If they'd only seen me last time in Auckland," and he
gave an ugly laugh. "Do you think I lived on their bally pound a week?
Why, I spent that in half a day! Sometimes I wouldn't call for it for
five weeks. I'd go past the Post Office every day, knowing it was there,
and torturing myself with the thought of what I could buy with it, and
leaving it there till I'd got five pounds and could drink myself to
hell!"
She shivered. She could hear him grinding his teeth as he sat close to
her. She felt the same inarticulate helplessness that she had felt about
all the miseries of Lashnagar. She wanted, most passionately, to do
something for him. His telling her about it was, in itself, a challenge.
"But how did you live all the time, wasting your money like that?"
He laughed harshly.
"It's easy to live south the line--in Australasia, anyway, if you're a
drunkard. There's a lot of money about, you know. Men come from
up-country with a big cheque to knock out--shearers and men like that,
who live in the backblocks for months, hundreds of miles from hotels.
They come down from the backblocks with perhaps a hundred pounds to
spend on a week of blissful unconsciousness. Sailors come in and get
paid off too. There's a lot of freehandedness. They treat the whole bar.
If you won't drink with them, they knock you out of time before you
know where you are, sit on your chest and pour it down your neck.
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