A Carlton bank clerk, back from work,
is turning through the Argus,
his new wife, maidless, at the stove.

There's been a drawn-out hug between them,
foreshadowing the bedroom later.
Neither is an expert but

they know about diplomacy
away up there in Europe
and all those foreign ministers

in tails and tie with sash and medals
pronouncing at the grand receptions
or busy with their secretaries

on trains between the capitals
while brushing up their French.
She's seen the jigsaw done with Europe,

the lurch-by-lurch alliances
and grandiose ententes
collapsing into place.

There's been a ‘war scare' once or twice;
he's read about the ‘Dreadnoughts'.
They know about the skirmishes

an Empire blunders into:
that fracas with the ‘Boxers',
that business with the Boers

when both were still too young to notice.
She knows that some of Harry's friends
are joining the militia,

parading on the weekends.
He's heard them brag about their weapons:
the ten-round-magazine Lee-Enfield;

the fire rate of a Maxim.
He's passed on some of this to Jeanie
but not enough to start distress.

She has her sense of it, however —
waking to the milkman's wheels
crunching on the asphalt,

imagining her tender Harry
kitted out with hat and rifle.
They know it is the ‘Modern Age'

with steam trains all around the state,
the tramways and the telegraph,
the horseless carriages with horn,

those stutterings of black-and-white
they've been to in a theatre, twice.
One day soon there will be children

who'll see, in turn, those classroom maps
with all that pink to keep them safe.
George V, ‘fine looking man',

they and all their friends agree,
‘impressive in a uniform' …
as Jeanie says it's time to eat

the simple meal that she's prepared,
lamb chops, beans and mashed potato.
He gets up from the armchair

and puts aside the ‘THREAT OF WAR'.
Seated now, as if for grace,
they share instead a little joke,

some private innuendo,
and, smiling at it still,
are starting on their meat.