Currawalli Street by Christopher Morgan

coming?’
    Johnny thinks for a moment. ‘A bit of both, I suppose.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜It’s best. They throw around words like stones. They don’t care who gets hit.’
    â€˜You sound as if you have been.’
    â€˜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—mystepmother had a tongue like a whip.’
    â€˜So where will you go?’
    â€˜The army. I think that is the place for me.’
    â€˜I was talking to a fellow who thinks there will be a big war.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜With peas and cabbage?’ asks Johnny.
    â€˜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 hadwinter 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?’
    â€˜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