Read Online Currawalli Street by Christopher Morgan - Free Book Online Page B

old friend of his whose ship is in port for only one day. He will spend the night on board. She accepts.
    â€˜Good. These two are coming also.’
    Nancy promises to bring over a bottle of Eric’s apple brandy, as long as the other women agree to drink too much of it. After all, this will be their first dinner together. She claps the top rail of the fence with both hands and heads home with a sense of purpose. The things that she was going to do tonight will need to be done now instead.
    Janet takes her leave soon after. Kathleen walks around the garden with Rose for a while longer, without speaking. Both women are happy in the silence. When Kathleen turns out the front gate, Rose goes inside.
    That evening, after Thomas has ridden off down the street to have dinner with the bishop and his minions, armed with a plausible excuse for his sister’s absence, Janet closes the front door of the manse behind her and walks down to number nine. Kathleen is already sitting at the table, laughing at something Rose has said. By the time Nancy arrives with the brandy, Janet is laughing too. And that is the way most of the night goes.
    There is a freedom in the atmosphere, not because of the liberaldrinking of the apple brandy but because there is no man there to pour it. Standing in the hallway beside the front door at the end of the night, they all agree men are to be banned from the following dinners. As they say goodnight, they all sense a change in the air. A man might dismiss it as a sudden sea breeze sprung up, but to these women it is something else. A twisting, of sorts. Alfred returns through the front gate but goes straight out to the stable and listens to the women’s receding footsteps.

T he next morning, Alfred walks slowly down Currawalli Street and along the little road to the store opposite the railway station and buys a copy of the daily newspaper. He is planning to scour it in case there is any news of his wagons but he doesn’t get past the front page before forgetting about them. Rather than returning straight home, he walks across the road, greets the stationmaster, sits down in the station waiting room and reads through the whole paper.
    He reads every article concerning the front-page story. War Ahead. Conflict Coming, says Prime Minister  . . .  Europe has gone quiet as if preparing herself  . . . He is alarmed by what he reads. Previous news of the potential crisis in Europe has always stressed just that: its potential. This is the first time he has seen it presented as an inevitable event. And not just as a small ‘colonial’ type war but something bigger; something that might drag in the whole world. Even though Alfred is a mapmaker, the concept of the whole world is still unimaginable to him.
    And no politician in Europe seems to be talking anymore about away to stop it from happening; they are now asking how its effects can be minimised. That is unnerving because it means an acceptance has already been reached that many people are going to die. Things like war seem such an easy thing for certain people to accept. Alfred turns the pages and reads more.
    Relationships between many countries in Europe are in tatters, the damage is irreparable and so a war beyond anything ever seen is going to occur. England is beating its chest loudly, confident that young men from all over the Empire will answer her call to arms. And that means Australia. That means Melbourne. That means Currawalli Street.
    Alfred folds the paper closed and puts it down on the seat next to him. He is old enough not to go but of course he will. Men of his experience in making maps will be needed. Rose won’t try to stop him.
    He leaves the paper on the seat at the railway station and walks home. His feet are suddenly heavy. He doesn’t know why. He wishes his wagons were home. Turning into Currawalli Street he can see the church at the opposite end. In front of the church is a manicured