Currawalli Street by Christopher Morgan Page A

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.
    â€˜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 these 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?’
    â€˜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. Butyou 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.’
    â€˜Do you know where she is now?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜What’s that?’ Johnny asks, looking at the trees growing by the side of the road. Their trunks have been blackened by fire.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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 everyoneelse 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.
    â€˜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