The Far Country Read Online Free PDF Page A

got through. They discussed it for a little, the Italian gradually breaking into rapture as the proposal became clear. “I pay her ticket and give you a three-room house on the end of the shearers’ quarters. You stay with me till September 1953 at the money you get now, plus the award rises. You get all the meat you want off the station at threepence a pound, and vegetables from the garden. Capito?”
    “Si, signore.”
    “Talk English, you great bastard. You stay with me till September 1953 if I do this for you. Is that okay?”
    “Okay, Mr. Dorman. I thank you ver’, ver’ much.”
    “You’ve been working well, Mario. You go on the way you’re going and you’ll be right. Okay, then—that’s a deal. What do you want to do now—send Lucia the money for her passage right away?”
    “Yes, Mr. Dorman. Lucia—she very happy when she gets letter.”
    “Aw, look then, Mario. You go and write her a letter in your own bloody language, ’n tell her to come out ’n marry you, ’n you’re sending her the money for the ticket. You go and write that now. I’ll take it into town with me this afternoon and put the money order in it, fifty-eight pounds, ’n send it off by air mail.” He got that through at the second attempt.
    “Thank you ver’, ver’ much, Mr. Dorman. I go now to write Lucia.” He went off urgently to his bunkroom.
    Dorman went into the house again to change for his journey into town; he had a dark tweed suit that he wore on these occasions, and a purple tie with black stripes on it. He sat in the kitchen polishing his town shoes while Jane changed, and presently he went out into the yard to get the utility. By the car, Mario came up to him with an envelope in his hand.
    “For Lucia,” he said. “I no have stamp. Will you fix stamp on for me, please? For air mail?”
    “Okay. You’ve told her in the letter that there’s a money order going in it, fifty-eight pounds?”
    “I have said that, Mr. Dorman. In Italian I have said that to Lucia, and now she is to come, ver’ quick.”
    “I bet you’ve said that that she’s to come ver’ quick, you bastard. Mind and keep your nose clean till she comes. I’ll see about the timber for your house when I’m in town.”
    “I thank you ver’, ver’ much, Mr. Dorman.”
    “Okay. Get down and go on with that crutching.”
    He drove into the town that afternoon with Jane by his side; they parked the utility outside the bank and went in together while shecashed a cheque. She went out first and went on to the dressmaker, and Jack went into the bank manager’s office to see about the draft for fifty-eight pounds payable to Lucia Tereno at Chieti, Italy. At the conclusion of that business he produced his wool cheque for the credit of his account.
    The manager took it and glanced at it with an expressionless face; for the last week he had been receiving one or two like it every day. “I’ll give you the receipt slip outside, Mr. Dorman,” he said. “What do you want done with it? All into the current account?”
    “That’s right.”
    “If you think of investing any of it, I could write to our investments section at head office and get up a few suggestions. It’s a pity to see a sum like that lying idle.”
    “I’ll think it over,” said Dorman. “I’m going down to Melbourne in a month or two. A good bit of it’ll go in tax, and there’s one or two things wanted on the station.”
    The manager smiled faintly; he knew that one, too. “I expect there are,” he said. “Well, let me know if I can do anything.”
    Dorman left the bank and went to the post office; he bought stamps and an air mail sticker for Mario’s letter and handed it to Elsie Peters for the post. “I was to tell you that Tim Archer’s coming to the Red Cross dance, with Mario,” he said.
    “Goody,” she replied. “He was in this morning, but he didn’t know then if he’d be able to get in to it.”
    “Aye, they can have the car. If that Mario gets into any