Currawalli Street

by Christopher Morgan

  She hands the recipe to Rose who says, ‘Sort of. I don’t think the oat flour will be from Scotland, nor do I think that the dates are going to be from East Africa, but the sultanas will definitely be from Australia.’

  ‘This will be an Australian coronation cake,’ Kathleen says.

  They move inside. As the wind picks up and pushes darker clouds across the sky, Alfred and Margaret come back around to the front and watch them as they sail over. Alfred is absently holding an old horseshoe that he found in the grass. He tosses it into the paddock next door, just missing the wooden frame that the builders have erected.

  Johnny reins in his horse when the wagons are still twenty yards away. He can see Elizabeth controlling the first. Riding forward to meet Johnny is a young man. His body sits still in the saddle, his eyes on Johnny’s, no emotion showing on his face, or at least none that Johnny can read. He sits tall in the saddle and lets his left foot fall from the stirrup as he closes up.

  ‘My name is Walter Cummings,’ he says before Johnny can begin his own greetings. ‘Beth says that you are her neighbour . . .’

  ‘That I am.’

  ‘. . . and that her father most likely sent you to look for her.’

  ‘He did. My name is Johnny Oatley.’

  Walter holds out his hand. Johnny reaches forward and shakes it firmly. The young man turns his head back to the wagons. ‘Beth needed to stay away this long. She had to do what she did.’

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘Married me.’

  ‘Oh.’ Johnny answers quickly, surprised.

  ‘Now we are headed back to Currawalli Street to meet her parents.’

  ‘I promised Alfred that I would assist her to come home if that’s what she needed . . .’

  ‘She doesn’t need it.’

  Walter Cummings’s face is darkened by the sun and hardened by the wind. He has a striking moustache that brushes his cheeks, and even though it curls downwards it highlights his eyes, which are clear and alert.

  Elizabeth pulls the wagon to a stop level with Johnny. His horse skitters sideways as the wagon creaks to a standstill between Johnny and Walter, who encourages his own horse forward. Johnny looks over at Elizabeth; holding the reins. He knows from Kathleen that she is twenty-five but she looks older. Her dark hair normally falls over her shoulders but today it is pulled back. Her arms are bare and Johnny can see the strain in her muscles as she holds the reins tight.

  ‘Hello, Elizabeth. And congratulations,’ Johnny says.

  ‘Thank you, Johnny. Father sent you?’

  ‘He did. He started to get a bit worried. But I don’t mind having a bit of a ride out here, so I suppose I may have encouraged him to send me. He probably would have waited a few more days if it had been left up to him.’

  ‘The silly old man. What did he say? Did he tell you I was incapable?’

  ‘No, not at all. He told me you would be fine. That this job would hardly tax you at all. I think doing nothing is what is affecting him. He doesn’t come across as a man used to sitting still.’

  ‘I would wager that he and my mother are at each other.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not a good judge in matters like that, but I would say probably.’

  ‘We’re headed home now. Will you travel with us or will you go on home and tell them that we are coming?’

  Johnny thinks for a moment. ‘A bit of both, I suppose.’

  ‘Good. It’ll be nice to have someone new to talk to,’ she answers, but aims the words at her new husband. ‘Walter? Is that alright with you?’ Johnny looks Elizabeth’s husband full in the face.

  The young man looks back at him for a moment, then up at the clouds. ‘It’ll be fine,’ he says stiffly.

  Johnny moves in behind the wagon and waits. Elizabeth flicks the two old wagon horses into action and after a few yards Johnny comes up by her side. Walter stays on the other side. It is clear that he doesn’t like the sudden company. Not at all.

  The wagon behind is driven by Cedric Jones. Johnny knows him only to nod to. He sees him when he is working with Alfred repairing the wagons. He looks about forty but is probably not that old. Alfred says that even though Cedric has been with him since the early days, he still doesn’t know where he lives. He is as slow as a bear when nobody is posing a threat, but as quick as a snake striking when someone does. He offers more company than Elizabeth and Walter, who have launched into a heated discussion. Johnny reins back until he falls level with the second wagon.

  Cedric looks at him. ‘They’re having a fight.’

  Johnny nods. ‘I figured that. Then I’ll stay back here.’

  ‘It’s best. They throw around words like stones. They don’t care who gets hit.’

  ‘You sound as if you have been.’

  ‘I have. But not for much longer. When we get back, I’m off. Alfred doesn’t pay me enough to take that sort of treatment. I work for him, not anybody else. My father once said to me, “It doesn’t matter how old you get, a woman’s words will still sting.” He would know—my stepmother had a tongue like a whip.’

  ‘So where will you go?’

  ‘The army. I think that is the place for me.’

  ‘I was talking to a fellow who thinks there will be a big war.’

  ‘I talked to a bloke who said that too. He said that Australian troops will be needed. It might be hard to get into the army when it starts up.’

  ‘Maybe. Depends on how many soldiers they are going to send. Lots of blokes will want to join up. Sounds like a great adventure,’ Johnny says, thinking about Bert Brady.

  They talk above the rumble of the wheels on the track but they can still hear the shouting from the first wagon. Cedric lifts his eyebrows and then continues. ‘My father went to South Africa to fight the Boers the first time. He said it was great fun. Once you got used to the bullets and the killing.’

  Johnny looks away from the track, which runs along the ridge of a slight hill, at the farmland in the valley beside them. A wattle and daub hut has smoke coming from the chimney. He has a momentary urge to ride down there and invite himself in. He nods to Cedric. ‘I wonder what they’re cooking.’

  Cedric smiles and Johnny sees that smiling is something that doesn’t sit comfortably on his face. It makes him look slightly misshapen. ‘I reckon they’re having a potato and mutton stew.’

  ‘With peas and cabbage?’ asks Johnny.

  ‘No, all the cabbage is used already.’ Cedric looks at Johnny and says, ‘I grew up in a place just like that. That’s what we ate every day. For lunch and then for dinner. It was a winter meal but we only had winter vegetables in our garden. That’s all that would grow, no matter what the season.’

  Johnny knows rural poverty. The spine of this country is made up of people living in similar conditions. ‘We only had silver beet,’ he says. ‘That was our vegetable.’

  Cedric nods towards the house. ‘So you know what it’s like under that roof?’

  ‘Yes, I think I do. It looks much the same as the place I grew up in too. We were lucky; the land turned us some money and my dad was able to build us something bigger. We began to eat more than mutton.’

  Cedric shrugs. ‘Good for you. My parents fought the land every year of their lives. It was the drought in the nineties that killed them. Now the shire has flooded our land to make a lake. My dad would have laughed.’

  Johnny pulls out his tobacco and offers it to Cedric, who declines. ‘Besides arguing, how are the newlyweds going?’ Johnny asks.

  ‘Alright I suppose, if you count fighting as a good thing for a young couple to do. They seem to relish it. My brother and his wife are like that. They have argued every day of their married life. They will probably still be arguing in heaven when they get there. I suppose they love each other though. It is the same with the
se two. You see it in their eyes, but they need only to look at each other to argue about something.’

  Johnny thinks about this. ‘I don’t argue with my wife. Are you married, Cedric?’

  ‘I was once. For a short while. I have stopped saying that she took off with a travelling salesman. I don’t know who she took off with. I came home from a trip and she was just gone, that’s all. Took everything. But you know what, Johnny? I look back over the way I was with her and the way I was in general, and I have to say I can’t blame her. If I ever talk to her again, I’ll tell her that.’

  ‘Do you know where she is now?’

  ‘Oh yes, I found her. But when I saw her, I knew it wouldn’t be right to go up and say hello. She lives in a big town. I saw her with her new family. She was picking out a dress for her daughter, I suppose it was. She looked happy. She had never been happy with me. Yes, I will take some of that tobacco.’ He waits until Johnny passes it over. ‘But some couples argue; some don’t have to. There is only one way to judge how good your marriage is.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Johnny asks, looking at the trees growing by the side of the road. Their trunks have been blackened by fire.

  ‘At the end of the day, when the lights are out and you have given up your prayers and are about to fall asleep, if you are happy to be lying next to the person you are lying next to, then it is a good marriage.’ Cedric rolls his cigarette with one hand. ‘Companionship. That’s the thing a man needs more than anything else. To be able to sit comfortably with someone in silence. I worked that out after my wife left me and I was looking at what I missed her for. Everything else—the food, the loving—was replaceable. The companionship wasn’t.’ He flicks the reins across the back of the horses. ‘Of course, I worked most of that out while standing at the bar of a pub on my own. When everyone went home to their families, I stayed there.’

  Johnny glances over at him. ‘You don’t look like a big drinker.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not. I drink slow. I don’t have the thirst. My old man had it and gave it to my brother. The need to keep drinking when everyone else has stopped. When drink is not the thing needed anymore but the urge remains. A horrible type of thirst. I have been frightened all my life that I will wake up one day with it. I haven’t so far.’

  The wagon up ahead has stopped. Johnny and Cedric stop about fifty yards behind and Johnny can no longer hear the raised voices.

  ‘This is why the trip has taken so long,’ Cedric explains. ‘They stop every time after they have argued. Another hour is gone. I sit back here and smoke.’ He lifts up his cigarette and looks at the burning end.

  The next day, after an early morning visit to the Victoria Markets, the ingredients are all laid out on the bench behind Rose’s kitchen table. The four women are sitting around the table discussing whether to have a cup of tea or a glass of Eric’s apple brandy. They decide on tea.

  Rose pulls a mixing bowl from the cupboard and Kathleen grabs a wooden spoon from a drawer.

  Janet draws the unfolded newspaper clipping close to her and starts to read aloud: ‘A Coronation Cake to celebrate the Coronation of George the Fifth, 22 June 1911, created by Sir Stephen Bolton, Master Chef to our Royal Family.’

  The women begin measuring out the ingredients, and Janet reads the recipe’s explanatory paragraph with a flourish: ‘Drambuie from Scotland to bring a flavour of the Highlands, oats from Wales to give a blood-warming body to the cake. East African dates, Australian sultanas, Canadian maple syrup, Rhodesian sugar to add a rich sweetness. Cardamom seeds from the jungles of India to give a hint of spice, Palestinian nuts to give a taste of the Northern African climate, coconut from the Solomon Islands to add some tropical sunshine, Irish butter to smooth everything, the flour of New Zealand to offer a firm base, chemicals from Hong Kong to embrace the evolving twentieth century, and finally the eggs of England to bind everything together. The cake is covered all over with Royal Icing.

  ‘Firstly, the dates, cardamom seeds and sultanas are soaked overnight in the Drambuie . . .’

  ‘We don’t have Drambuie so we have to make do with Eric’s apple brandy. Eric is Scottish so it’s pretty close,’ Rose says.

  ‘The butter is melted, blended with the maple syrup then added to the dates,’ Janet continues. ‘The dates should be soft enough to break up into the butter mixture . . .’

  Kathleen brings over a saucepan from the stove. The melted butter turns golden brown as it mixes with the dates and the maple syrup. The bowl is passed around the table as they take turns with the wooden spoon and mix the ingredients vigorously to break up the dates. As she mixes, Maria is talking about the benefits of folk dancing as an aid to childbirth. She had learned an Arabian dance in the third month of her second pregnancy and is all for it. Kathleen listens with some interest, Janet with none at all.

  ‘In another bowl, place the walnuts, almonds and coconut and pound into a powder. Add the sifted flours and sugar to the butter mixture . . .’

  Nancy is keen to see New Zealand because she met someone from her corner of Scotland who said that parts of it are very similar to where she comes from. She is interested to see what it might look like. Not at all because she is homesick, she adds a little too stridently. She shakes her head when asked about family still in Scotland. All surviving family members have gone to South Africa.

  Maria would like to return to Italy because she misses something she calls ‘the babble’ and wants her children to have the experience of it. She describes it as a mixture of every noise from every street, from every room, from every voice in Italy. Something so overpowering that even the white cockatoos in the trees around Currawalli Street would not be able to hear themselves screech over it.

  ‘Add the baking powder and the walnut, almond, coconut powder . . .’

  Maria smiles when she talks of the babble. It is a cacophony, she says, that gets in the blood, the muscles, in every thought, every dream, every conversation.

  Janet interrupts. ‘How is this Arabian dancing done?’

  Maria, who didn’t think Janet had been listening, stands and lifts her dress above her knees. She begins to hum a discordant tune and repeatedly bends and straightens her knees, which makes her hips sway. Before too long, Kathleen and Nancy are trying it. Maria’s humming grows louder. Janet has put down the spoon and joins in, moving with the others.

  ‘Back to the bowl!’ Rose orders and the women sit down, laughing.

  Janel continues. ‘Beat the eggs and add to the mixture which should then be mixed thoroughly . . .’

  It takes forty minutes for the bowl to go around the table twice. By the time it is in Rose’s hands the second time, she has a cake tin ready, greased with butter. She turns and opens the oven door, checking the temperature by splashing a small amount of water onto the oven wall. She can judge what the temperature is by how far down the wall the water runs before it evaporates. If it isn’t hot enough, she puts some more wood in the fire; if it’s too hot, she closes the vent that lets in oxygen for the fire to breathe so it dies down a bit.

  She spoons the mixture into the cake tin and then bangs it once on the table in front of Maria to dispel any air bubbles. Maria blinks. Rose then places the tin in the oven. As she closes the door, she sighs happily and is smiling by the time she stands.

  Nancy and Kathleen have already gathered the dishes and spoons and are washing them in the sink.

  ‘Time for apple brandy?’ asks Rose.

  ‘Definitely,’ Nancy answers. They all fill their glasses and raise them to toast the monarchy and apple brandy.

  Thomas is weeding the church garden. He works harder at this than he does at delivering his sermons. There is an orange cat walking about his feet, watching what he is doing, and Thomas’s friend Robert Parsome is sitting reading on the bench under the currawalli tree.

  A few months ago Thomas had been trying to formu
late a sermon while working in the garden. He was struggling to find the right words as he pulled out weeds. The more he struggled, the more weeds he pulled out. It was early on a Friday morning, sunny but not yet hot; the air carried the scent of gum flowers and bushfire smoke, and he could hear the bleating of sheep in the paddocks beyond the trees. He was so caught up in wondering what to talk about on Sunday that, without being aware of it, he began to weed his way down the street. Once he realised what he was doing, it occurred to him that the sermon should be about taking things too seriously and the danger of obsession. He then threw down his trowel and went to look through the Bible for a suitable passage.

  The more he looked, the more it seemed that the whole book was about obsession and so he went and lay down on his bed.

  He didn’t doubt that he was writing a sermon about obsession that he himself should listen to. Janet had said that he was getting obsessive but he thought she might only be joking. She obviously wasn’t. It wasn’t just things like the weeding. It was the punishing prayer times that he devoutly adhered to, the large amount of Bibles that he kept throughout the house—in every room, in fact—the regular cleansing of every crucifix in the house, even the blessing of the eggs that he made Janet suffer through.

  He sat up in bed. The thing he didn’t like about self-reflection was that he often saw things he didn’t like seeing.

  That night he ate only a bread roll for dinner as penance, and as the sun began to go down he walked out the front door. The owner of the Choppingblock Hotel had given him a standing invitation to come down to the bar for a drink and this is what he decided to do. He knew about going to the side entrance and by the time he walked into the half-full bar, he was ready to abandon whatever needed to be abandoned. He was given a tin mug with his name written on the side of it and he began to drink, listening to the people around him talking. The more he drank, the happier he became. He was invited to express his thoughts on many subjects in a number of conversations and was surprised to find that he actually had a healthy body of opinions that weren’t necessarily the Church’s. The people around the bar seemed to recognise that too and the talk became freer as the night progressed.