Currawalli Street by Christopher Morgan Page B

her parents became irregular for a while. When she returned home for the Easter break, things felt the same even though they looked a bit different. There was only one big shed now where there had been three smaller ones. The flowers had gone, as flowers do, but the bed looked to have been freshly dug; the clothesline was strung up between different trees but Daphne the cow was still standing at the fence, staring into the distance. The debris of the flood remained in the lower branches of all the trees: long strands of sapling bark, clumps of bush grass, torn leaves from trees far away, all packed and squeezed into tight elbows of the branches just above Rose’s head.
    And now, at fifty-one, she is having a third vision.
    After wiping away the dust that has accumulated overnight on the side table Kathleen walks from her front room, thinking how sad Rose looks most of the time. It occurs to her that maybe Rose hasn’t had worse experiences than anybody else; maybe she is only cursed with remembering them better. Kathleen shakes her head at a thought so sad.
    She has not known Rose for long but she has heard her vividly recount incidents from her childhood. The taste of apples from her uncle’s tree, the colours of wool displayed in a shop window one Christmas, the smells of the bush after a strong rain that washed away thedust and dryness the day her grandfather left on the drove he didn’t return from, a childhood visit to the city and the sound of a tram loaded high with vegetables being drawn up the main street outside her bedroom window on its way to an early morning market: Rose remembers everything.
    By the time Kathleen has closed the front door and reached the gate, Rose is standing up straight, looking down at her feet. Kathleen begins walking across the street, calling hello. Rose takes a moment before she looks up. She begins to respond, and Kathleen sees that her face is like a stone mask of sadness.
    As Kathleen walks out of the shadows that fall halfway across the street, the morning sun slaps her and its warmth brings a freshness into her body. The currawalli trees that grow behind her house look best in this kind of light, when the sun is not yet hot enough to burn, and the leaves look as if they are trying to reach out towards it. The wind is picking up. The breeze carries the scent of the gum trees and as the breeze gets stronger so does the perfume.
    Concentration spreads across Rose’s face as she says, ‘I was just thinking about you, Kathleen.’
    A gust of wind, suddenly cold. Rose waits until Kathleen has walked in through the gate before she comes over and puts her arms strongly around the younger woman. Kathleen is taller than Rose by a head and does not normally embrace anybody other than members of her family. Rose senses her discomfort and tells her that she wanted to hug someone; she apologises for making Kathleen uneasy.
    â€˜Still hot,’ Kathleen says, to change the subject. It is an unneeded observation.
    â€˜Too hot for this time of year. It should be gone by now. Or at least showing signs of going.’ Rose touches the dry brown leaves of a plant. ‘But it’s not showing any signs at all.’
    â€˜What do you think it means?’ Kathleen asks. Rose looks at her seriously for a moment. Then she smiles.
    â€˜I don’t know. I don’t know.’
    They walk over to a bed of yellow foxgloves and talk of the condition of the soil and how it affects the colour of the flower. Rose knows about these things and Kathleen is eager to learn as much as she can about this strange dry soil that she lives and walks on, digs, sweeps out of the house and plants vegetables in.
    Rose leans down as they talk and turns over the dirt with an old bent fork from the cutlery set that Alfred’s parents gave them as a wedding gift. She sinks to her knees as she sifts through the clumps of dirt. Kathleen can’t make out all of Rose’s words and so she