The Wheel of Fortune by James Pattinson

Author:James Pattinson [Pattinson, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X

A FEW PATERNAL ACRES

“This trip’s the last for me,” Laratee said. “No more sea for me after this; I’m finishing with it.”

He was sitting on the edge of his bunk and rolling a cigarette. It was hot in the cabin as the Wheel of Fortune steamed southward over a placid sea, and Laratee was clothed only in a pair of denim shorts. All the visible part of his body was burnt to the colour and texture of old shoe-leather, and beneath the sparse black covering of hair on his chest the ribs stood out like the framework of a lobster-pot. He drew the tip of his tongue along the gummed edge of the cigarette-paper, staring at John from under his bushy eyebrows.

“I shan’t be sorry,” he said.

John had been working on an electric fan which he had bought second-hand. Laratee’s remark drew his attention away from this task, and he said, tapping his chin with a screwdriver, “What do you intend to do? I thought you didn’t know any other job.”

Laratee said, “I’m going to be a farmer,” and grinned.

John made as if to throw the screwdriver at him and turned again to the electric fan. “Don’t talk damned nonsense,” he said. “What do you know about farming?”

“What does anybody know about any job before he’s had a shot at it?” Laratee asked. He struck a match and lit the cigarette, sucking in a lungful of smoke. “I can learn, can’t I?”

“Are you serious?”

Laratee coughed. Some of the smoke had gone down the

wrong way. Still coughing, he gasped, “You bet I’m serious; and I’m glad too.”

“But, confound it, you need money as well as experience to go in for farming. Have you got any?”

“I’ve a bit stowed away; it’s not a hell of a lot, but it’ll do for a start — that and what my partner’s got.”

“Your partner? Who’s he, for Pete’s sake?”

Laratee shook the ash off the end of his cigarette and watched it drift slowly to the floor. “Why, Matt, of course.”

“Matthew Dodds?”

“That’s right. We’ve talked it over and we’ve made up our minds.”

John put down the screwdriver and stood over Laratee, supporting himself with one hand on the upper bunk. “Tell me all about it. I’m interested. Does Matt know what he’s doing?”

“Of course he does,” Laratee said. “He was dragged up on a farm; it was his dad’s, but the old man was a gambler — used to follow the gees — the wrong ones; he went bankrupt, lost the lot. Matt could’a got a job on the land easy enough, but he felt like having a change, so he went to sea. Now he’s like me — he’s had his gutful of the briny and he’d like to go back to the land.”

“But how”

“It’s like this,” said Laratee, using his cigarette as a pointer to emphasize his words; “we reckon that between us we’ll have enough to take a little place — maybe twenty or thirty acres. Matt says we could manage that between us.

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