by Nevil Shute
“I dunno,” he said slowly. “I hated it when we first came here. But I guess you get kind of used to a place, and folks here have been mighty nice to us.”
“It’s made a tremendous difference to the Lunatic, having you all here,” she said. “You can’t think what it’s meant. But from your point of view, I do see it, Stan. In your shoes I should just be itching to get back to Hazel, and when I’d got there I’d never leave it again.”
“That’s the way I feel, mostly,” he said. “And yet in some ways I just can’t bear to go.”
“Why?” she said. “What’s so attractive about this place?”
He said simply, “You.”
She turned towards him, and he took her hand. “I didn’t mean to talk this way,” he said. “I’m eight years older than you, Mollie, and that don’t seem right. But ever since you let me come and tell you about Chuck I’ve thought about nothing else, and now that the oil well don’t look too good I just can’t bear the thought that I’ll be going away soon, and never see you again.” He paused. “I guess there’s one thing above everything a man like me wants in his wife,” he said, “and that’s that she’d be kind. And that’s what you’ve been to me — kind.” He smiled at her whimsically. “What your dad would say — the kindest hopper this side of the black stump.”
She looked up at him, half-crying and half-laughing. “I didn’t know that you were thinking about me as a hopper!”
“I wasn’t really,” he said. “That’s sort of allegorical, like the black stump. But if I was to tell you, honey, that you were the kindest person that I’d ever met this side of the black stump — I guess that would be true.”
She said, “Stan — you can’t be serious!” The dream world was flooding back again. Behind Stanton Laird, a better man than she had ever met before, came flooding in a wave the Safeway where you could do your housekeeping in ten minutes even on Sunday afternoon, the Buicks and the Plymouths, the hairdressers, the cokes and the milk shakes in the Piggy-Wiggy Café, the mountains, the trout streams, and the cool mountain lakes with your own speedboat flying over them. “Oh, Stan!”
He drew her to him. “I’m terribly in love with you, Mollie. I guess I’m older than I’d have liked it to be, and too serious maybe. But I do love you very truly. Will you marry me?”
“I think I’d love to, Stan.” Of course she would; in all the world she knew, she would never find a better man than Stanton Laird. She turned to him, and kissed him very fondly.
Presently he said, “Are you quite sure, Mollie?”
She drew away from him a little, and said, “I think so, Stan. I think I could make you happy, and I think you’d make me happy, too.”
He said quietly, “What’s troubling you, then?”
She smiled. “I don’t think anything’s troubling me, Stan. I’m too happy to be troubled. Tomorrow, or sometime, we’ll have to be practical, decide how and where we’re going to be married, and all that.” She was thinking that she was a Catholic and he a Presbyterian, and a very sincere one, too. Already she could see that there were problems ahead of them to be surmounted. She drew close to him again. “Let’s not talk about that now.”
Presently he said quietly, “I never thought when I came to Australia I’d go back with a wife.”
“Will your people at home think it very terrible, Stan? You marrying an Australian girl?”
He shook his head. “They’ll be just tickled to death. Of all the countries in the British Commonwealth, I guess the Australians would be the most like us — barring Canada, of course.”
She sat nestling close to him, his arm around her. “I am looking forward to seeing Hazel and meeting your people, Stan. Tell me some more about them, and how you live.”
He did so, for the next hour. From time to time he would get up and throw more wood upon the fire while she attended to the boy wrapped in the blanket. He seemed to be asleep now in the quiet darkness underneath the brilliant stars, or else in a coma; he was very hot to the touch. There was nothing more that they could do for him, however.
Presently he said, “What had we better do about your own folks, honey? Had I better go and see your Dad?”
“Not yet,” she said. “Let Ma tell him, Stan. I’ll tell Ma about us when we get back to the station, and then let you know.”
“He likely to be mad about it?”
She shook her head. “Not now. He would have been before you came to Laragh, but you’ve changed all that. He didn’t like Americans before, but he does now.”
“Well, what do you know?”
They sat there together, very happy, till about twenty minutes past eleven. Then, when both were beginning to think that one of them must ride to Mannahill, they heard the humming and the clatter of a truck, and saw headlights on the road coming from the station. They got up and stirred up the fire so that it rose in a great blaze, and Stanton pulled a bough out of it and waved the fiery brand. The truck pulled up, and they heard voices hailing them, and they hailed back. Then men were walking up the river bed to them.
It proved to be Pat Regan and one of the coloured stockmen from Mannahill. Mollie and Stanton walked a little way to meet them. “We’ve got him here, Dad,” the girl said. “He’s terribly burnt, and he can’t talk. He’s taken a good bit of water, though.”
“What time was it that ye found him?”
“Just before sunset, Dad. It was dark by the time we got fixed up, and we didn’t want to put him on a horse because of his skin. So we camped here till someone came to find us.”
“Ye got water from beneath?”
“Yes. Stan dug for it.”
“There’s the good girl. There’s many a man died of the thirst beside a river the like of this, and clear, cool water beneath. Sure, his mother should be burning candles to the miracles of God, the way you found him.”
“Stan found him first, Dad. He saw his water bottle in the road, where he’d dropped it. I’d have missed it. I thought it was a stone.”
“May the holy saints reward ye, Mr. Laird.”
They reached the fire, and the boy beside it, wrapped in the horse blanket. Gently the red-headed old man turned the blanket back and examined the body. Then he stood up. “It’s the doctor himself is needed for this one,” he said.
“Where is the doctor?” Stanton asked.
“Sure, he’s at Mannahill Station, with the pilot, for the night. He flew to bring Cy Peters and three men from Forest Downs, and they riding the country every way save this, an’ the doctor cutting up the body out on the verandah with Fortunate to help, and him as crazy as an old Jew selling muslin. I sent Clem Rogerson a telegram in Perth by the Flying Doctor, the way he’d come back to sort out his station.”
Under the old man’s direction they set to work to improvise a stretcher. They made a frame of two long branches with two shorter ones lashed across, and to this framework they lashed one of the tough, coarse horse blankets, using one pair of reins and Stanton’s bootlaces to stretch it taut. Then they moved the body onto this and, one at each corner and leading the horses, they made their way down to the road.
At the truck, they managed to load the stretcher with one end supported on an oil drum full of water and the other end supported on the tailboard, so that the spring of the branches would absorb much of the jolting and so save the boy as much as possible. Mr. Regan sent the coloured boy off up the road leading one horse and riding the other, and Mollie and Stanton got into the back to ride beside the stretcher and prevent it falling from its somewhat rickety support. Pat Regan got into the driver’s seat, and they started up the road to Mannahill in the clear moonlight.
In the back, in the clatter and dust of the truck, Mollie and Stanton sat holding hands, absurdly happy; once or twice they kissed. Once Stanton said, “You know somethin’, honey? I guess I’m going to remember this night if I live to be a hundred.”
She said, “We’re both going to remember it, Stan, all our lives.”
The truck drew up a
t Mannahill at about one in the morning. A couple of men who had been sleeping on the boards of the verandah got up as they drove in and came to meet them, and the doctor came out of one of the rooms clad in his pyjamas and a pair of elastic-sided riding boots. They carried the rough stretcher from the truck into one of the bedrooms, and the doctor began his work.
“They’ll fly him away out of it at dawn,” said Pat Regan, “down to the hospital at Hastings.” He went rummaging about the broken-open liquor store until he found what he was looking for, which was a bottle of rum. He poured himself a third of this into a tumbler, and shot it down followed by a chaser of water. “Isn’t it the great mercy that they left the rum?” he said. He turned to Stanton Laird, full of goodwill. “Sure, there’s a time and there’s a place for everything, Mr. Laird, and with your exertions you’ll be after needing a drink. Will ye not join us, now?”
The American hesitated, mindful of the old man who was to be his father-in-law. Mollie came to his rescue. “I’m going to make myself a cup of tea,” she said. “Would you rather have that, Stan?”
He said apologetically to the old man, “I’ve got quite a way to drive home, Mr. Regan. I guess if I had rum I might drive off into the bush, and then you’d have another search party.” To Mollie he said, “I certainly would like some tea. I’ll come and help you make it.”
It was arranged that he should drive the girl to Laragh Station on his way back to the oil rig; Pat Regan would stay on at Mannahill until Clem Rogerson got back from Perth to take control of his property. Mollie and Stanton were very hungry indeed. Pat Regan went roaring to the domestic quarters and came back driving a black woman before him like a flushed hen, still struggling into a cotton frock; she blew up the embers of a wood fire very quickly while he stood abusing her, and threw on four enormous mutton chops snatched from the butcher’s shop; within a quarter of an hour they were sitting at the kitchen table eating a large meal of grilled meat, bread and jam, cheese, and tea.
At about three in the morning Stanton and Mollie left for Laragh in the oilmen’s jeep. They drove sleepily, very close together; the drive took two hours, but it seemed short to them. They came to Laragh Station in the first light of the dawn, when people were already astir; most of the work upon that property took place between dawn and ten o’clock in the morning.
As they drew to a standstill, Stanton said quietly, “I’ll be over around teatime, Mollie. I guess this has been the most wonderful day I’ve ever had in my whole life.”
She pressed his hand. “Thanks, Stan. Thank you for everything.” She got out of the jeep, and went to meet her uncle and the Judge on the verandah. Stanton drove on to the oil rig.
Seven
MOLLIE SLEPT LATE that morning. Her mother, looking in at the French window of her room at about eleven o’clock, saw her struggling towards consciousness in the increasing heat, and brought her a cup of tea. The girl took it from her sleepily. Her mother stood looking down on her. “They’re saying on the wireless that ye found the laddie that was lost,” she said. “You and Stan Laird between you.”
Recollection of the night’s events came back to her. “That’s right,” she said. “Daddy’s staying over at Mannahill till Mr. Rogerson gets back.”
“Aye, I heard that.” She paused. “Stan Laird bring you home?”
The girl nodded, with joy in her heart. “We got home about five o’clock. Ma, Stan wants me to marry him.”
Her mother’s expression did not change. “Oh, aye,” she said. “I was wondering when that was coming.”
“Aren’t you pleased, Ma?”
“Are ye going to?”
Mollie nodded emphatically.
“Ah weel, he’s a decent man, and well brought up, I’d say. Does your father know about this yet?”
The girl shook her head. “It was all in such a mess at Mannahill. I wasn’t sure how Dad would take it, either.”
“Ye mean, the laddie’s an American?”
Mollie nodded.
“Your father likes him well enough, child. Would ye rather that I spoke about it to him first of all?”
“I would like that, Ma. I was hoping that you would.”
“Oh, aye, I’ll take care of that for you. When will he be coming over next?”
“He said he’d be over about teatime.”
“With the fear of the Lord in his heart, nae doubt. Are ye very happy?”
The girl looked up and nodded. Her mother bent and kissed her. “Well, get up and have your shower,” she said practically, “an’ then go and help the Countess with the dinner.”
The Scotswoman went out onto the verandah and sat down in her accustomed place, but she could not relax. Presently she got up and went over to the store. In the office room the Judge was teaching half his class the elements of reading the English language, teaching a quarter of them how to sew a buckle on a girth, and teaching the other quarter trigonometry, all at the same time. “Give them something to read, Judge, and come on over to the house,” she said. “I want to talk to you.”
When he came, she said, “Mollie tells me that she wants to marry Stan Laird. He asked last night.”
The Judge nodded slowly. “You were expecting that, were you not?”
“Oh, aye, I’ve been expecting it.”
“Have you any objection?”
“I have no objection. He’s a decent lad. But I’m thinking that his folks back in America might have.”
“Why should they object to her?”
“She’s a bastard and she’s a Catholic,” the Scotswoman said. “There’s two good reasons, and if that’s not enough I could name you half a dozen others.”
“He’s a Presbyterian, isn’t he?”
“Aye, and a good member of the kirk. I have nae doubt that they’re a family that’s well regarded back in his own place.”
“She’s well regarded here.”
“Aye, but I’m not. Not by Father Ryan, anyway.”
The Judge said heavily, “Well, this is going to take a little thought.”
“That it is,” the ex-barmaid said. “Sit ye down, Judge. It’s full early, but wait now while I go fetch the bottle and a little ice.”
The Judge took his rum neat with a chaser of ice-cold water; the Scotswoman sipped hers diluted, with ice tinkling in the glass. They sat in silent reflection for a few minutes. Then, “Is she very much in love with him?”
“Oh, aye,” her mother said casually. “I’d say she’s even more in love with The Saturday Evening Post.”
“A very remarkable magazine,” the Judge said thoughtfully. “A very, very remarkable magazine. It never ought to be allowed outside America.”
Mrs. Regan glanced at him. “Tell me, Judge. You’ve travelled the world. Would ye say that things in America would be like the pictures in them papers?”
He said slowly, “I would say that they are exactly like. But the pictures are of things — things, not of the minds of people. If the pictures were of the minds of people those magazines would be dull to look at, because the minds of people are very much the same, in England, or in America, or in Australia.”
She struggled to understand him. “Ye mean, the people over there would be the same sort as us?”
“I would say so. Little differences, little differences, perhaps, but nothing very great. But to look at the magazines, one would suppose that everything would be completely different in America, a hedonistic paradise where human jealousies, depravities, and infamies would be unknown. A land where every woman is young and smiling on a sunny background, a land where every man is young and bronzed and wears an Arrow collar and a Stetson hat.”
He paused. “I think, with your permission, Mrs. Regan, I will take a little more rum, to rinse the taste of falsehoods from my mouth.”
She wrinkled her brows as he downed another rum. “Ye mean, they get old and they get tired and they get wicked, just the same as us?”
“Just the same as us, Mrs. Regan — just the same as us. But to
read the magazines, one might think they would be different. That is because the magazines in their advertisements show things alone, and things are merely toys. An adult mind grows tired of toys in a few days, and a child does not take much longer. But I would say that Mollie has an adult mind, for all her youth.”
“Ye mean, that she’d grow tired of all the new things she sees in America, in a short time?”
“I think she would. I think that then she would begin to discover the people, and she might discover them to be exactly as we are.”
They sat in silence for a time. “Do ye mean this, Judge? If we was to set our minds upon a small town in Australia, the same as this town Hazel in America, a town with the same number of people, raising grass seeds, maybe, just the same. And if we was to set our minds upon a Presbyterian family in that town, well regarded and good members of the kirk? And if we was to think of Mollie settled down in such a place, would that be the same?”
“I think that is precisely right,” the Judge said. “I think it would be exactly and precisely the same.”
There was another silence. “It’s an awfu’ and a sobering thought,” the mother said at last.
“The more so,” the Judge observed quietly, “because she’d be nine thousand miles away.”
“Is it that far?”
“I have not measured it exactly. But I would think that that would be about the distance.”
The Scotswoman got heavily to her feet. “Well, I must think on it. It’s a long, long way from her own folks for a lassie to be unhappy.”
Stanton Laird came to Laragh at about five o’clock that afternoon. As he got out of his jeep he hoped that Mr. Pat Regan was still over at Mannahill; although he had become on friendly terms with the grazier he had a notion that initially the mother would be easier to deal with, a notion which was to be proved quite erroneous. Mrs. Regan and Mollie were seated on the verandah; the girl got up and came out into the sun to meet the jeep.
“Good afternoon, Stan,” she said, a little shyly.
He got out. “Afternoon, honey,” he said. He took her hand, and looked into her eyes. “Sorry about anything yet?”
