by Lucy Gillen
find Danny.
He was waiting for her impatiently at the front of the house, having left the front door open behind him, as if he was quite sure she would follow him. He had lit a cigarette and was leaned up against the stone support at one side of the porch, much as he usually did against the stone bollard on the sea wall, the red glow of the tobacco fluctuating erratically as he drew smoke deep into his lungs.
He turned when she came out, and without a word, flung away the cigarette and pulled her into his arms and sought her mouth, roughly, almost savagely, taking no heed of her muffled protests as she fought for breath. He held her hair in his fingers and his grip was tight enough to hurt so that she struggled to escape for more than the obvious reasons.
‘Danny ! ‘ She struggled to free herself, but he hung on grimly to her arms.
‘I won’t argue with you,’ he told her harshly. ‘You’ve got to listen to me, Alison, you’ve got to! ‘
‘I’ve listened,’ she cried despairingly. ‘It’s no good, Danny: And please let me go, you’re hurting me!’
He shook her hard, ignoring her cry of protest. ‘You’ve listened to everybody but me,’ he told her. ‘They’ve got you thinking their way, they’ve—they’ve brainwashed you until you can’t see straight.’
‘No! No, they haven’t!’
‘You never bothered about conventional claptrap before,’ he insisted, his light blue eyes gleaming too brightly in the light from the hall. ‘Now all of a
sudden you behave as if marriage is the be-all and end-all of your existence.’
‘You never asked my opinion,’ she told him bitterly. ‘You were so busy planning your garage, you never gave my feelings a thought.’
He looked down at her for a moment in silence, and she could feel the tense strength in his fingers where he held her, then he released her arms suddenly and took her hand, drawing her down the garden after him, towards the gate, not saying a word until they stood under the tall, shadowy trees in the driveway. He pulled her round to face him again and looked down at her with an expression in his eyes that she had never seen before.
‘I love you,’ he said harshly. ‘No matter what that—that foreign beggar thinks, I love you, and I’ll marry you if that’s what you want. Only I’m damned if I’ll be dictated to by him or anybody else.’
‘Danny, please! ‘
He held her away from him for a moment, his eyes hard and implacable in the evening light. ‘You might have known the sparks would fly if I got near him,’ he told her, not even listening to her. ‘I can’t stand that sort ! ‘
‘Danny ! ‘
He looked down at her for a moment, and she thought he was at last prepared to listen to her, but then he pulled her close again instead and kissed her in that same chillingly determined way. ‘You will marry me, won’t you, darling?’ he said. ‘You went to all that trouble to inveigle the money out of Mari, you wouldn’t throw everything away now,
would you?’
‘The money ! ‘ She looked at him angrily. Her blue eyes shining with scorn for his obvious concern about the money. ‘That was always the prime object as far as you were concerned, wasn’t it, Danny?’
He said nothing for a moment, then he smiled. A tight, rather cruel smile that curled his lips under the light beard. ‘You’re talking through your hat, darling.’
‘No. No, I’m not.’ She eased herself free of him and he let her go without a struggle, watching her with that same rather disdainful look in his eyes that he always had whenever he referred to ‘that sort’. ‘Do you really love me, Danny?’ She asked the question as if she already knew the answer only too well, but Danny was not prepared to be so easily sidetracked.
He sighed and stood just behind her, his breath stirring the hair at the nape of her neck as he spoke. ‘I am going to marry you, darling.’
Alison turned and looked up at him. ‘Are you?’ she asked. ‘Or do you really expect me to—to—’
‘Live in sin?’ he jeered. ‘Be your age, darling. You must have given it some thought, just as I have.’
`No, I haven’t!’
‘O.K., O.K.! So it’s wedding bells and all the trimmings. I don’t care one way or the other.’
It was something she detected in his voice that confirmed it for her and she looked at him with eyes that reflected her disillusion. ‘Just as you don’t care for me one way or the other,’ she said. ‘Just as long
as you get the money. That’s it, isn’t it, Danny?’ She gave him no time to answer, but shook her head. ‘Well, I’m sorry, Danny, but I can’t.’
`What do you mean, you can’t?’
‘I can’t marry you or—anything else.’
He said nothing for a moment or two, then he shook his head, `So everything I—we planned for comes to nothing, is that it? You’ve let yourself be talked out of it by that—that damned Italian gigolo in there.’
Alison flushed, her eyes blazing furiously as she faced him with her hands clenched tightly at her sides. ‘That’s a filthy thing to say, Danny, and quite untrue! At least Stefano makes his own living, he doesn’t just—just use people to get what he wants. He doesn’t see them as no more than a—a means to an end, as you did me.’
‘How very touching,’ Danny jeered. ‘You defend him ‘as if you ‘ The light blue eyes gleamed maliciously at her. ‘Now isn’t that a pity?’ he jibed, soft-voiced. ‘And you can’t have him, can you? Because he belongs to Auntie ‘
She had not meant to hit him quite so hard, but he staggered back against a tree and stood for a moment with one hand to his stinging cheek, then he raised a hand as if he would strike her, only something caught his eye and he hastily lowered it again, deciding that withdrawal was the most strategic move. He turned and, without a word, hurried off through the gates and along the road, out of sight.
Alison stared after him for a moment, startled by his sudden departure, then she heard what Danny had seen. Stefano was just behind her and she could not be sure how much of Danny’s taunts he had heard. Coming so soon after, she could not face him, and she shook her head dazedly before running as fast as her legs would carry her, past him, then round through the trees and into the house.
CHAPTER NINE
EVEN though she had expected it to be a little nerve-racking, Alison had not anticipated that dinner the previous evening would eventually turn out to be quite so disastrous, or end so abruptly, with everything over between herself and Danny.
And it was all over between them, she had no illusions about that; indeed it was almost a relief, and she was not really so surprised to find that the idea of no longer being engaged to Danny did not dismay her nearly so much as she would once have expected. She pondered on that particular aspect of the outcome as she lay in bed the following morning, watching the sun’s yellow finger slide slowly round her bedroom wall, through a gap in the curtains.
Perhaps she should have felt more regretful about his going, but instead she felt relief, especially when she considered that she had probably escaped a lifetime of being a combined housewife and mechanic.
The night before she had been much too upset and far too embarrassed to face the rest of the evening in the company of her aunt and Stefano. The prospect of questions and probably a suggestion of I-told-you-so from Stefano had been enough to deter her from wanting anyone’s company, so she had merely given Aunt Celia a brief, breathless and rather vague explanation before disappearing hastily upstairs to her room before Stefano returned to the house.
She could stand neither his sympathy, if he was inclined to offer it, nor any less kindly reaction from him in the circumstances. She dreaded to think how much of that cruel, spiteful jibe he had overheard, and she had wanted to avoid any mention of that last night, at all costs.
It was not going to be easy facing him, even this morning, but at least she had had time to recover something of her pride and self-possession, and she was determined not to mope about looking sorry for herself. She should, she realised too,
be glad that she had been shown Danny in his true colours at last, and before it was too late.
If she had any regrets at all, it was because Danny had come so close to achieving his life’s ambition, only to see it vanish at the last minute and, ironically, thanks to his own rash behaviour. She doubted very much if he would ever have his garage now, and she could not help feeling sorry about that, wondering for a moment if Stefano would consider letting him borrow the money. On a strictly business footing, of course, but it would to some extent help to salve her conscience and make her feel a little better about it. No matter if the fault was entirely his own.
There was another matter to consider too, she remembered, something far more disturbing to her peace of mind. Aunt Celia had not mentioned specifically what her own cause for celebration was to be, but it did not take much effort on Alison’s part to guess, and the idea made her much more
inclined to be tearful than the departure of Danny had done.
He had made that unforgivable jibe about Stefano belonging to her aunt, and it seemed he was right. Nevertheless it had incited her to hit him, and she still felt a strange kind of savage fury when she thought of it, although heaven knew what interpretation Danny, and Stefano himself, had put on her reaction.
A gentle, tentative tap on her bedroom door jolted her back to earth, and she called out for whoever it was to come in, half expecting that it would be her aunt. As she anticipated, Aunt Celia’s neat brown head appeared round the edge of the door, the rest of her following when she saw that she was awake.
`I’ve brought you some tea, darling,’ she told her, sitting herself on the edge of the bed, and Alison noticed how bright and fresh she looked, despite last night’s disastrous episode. Her grey eyes did, however, betray both anxiety and curiosity and she seemed, if anything, a little wary and careful of .choosing her words. ‘I wasn’t sure how you’d be feeling this morning,’ she ventured, and Alison shrugged, smiling and pulling a face as she sat up to take her tea.
`Oh, I’m all right, Aunt Celia, thanks,’ she said. ‘Are you sure?’ She sounded very anxious about it, and Alison smiled again to reassure her.
‘Quite sure,’ she said. ‘I’m fine, honestly.’
`I’m glad.° A hand covered one of hers and the kindliness of the gesture almost shattered her composure. It was quite ridiculous to feel so tearful
when Aunt Celia was going to be so happy, but there was nothing she could do about it, and she wished fervently that she could simply pack up and go without saying a word to anybody. ‘I—we had an awful feeling that we might—well, that we might have been responsible for you and Danny fighting last night,’ Aunt Celia went on.
We—Alison noticed, and once again swallowed hastily on the threat of tears. ‘It’s finished, Aunt Celia,’ she told her. ‘Danny and me—it’s all over.’
‘For good?’ Alison nodded. ‘Oh, darling, I’m so sorry.’ Again the comforting hands consoled her. ‘I know how you must feel.’
Alison shook her head. ‘I don’t feel anything much, in fact,’ she said. ‘I don’t—I mean I never did love him, you know. Not really love him the way—’ She stopped hastily there and looked down at her tea rapidly getting cold while she talked. ‘I suppose Danny was really just somebody I was used to,’ she went on, half talking to herself. ‘I—I blinded myself to what he was really like because I’d known him for so long and he was part of—of the old days.’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘it’s over.’
Aunt Celia would understand, she thought, because she had never really liked him, despite her protestations that she did, and she was probably very relieved not to have him in the family, especially in view of her own plans with Stefano.
That was what was concerning her most at the moment, Alison thought. What would happen to her own plans? If Alison’s being a free agent again would affect them. If she was planning to marry
Stefano she would probably wonder what Alison’s reaction would be to being an interloper in what was half her own house.
It would not be possible, of course, for her to stay on at Creggan Bar, it did not even bear thinking about, but she wondered just what on earth she would do. Perhaps after all it would be she who would emigrate to Australia instead of Danny.
‘I expect you’re bound to feel a bit upset about it for a while,’ Aunt Celia told her, bringing her back to earth again. ‘But I’m glad you realise it’s for the best, Alison dear.°
‘Oh, I do,’ Alison assured her, sipping her tea thoughtfully. She sighed then. ‘Poor Danny, he really, wanted that garage, you know, Aunt Celia, and I can’t help feeling a bit guilty about it—after all, I did promise him the money.’
‘He was a disgusting little mercenary,’ Aunt Celia told her tartly, ‘and you’re well rid of him. Stefano agrees with me too.’
‘Yes, he would,’ Alison said resignedly. ‘I’ve no doubt he’s delighted to have been proved right, yet again.’
‘Alison dear!’
Alison looked uneasy, her hands trembling as she put down her cup on the bedside table. I´m—I’m sorry,’ she apologised. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘It wasn’t very fair, darling.’
‘No, I know, and I really am sorry.’
‘Oh well, you don’t have to apologise to me about it,’ her aunt told her with a smile. ‘What are you going to do now?’
‘I don’t know.’ She hugged her knees up under
her chin and gazed thoughtfully at the far wall. ‘I think I might emigrate.’
‘Oh no, Alison!’ Aunt Celia looked at her doubtfully, not quite sure how serious she was about it. ‘You don’t mean it, do you?’
‘Why not?’ Alison asked. ‘It seems like a good idea, and it would solve quite a lot of problems, wouldn’t it?’
‘None that I can think of,’ her aunt told her frankly. ‘And I don’t believe you really mean it, darling. Haven’t you someone else to take your mind off it? Danny can’t have been the only man in your life, surely?’
There was an implication there somewhere, Alison felt, but she could not quite imagine what it was, and she shook her head firmly. ‘I’m not thinking about men ever again,’ she assured her aunt seriously, and Aunt Celia shook her head and frowned.
‘I don’t believe that either,’ she said. ‘Are you sure there isn’t someone else?’
‘Quite sure.’ The answer was adamant.
Alison eyed her curiously. ‘You sound as if you rather wish there was,’ she told her, puzzled and a little irritated by her insistence.
Aunt Celia smiled again, a rather suggestive smile that puzzled Alison still more. ‘I do,’ she said, and Alison stared at her for a moment, too stunned to reply, then she shook her head slowly.
‘I don’t think I understand you, Aunt Celia,’ she said. ‘I don’t see why you’re so—so anxious to see me—married off.’
‘I’m not exactly anxious to see you married off,’ er aunt corrected her carefully. ‘But there are two ;reasons why I’d rather like to see you—well, at least on the way to settling down with someone, other than Danny, of course. One is simply that I’d like to see you safely settled before I—’ Her slim hands fluttered delicately to emphasise her meaning. ‘I have my own plans, you see,’ she explained, slowly, as if she sought the right words.
‘Yes, yes, I realise that.’ Alison felt suddenly as if a cold, heavy weight had settled in the region of her heart when she thought of the fact actually being announced aloud, so that there was no longer any speculation or doubt about it, and even with the best effort she could muster, she could not feel as delighted as she would like to have been.
She was very fond of Aunt Celia, and she would have loved nothing better than to see her find happiness again after so long as a widow—but she could not face the fact that it was Stefano who would be sharing her happiness, and the rest of her life with her.
‘I’m—I’m very pleased for you, Aunt Celia,’ she said, and thought her voice sounded tight and hoars
e, not like her own at all. `I—I hope you’ll be very happy.’
‘Darling—’ her aunt began, but Alison silenced her with a sudden and over-enthusiastic kiss.
I’m very happy for you,’ she insisted, smiling and determinedly cheerful, only wishing she could do something about the tears that gathered in her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. ‘I—I hope you’ll have all the happiness in the world,’ she said, and
sobbed heartbreakingly while Aunt Celia put comforting arms round her and hugged her close, as if she was a child.
‘Alison Darling! ‘ She rocked her, baby like, while Alison hid her head against her shoulder, praying she would not guess the cause of her tears. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t have been so thoughtless,’ her aunt said contritely. ‘Please forgive me, dear, I should have, known you’d be upset over Danny, no matter if you did— Oh, my dear, I’m sorry. Don’t cry, baby, please ! ‘
‘I—I didn’t want to,’ Alison sobbed. ‘It’s—it’s r-r-ridiculous and I’m s-s-sorry, I’m sorry ‘
‘Darling, you don’t have to be sorry,’ Aunt Celia consoled her, her hands smoothing back the hair from her forehead. ‘Now stop crying, my dear, or Stefano will think you’re really in love with your Danny after all and next thing you know he’ll be haring off down to the village to fetch him back for you.’
‘Oh no, he wouldn’t ‘ She looked up and was surprised to see her aunt quite serious.
‘He would if he thought that was what you wanted,’ she assured her. ‘Now dry your eyes, because you don’t really want Danny back, do you?’
Alison shook her head, her mind racing wildly over the possibility of Stefano forcing Danny to come back to her, and feeling a strange desire to giggle suddenly when she considered the possibilities of such an encounter. ‘I—I don’t want him back,’ she said, ‘even if he’d come.’
Her aunt looked at her steadily for a moment, her eyes showing a trace of apprehension, as if she