, I can’t

  quite see why it matters one way or the other. Why have you come to look at this place?’

  He looked down at her for a moment, an oddly reticent expression in his eyes, as if he was uncertain if he should confide in her or not. ‘I am thinking of buying it,’ he said at last, and Alison drew in a breath sharply.

  ‘Oh—I see.’

  ‘You see the setting it has?’ He seemed not to notice her reaction, but waved an expressive hand to encompass the house and its surroundings, and she was forced to notice that there were trees thickly clustered round the building, as if to protect it. Tall, mature trees in the full beauty of their summer foliage, and darkly sombre against the bright blue of the summer sky and the peeling white exterior of the house itself.

  ‘It—it’s quite lovely,’ she agreed, a little shaky voiced. ‘But—’ She bit her lip when he turned again and looked down at her.

  ‘But, piccola?’ he said softly, and she met his eyes with a look not only of curiosity but uncertainty.

  ‘Why do you want to buy another house?’ she asked. ‘You have Creggan Bar.’

  ‘I have half of Creggan Bar,’ he corrected her gently.

  ‘You’ll have it all soon, when Danny and I are married,’ she told him.

  ‘Will I?’

  ‘Well, we can’t live there. Not afterwards, I mean—’

  ‘I know what you mean, piccola,’ he said softly, and she thought dizzily, he probably did. He probably realised that Danny would never be able to settle in a house like Creggan Bar.

  `Don’t—don’t you like the house?’ she asked, and he nodded.

  `But this one,’ he said, as if to himself, `reminds me of home.’

  She looked at him for a moment, sensing a wistfulness about him suddenly that she would never have expected in him. ‘Home?’

  He smiled, putting an arm round her shoulders as he drew her on up the grassy slope to the empty house. ‘It is set in a glade of trees, and it looks at the sea,’ he told her. ‘When it is painted and altered to my requirements it will be beautiful, you will see, bella mia.’

  `But, Stefano—’ She had been going to ask him why he did not go home if he was as homesick as he appeared to be, but he drew her on, his arm tight about her shoulders, his eyes on the sad-looking old house.

  ‘It will be beautiful,’ he said softly.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ALISON was a little uncertain how much she should say to her aunt about Stefano’s plans to buy the house on Creggan Creek, if indeed he had any firm plans for buying it and was not just indulging in speculation. He had not asked for secrecy, but she had a feeling that Aunt Celia did not know anything about it, or she would almost certainly have mentioned it to her.

  It was just possible, of course, that he was thinking of buying the other house for when he and Aunt Celia were—but there she stopped hastily, shaking her head, as she always did when she faced the prospect of Stefano becoming her uncle by marriage. It was something she was strangely unwilling to anticipate and she tried to put it out of her mind as she walked down the hill to meet Danny.

  Stefano had suggested that she ask Danny to the house for dinner one evening, and she thought tonight was as good a time as any to broach the subject, He was waiting for her as he nearly always was, by one of the bollards on the sea wall, and she waved a hand in greeting as she came the last few yards.

  ‘Missed me?’ he asked, after he had kissed her, and she nodded, smiling. He had been away all the previous day, and stayed overnight with a friend of his in Leethorpe.

  He took her hand and she looked at the boyish features, half hidden behind the short beard. ‘Did

  you have any luck?’ she asked, and he shrugged. ‘Not really. The chap wasn’t interested when he found I had a degree.’

  ‘Oh, Danny, what a. shame ‘

  He shrugged again, seemingly less interested in the fact that he had lost yet another job than in something else he had in mind. ‘It happens.’ He tightened his hold on her hand as they set off to walk along the sea wall at their usual easy pace, Danny’s head bowed to watch their combined footsteps. ‘There was something, though, darling.’ He glanced at her briefly before resuming his study of their feet. ‘A garage on the Leethorpe road.’

  Alison’s sigh was barely perceptible, but it was there. The garage was a dream that Danny would not easily relinquish and she foresaw little hope of Stefano eve
r changing his mind about the money, no matter what tactics she used. ‘How much is it?’ she asked, as if it made any difference.

  ‘Reasonable.’ He quoted a price, and her heart sank even further, for it was in excess of anything he had found so far.

  ‘But, Danny,’ she said, ‘that’s much more than any of the others.’

  ‘I know.’ He sounded as if he resented her mentioning it. ‘But it’s a much better place, and right on a busy road. The turnover is enormous, and it would pay for itself in no time.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Have you had any luck yet?’ he asked.

  ‘No. At least I don’t know really.’

  He looked down at her with a kind of shrewd sharpness in his light blue eyes. ‘What do you mean,

  you don’t know?’

  ‘Well—’ She hesitated, wondering if she could convey to him some small, subtle change she thought she had seen in her relationship with Stefano. It was nothing she could really put a finger on, but ever since she had visited the house on Creggan Creek with him two days ago, she had sensed a new, somehow more easy feeling between them. Of course it was probably nothing but her imagination playing her tricks, and anyway it was very unlikely that Danny would understand if she told him, so she merely shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I haven’t had any luck, and frankly, I don’t think I ever will, Danny.’

  ‘You’ve scarcely given yourself much time yet,’ he observed. ‘Keep trying, darling, you never know with his type. He might have a soft spot somewhere.’

  Alison looked at him, a little hurt by his insistence. ‘Why don’t you try asking him yourself?’ she suggested. ‘You could explain the details and the financial complications better than I could. Come up to Creggan Bar for dinner one evening, and meet Stefano, then you can ask him.’

  Danny looked at her as if she had suggested something quite outrageous. ‘Come up there to dinner?’ he echoed. ‘You must be joking, Alison.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘But I couldn’t come visiting Creggan Bar, you know I couldn’t. It just isn’t—well, I couldn’t, that’s all.’

  ‘But why on earth not?’ she insisted, and he frowned.

  ‘I’ll tell you why not,’ he said, his fingers crush—

  ing hers as he gave vent to his emotions. ‘For one thing I don’t have a dinner jacket, and for another I never mix with—with that sort. I wouldn’t know what to say to them.’

  ‘Oh, Danny, what nonsense!’ She looked up at the frowning face and the stubborn way his chin was set against the idea. ‘You talk to me,’ she pointed out, gently because she realised that there was more than just stubbornness behind the rejection. ‘I’m that sort, Danny, and as far as dinner dress is concerned we don’t go that far. Stefano just wears an ordinary lounge suit and Aunt Celia and I wear our ordinary dresses.’

  ‘An ordinary lounge suit?’ Danny echoed bitterly. ‘I saw Illari drive past me once at a rate of knots, but not so fast I hadn’t time to notice that his suit would have paid for the whole of my wardrobe, and left some change.’

  ‘Oh, Danny!’

  She looked so unhappy at his response that he pulled her into the concealing shadow of a concrete shelter and kissed her. ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said. ‘But—well, I just wouldn’t fit in up there.’

  She raised huge, appealing eyes and used them shamelessly, her mouth softly pouted while she drew invisible patterns on his tee-shirt with a fingertip. ‘Please, Danny.’

  He said nothing for several minutes, but she could sense his weakening, and at last he pulled her into his arms and laid his face against her hair, a great soul-searching sigh vibrating through him. ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll come, but don’t blame me if I do all the wrong things and let you down.’

  ‘Oh, of course you won’t ! ‘ She kissed him on his bearded jaw and hugged him. ‘You’ve been as well taught as I have, Danny, and we’re just people, you know. Creggan Bar isn’t Buckingham Palace.’

  ‘You’re not just people,’ Danny told her, his words whispered warmly against her lips. ‘You’re special, darling. You’re very, very special.’

  ‘I haven’t seen Danny Clay for ages,’ Aunt Celia said, when Alison told her of his coming visit. ‘It must be nearly six months.’

  ‘He hasn’t changed,’ Alison told her. ‘He’s still the same old Danny.’

  Aunt Celia looked at her steadily for a moment, ‘I seem to remember he was a bit of a rebel,’ she said, and Alison nodded reluctantly.

  ‘I suppose he is,’ she admitted. ‘He doesn’t like being—conventional about things, he believes in being—well, free.’

  ‘Well, at least he’s going to marry you,’ Aunt Celia observed dryly. ‘I’m thankful his ideas of freedom don’t include living in sin with you.’

  ‘Aunt Celia!’

  Her aunt smiled and reached for her hand, squeezing it reassuringly. ‘I’m only teasing you, darling. Does Stefano know he’s coming?’ she added, and Alison nodded.

  ‘As a matter of fact it was his idea that I should ask Danny to come,’ she told her. ‘Although he doesn’t know that I’ve actually asked him yet.’

  ‘Stefano suggested you ask him?’ Aunt Celia’s elegantly shaped brows expressed surprise. ‘I wonder why.’

  ‘Because of what I said to him, I suspect,’ Alison said. ‘I told him he shouldn’t make snap decisions about people without meeting them first, and then he suggested I should ask Danny to come to dinner one night.’

  ‘I see.’ She looked a little doubtful still, and Alison frowned.

  °You don’t mind if he comes, do you, Aunt Celia?’ she asked.

  ‘Good heavens, darling, of course not ! ‘ her aunt exclaimed. ‘Anyway, it’s nothing to do with me. The house is yours and Stefano’s, not mine.’

  The statement had a strangely intimate sound to it, and it also reminded Alison again of the house at Creggan Creek. She debated, yet again, whether or not to tell her aunt about it. It could surely do no harm, she thought, for as far as she knew Stefano had no particular desire to keep his prospective purchase a secret.

  ‘Did you know that Stefano’s buying another house?’ she asked, and saw the brief, surprised lift of Aunt Celia’s brows. ‘At least,’ she added hastily, ‘he’s thinking about it.’

  ‘Is he?’

  So he hadn’t told her, Alison thought, and for a moment felt a slightly sick feeling in case she had done something unforgivable in betraying the news. ‘I don’t know if—if it’s generally known,’ she said cautiously.

  Aunt Celia crossed her slim legs and leaned back in her chair. It was difficult to guess what she was thinking, but Alison thought that the news about the other house was quite a surprise to her, possibly

  even a shock, and she reminded herself to tread carefully. ‘Well, he’s told you, anyway,’ her aunt said, and reached for a cigarette.

  ‘Actually,’ Alison ventured, unsure if she was making things worse, ‘he took me to see it a couple of days ago. When we went to Peggs Bay.’

  ‘Is it in Peggs Bay?’

  Alison shook her head, committed to telling the rest now that she had gone so far. ‘No. We went along the coast in his boat, as far as Creggan Creek. It’s about two hundred yards along the creek, on the left-hand side.’

  ‘Oh’ Again surprise sent those elegantly curved brows upwards. ‘Not Barmon’s old house, surely?’

  Alison shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I never quite knew where they lived, but it could be, I suppose. It’s quite a big place and it’s empty and rather scruffy-looking, but Stefano says it re—’ She stopped herself there, unwilling to betray that brief glimpse of homesickness she had witnessed, although she could not have said why. ‘He says it has possibilities,’ she said.

  Aunt Celia looked more puzzled than ever. ‘What about this place?’ she asked. ‘Creggan Bar. What does he propose doing about that? Is he going to move out and leave you in sole possession?’

  Alison shook her head. Sh
e was beginning to wonder just how much Stefano had confided in her aunt, and there was something vaguely disturbing, nagging at the back of her mind. ‘I told him I shan’t be here,’ she said, and once more Aunt Celia’s expression questioned her meaning. ‘Danny wouldn’t live here,’ she enlarged. ‘He’d never live here.’

  But why on earth not?’

  ‘Oh, Aunt Celia! ‘ she said, shaking her head. ‘He wouldn’t be easy here, you know that.’

  ‘I see. And you wouldn’t mind?’

  Alison shrugged, not a little uneasy herself when she really thought about living with Danny somewhere as yet unspecified and probably very different from Creggan Bar. ‘I’d live where Danny was,’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’

  Then Alison understood at last. Aunt Celia was thinking of her own position, and where she would be if she and Stefano did not come to some arrangement. She loved it at Creggan Bar and she would miss the life perhaps far more than Alison would, although it was something that she did not think about too deeply or too often for fear she was less than loyal to Danny and his ideals.

  ‘Oh, Aunt Celia! ‘ She left her own chair and came and sat on a stool beside her aunt, taking her free hand and seeking to reassure her. ‘You’ll always be welcome to stay with me, wherever I am, you know that. Unless of course ‘ She looked at the smooth, well preserved features, inviting confidences, but Aunt Celia gave nothing away. If, indeed, there was anything to give away.

  ‘Darling,’ she said lightly, ‘don’t make a big issue of it. I’m not exactly paupered or homeless, you know, and—well, quite a lot can happen before you and Danny go trotting up the aisle, can’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course it can.’

  The hand that had been under hers smoothed back the hair from Alison’s forehead, and there was

  a small, quiet smile on her face. ‘Then don’t look so solemn, darling, and tell me which night your Danny is coming to dinner.’