narratorAUSTRALIA Volume Two
Page 39
***Editor’s Pick***
Space above,
Space below,
Space between,
Space to grow.
Blood spilt,
Blood drawn,
Blood filled,
Blood sworn.
Men fall,
Men rise,
Men pray,
Men’s cries.
Knees bend,
Knees break,
Knees wend,
Knees crack.
Mud forms,
Mud sticks,
Mud dries,
Mud slicks.
Swords sing,
Swords shine,
Swords swing,
Swords tear.
Death follows,
Death breathes,
Death swallows,
Death breeds.
Loss shadows,
Loss hides,
Loss wins,
Lost brides.
Victory turns,
Victory sounds,
Victory burns,
Victory kills.
Space above,
Space below,
Space between,
The white cross row.
Ed: We received this in January, and I read it without knowing what it was about. By the time I reached the bottom, I was mesmerised with the pattern of four different ways of looking at each word, the four different inferences you could take just by changing its partner, and then I reached the last line and ... BAM! ... I was brought to tears.
I felt this was the perfect poem for an ANZAC Day tribute.
Thursday 25 April 2013 4 pm
Widow’s Last Son
Armin Boko
Lake Heights, NSW
On sunset platoon rode
Down from the hills.
Wide eyed wild men
Surrounded the farmstead
At the point of loaded gun
In my face they demanded
Moonshine, gold and money.
Spared none I gave them all,
Including the wedding ring,
Left none for my poor self.
Alas worse was to come,
Not content, drunks
Hollering for blood took him away.
Lost to merciless war,
Last one of my four sons
But an innocent child
Of thirteen young years.
I went down on my knees
Before the Captain,
I begged for mercy,
I begged for pity,
I begged in vain.
Would you men do this
To your own mother?
I pleaded, reply came
None in words rather,
Brutes just for fun,
Shot up the place,
Then took him away.
Bound in wire
In fits of laughter
They mocked him,
Shaking from fear,
About to wet the pants;
But an innocent boy
Of thirteen young years.
I pleaded and I cried,
I cried bitterly, I cried
Till the night fell I cried,
’fore I saw a rifle fire
A bullet rang and there
I died brokenhearted.
Friday 26 April 2013
Bill’s Visit To The Big Smoke
John Ross
Blackheath, NSW
Bill Smith, for most of his life known as ‘Curly’, (he had been bald from a very early age), was visiting Sydney for the very first time. It was his eightieth birthday and his son, who had lived in the city for the past forty years, had invited him down to celebrate. Bill had been born and lived all his life on a large cattle property way out beyond the back of Bourke. He reluctantly visited town once a month for the cattle sales, or to catch up with a few mates. He always complained that Bourke was too big, too many people and too noisy.
In the car from the airport to his son’s house in Sydney he described his first trip in an aircraft as, ‘Bloody terrifying and the bloke next to me nearly spilled his drink when I told him he looked like a bloody sheila with hair that long. Turns out he was in IT. Not sure why he had to spell it and never did find out what ‘it’ was.’ To change the subject his son turned the car radio on to the hourly news bulletin.
The announcer said, ‘The treasurer has announced that the current deficit is in line with the forward estimates and is in line with most OECD countries with comparative GDPs. Tax revenue in the first quarter of this fiscal year was unfortunately not up to budgeted figures but this was offset by a drop in the demands on social welfare.’
Bill looked over at his son and said, ‘Translate please?’
His son replied, ‘The country’s buggered; we are spending more money than we are earning.’
Bill answered, ‘Well why can’t he just bloody well say that instead of pooncing around with all that fancy palaver?’
They had to stop at a supermarket on the way home so his son could get some milk and bread. Bill offered to fetch the milk while his son searched for the special bread that his wife wanted; double soy, five grain, organic, low salt made with added fibre.
Bill found the milk way down the back of the supermarket and was confronted with a whole aisle of confusing signs advertising everything from full cream (permeate free), to lite, to skim to A-plus and even these in about five different brands. He confronted a nearby shopper and asked where the real milk was only to be told to ‘Get real, grandad’ by the young woman.
That night Bill’s son and his wife and three adult children organised a barbecue in the backyard of their house. Bill was very hungry as he had refused to pay an exorbitant price for a few sandwiches on the aircraft. He was, however, sadly disappointed as most of the meal consisted of potatoes drowned in mayonnaise and sprinkled with parsley, some sort of purplish leafy thing that tasted very bitter and two tiny lamb chops. When he asked for a steak he was told by his son’s wife that lamb was better for ones digestive system. Being a cattle farmer all his life this made him see red and he just managed to control his temper.
Later that night, entranced by the conversation of his three grandchildren, he sat sipping on a rum and coke and listening to them for about an hour. The conversation was all about friending or unfriending people on something called Facebook. The attributes of an iPhone compared to a Blackberry or an Apple. Something called blogging. The latest gig and a lot about twits tweeting. Some of them seemed to be worshipping a small square thing that they jabbed at with their thumbs.
When Bill went to his son and asked him if anyone in this place spoke the King’s English, where could he get a decent feed of real food and could he book him on the first flight home tomorrow, he was told to ‘Lighten up’!
Saturday 27 April 2013
Development Games
Davidvee
Glen Waverley, VIC
Developers go on a chase each year,
with control of millions, they have no fear
that anyone in power would interfere.
Powerful friends they could commandeer.
They believe all land with attractive view
currently ‘wasted’ on such as me and you
need lots of concrete where grass now grew
and hundreds of dwellings, all brand new.
To them they were paddocks near the sea,
poor land with gorse where rabbits ran free,
some scrubby bushes and occasional tree,
valueless, as any accountant could see.
Their wealth can buy clever doctors of spin
and change design rules already locked-in.
They know the power of money will win
despite the community who live therein.
They promise jobs, there’s bound to be some,
and rates would increase council income,
building plan one step up from a slum
and sell the development for
a tidy sum.
But gone will be bushes where thornbills hide
and delicate wildflowers which grow beside
casuarinas through which spring gales sighed.
All these for profit would be cast aside.
No more will we hear a pair of plovers cry,
their calls echoing through darkening sky,
no more will a goshawk hover on high
above sun-warm rocks on which lizards lie.
The piercing eyes and noble stance
of the kelp gull will no longer enhance
cliff tops overlooking wide expanse
of ocean where wave-tops foam and dance.
How much more open coastal land central
to a community’s well-being, physical and mental,
must be sacrificed to such a developmental
frenzy? Are local views just incidental?
Sunday 28 April 2013
Red Lips
Crystal Lee
Adelaide, SA
Red lips, laugh lines
They sing the blues, patronise
Lips that quiver in the winter
Like the falling leaves on autumn paths
Red lips, like a joker’s smile
The cracks appear in the summertime
They melt away like freedom walls
Casting shadows in hallways
Closing all your doors
Red lips they speak
Like tidal waves
Crashing, burning, hurting, using
Speaking of forbidden fables
Telling fractured fairytales
They lure you into the blackness
Like the foggy cold nights of despair
Red lips, a faux laughter
Promising you forever afters
Lying, loving, kissing, dying
Handing out happiness
Like balloons the grey skies possess
Red lips, sweet emptiness
Promising love, swearing of hate
Speaking of truth, to retaliate
Red lips, a joker’s smile
They sing the blues, patronise
Sunday 28 April 2013 4 pm
Words For An Omniscient God
Graham Sparks
Bathurst, NSW
So deeply pierced was I
when burdened with rebuke for proffering
a rhyme containing certain words,
the gash within my mynde did groan and stretch and bleed
when bringing forth a progeny of trope derived.
So please, hereafterprinted find,
a progeny of words for your perusal:
A neuro semantic topologist,
perhaps a cranial geologist,
that is what I am.
Not a politically correct apologist
or a nursery rhyme symbologist.
As language is a vast and growing thing,
as precedents, in time diminish not.
As little branches reach from limb to limb,
so language waxes futureward.
Its echelons do coalesce,
its disparate branches coenmesh,
so words beginning with the letters F and C
a valid place do occupy.
As Lingo ownes all things from dirt to sky,
as God they say inhabits all,
He occupies those words
and occupies what they describe.
Monday 29 and Tuesday 30 April 2013
The Perve Next Door
Robert Cox
Pawleena, TAS
Sure enough, next morning he was there again on his back patio, staring at her, never just looking, as she hung out the washing, and by the time she went back indoors Bridget was very angry. She made a cup of tea and sipped at it as her anger waxed and waned. At first she thought she would go next door and chip the man – stood, even, preparatory, and smoothed her hair, preparatory – but on reflection thought it would be more effective if Wayne went with her. Wayne was of only medium height but he was solid and had a rugged-looking face suggestive of a life spent in pugilism or petty crime but in truth the result of a motor accident in his teens. It gave him a coarsened appearance that some of the girls in the supermarket where she worked three days a week claimed turned them on – not a very ladylike thing to say, she felt, about somebody else’s husband. Wayne was actually a passive man, but she thought his appearance might help.
When he came home that night she broached the subject with him. ‘Wayne love, will you come next door with me after tea?’
‘Aw jeez, not to the Crumps’.’ Frank Crump barracked for the wrong football team and Pam Crump was vociferous about her contempt for country music.
‘To the new chap in Steve and Sue Allbright’s.’
Wayne hated going out anywhere after work. ‘But you reckon he’s an optic nerve. You told me that a coupla times. A perve, you said he was.’
‘You said that; I don’t use that sort of language. What I said was, he stares at me all the time. And that’s why we need to have a word with him.’
‘Just for pervin’?’
‘Just?’
‘Well, he’s been doing it for a coupla weeks, you said, ever since he moved in.’
‘Well, I’m sick of it. It’s not a nice feeling, let me tell you, to know a strange man’s ogling you whenever you go outside. He could be a sex pervert or something.’
‘It’s took you a long time to get sick of it.’
‘Well, I am; I’m sick of it. Every time he sees me in the yard or on the patio he just stares and stares.’
‘On account of you’re a good sort, love.’
‘Stares and stares – ogles me,’ she said, fending off his hands and his intentions. ‘It’s bad manners at the very least.’
Both were momentarily silent. She knew Wayne ogled – her when she was in the shower or getting dressed, other women when he thought she was not looking – just as all men, in her experience, ogled.
‘Y’ sure he’s really pervin’ on you?’
‘That’s your word, Wayne Dix, not mine.’
‘Well, are you?’
‘He stares and stares at me – ogles me – whenever I’m in the back yard without so much as waving hello. It’s very offputting – very bad manners. We’ll have to speak to him.’
Wayne sighed. ‘Aw, all right. Let’s go.’
‘Not now, Wayne.’
‘But –’
‘It’s teatime.’
‘But –’
‘You know that’d be bad manners.’
But Wayne fell asleep watching television while she was washing up. She knew it was no good trying to rouse him. He would not wake until long after she had gone to bed, then turn off the television, flop into bed beside her, and soon signal his resumed slumber with snoring.
She decided to consult her best friend, Aymee, whom she had toasted sandwiches and cappuccino with every Thursday lunchtime at the Café de Paris next door to the supermarket where she worked. Aymee, a blonde beautician, coiffed and buffed, led a busy social life and always had a lot to talk about, sometimes making Bridget feel she herself had little to offer in the way of conversation, but today she told Aymee about the man next door.
‘Are you sure he’s really having a perve?’ Aymee said. ‘Doesn’t he ever say anything?’
‘No he does not. Not a word. Just ogles me.’
‘Never waves or anything?’
‘No, just ogles. All he ever does except ogle me is play the piano. You can hear it at our place as plain as day.’
‘Maybe you’re imagining it. Maybe he’s just looking in your general direction.’
‘No, it’s the same every morning. He just sits there on his patio ogling me while I’m hanging the washing out. And that’s the worst part – you know, hanging out my undies and things and knowing he’s ogling me while I do.’
Aymee sniffed. ‘Yeah, I’ve heard of weirdos with a thing about knickers and bra
s. Maybe he’s one of them. Maybe he just fancies your undies.’
‘That’d be bad enough, but for all I know he could be planning to murder me, or even worse.’
‘Have you told Wayne?’
‘I certainly have. I’ve told him we need to go next door and chip him.’
‘What’s he say to that?’
‘He’s not very keen. He says he will but he always falls asleep before we get a chance to go. Anyway, he says he can’t see any harm in a man ogling me. I think he thinks I should be flattered.’
‘Well, that’s what I’d be doing, dragging Wayne over and letting this pervert have both barrels,’ Aymee said. ‘I mean, Jesus, you’ve got to, haven’t you? I mean, you’ve got to let him know you know he’s perving on you and you don’t like it. And you’ve got to take Wayne when you do so he knows you’re serious. That’s definitely what I’d be doing, yeah.’
‘The hard part’ll be keeping Wayne awake long enough to go with me. He always falls asleep as soon as we’ve had tea.’
‘Why don’t you wake him up?’
‘He gets cranky if I do. Like a bear with a sore head.’
Aymee patted crumbs from her lips with a paper napkin and searched in a small hand mirror for any resultant lipstick damage. ‘You could try giving him a big cup of black coffee before tea instead of a couple of stubbies.’
‘Yes, and I can see him drinking it too.’
‘Well, tell him he can’t have his beer until he goes next door with you and puts the wind up this weirdo.’
‘Oh yes, and I can see him agreeing to that too.’
Aymee examined pensively the carmined gloss of her fingernails. ‘What time do you finish tea?’
‘Near the end of the news usually. Wayne likes to flop in his recliner and watch the sport, then falls asleep while the weather’s on.’
‘What about if I ring you tonight right at the end of the news? Make sure you’re busy so Wayne has to answer the phone. I’ll just keep ringing until he’s wide awake, then you both go next door straight away and have a go at this perve.’
‘But we couldn’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, he could be in the middle of his tea.’
Twice-divorced Aymee pursed perfect ruby lips. ‘Bridge, I am telling you I am definitely going to ring you tonight right at the end of the news and I am going to let the phone ring and ring and ring until Wayne answers and then I am going to hang up so you and him can have a go at this creep.’
‘But what if he is having his tea? He’ll think we don’t have good manners.’
‘Fuck good manners!’
When the telephone began to ring that night at the end of the news, Bridget fought the impulse to answer it and kept on washing dishes. It rang, it continued to ring, it rang and rang, and she thought it would never stop ringing.
‘Phone’s ringing, love.’ Wayne’s sleep-thickened voice came from deep within the recliner.
‘Can’t answer it,’ she heard herself say. ‘I’ve got wet hands. You’ll have to get it, if you don’t mind.’
There was no answer and the phone kept ringing. She scrubbed furiously at a spotless plate until the ringing stopped and she heard Wayne’s grumpy voice say ‘Hello? Hello?’ He paused, then said ‘Hello?’ again before banging the receiver down.
‘Who was that?’ she asked.
‘Dunno.’ All sleepiness had gone from his voice. ‘Wasn’t no one there.’
‘That’s funny.’ She swallowed, feeling guilty and conspiratorial. ‘Well, since you’re up, why don’t we go next door and talk to the man there about ogling me?’
‘Nah, he’s probably having tea.’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I can hear him playing the piano.’
The two-storey house that until a few weeks ago had been Sue and Steve Allbright’s was the biggest in an incomplete subdivision in a fledgling outer suburb of Hobart. Because the Allbrights had had neither enough furniture to fill it nor sufficient income to buy more, their presence in it had always seemed transient, as though they were squatters. Now it was in darkness; only soft sad piano music from within denoted life within. At Wayne’s knocking the music stopped, and seconds later the front door opened.
‘G’day. Wayne Dix from next door and this’s the trouble and strife.’
‘Bridget,’ she said. ‘Bridget Dix. Pleased to meet you.’
‘Wouldn’t mind a quick dicky bird with you,’ Wayne went on.
‘If it’s not inconvenient, of course,’ Bridget said. ‘If you’re not having your tea or anything.’
Their neighbour shrugged. ‘If you must,’ he said.
They followed him along the dark hall into the living room and blinked in surprise when he switched on a light. In place of the Allbrights’ sparse workaday furnishings was a decorator-magazine cornucopia that included a zebra-skin rug and a white baby grand piano. Large colorful abstract paintings fenestrated white walls. A double bass painted pillarbox red and mottled with signatures in white paint stood upright in one corner. Bridget felt glad she had put on a clean apron.
‘Siddown. If you want,’ their neighbour said. Of skinnier build but no taller than Wayne, he seemed to be older than they, although a face as grey and weathered as an old jetty conspired with receding hair close-cropped to darkish stubble to make his age indeterminate. Barefoot, he wore a black T-shirt and faded jeans with frayed cuffs.
Bridget would have preferred to stand. She wanted to get to the point of their visit and then leave, but Wayne nodded and said ‘Ta’ and sat in a gold-brocaded Louis chair, so she sat down on a white leather sofa. It was so deep and soft that her feet did not reach the floor, which made her feel unbalanced and even more uncomfortable. Catching her husband’s eye, she made the merest gesture with her head. Wayne nodded. ‘The reason we come over –’ he began.
Their neighbour was still standing. ‘Can it wait a tick? I was just fancying a coffee when you knocked.’
‘Ta, don’t mind if I do,’ Wayne said.
‘But only if you’re sure it’s no trouble,’ Bridget added. ‘We don’t want to put you to any trouble.’
Their response seemed to take him aback, and he was frowning as he left the room.
In the silence that followed Bridget whispered, ‘We shouldn’t’ve said yes. We should’ve just said what we came to say and gone straight home.’
‘Aw, a coffee can’t hurt. And I reckon I know his Salamanca Place from somewhere.’
‘We’ve come to complain – to chip him. We mustn’t forget that. I just want to get it over with and go home.’
When their neighbour returned he was carrying a tray bearing three mugs of coffee, a carton of milk, a bowl of sugar, and a bottle of cognac. He gave each of them a mug and held the cognac bottle out towards them. Wayne held his out mug but Bridget refused. ‘Thank you, no. I don’t drink spirits,’ she said. ‘No offence.’
‘She don’t drink at all,’ Wayne said.
‘That’s not true, Wayne Dix. I sometimes have a glass of bubbly if we go out somewhere, as you well know – but only one, never more than one. Wayne doesn’t drink much either, do you, Wayne?’
‘Not since guzzlin’ come in,’ Wayne said, laughing at his own wit.
She felt things were not going according to plan. ‘Actually,’ she said, so unexpectedly that she surprised herself, ‘we’ve come over to make a complaint.’ Her voice was firmer than she might have expected, although she would have felt better placed if her feet had reached the floor. Taking care not to spill her coffee, she sat forward so they did.
‘Piano too loud?’ he said, frowning.
‘Oh no, it’s not the piano, Mr –’
‘Not Mr anything. Just Charlie.’
She did not want to call him Charlie, had no desire to be on first-name terms with him. She had already decided there was something about him she did not like, something abrupt and unpleasant, at odds with the room’s cheery decor. He did not belong in such
a colourful room, she thought. She would not call him Charlie – but then he might think her rude. No matter that they were here to chip him, she did not want him to think she was rude.
‘Excuse me for saying so but we didn’t come to complain about your piano playing.’
‘What then?’
Bridget put her cup down on a small glass-and-chromium table next to her sofa and sank into worried muteness. He seemed touchy and she did not want to make things any worse. She looked to Wayne.
‘Nah, nothin’ like that,’ Wayne said. ‘Fact is, the wife’s a bit worried about you starin’ at her when she’s out in the yard. I wouldn’t blame you m’self cause I reck’n she’s pretty easy on the collar and tie, but the starin’ worries her.’
Charlie was silent, staring, his expression inscrutable.
‘It’s nothing personal,’ Bridget blurted out, ‘but you could be a sex maniac for all we know and –’ It was not what she had meant to say, the words had come out wrongly, but there was no way now she could retract it. She closed her eyes at the horror of it all.
To her surprise Charlie guffawed, though without humour. He took from the piano a pair of oversize spectacles with an overwrought red frame and held them up. ‘I’m short-sighted, see, but I hate wearing glasses so I usually don’t.’ He put the spectacles back on the piano and looked back at the Dixes, who looked puzzled. ‘Look, I sit out on the patio every day to soak up a bit of sun, something I haven’t had a lot of lately, and if you aren’t right in front of me there’s no way I’d know whether you were in the back yard or not, especially if it’s glary.’
Bridget foundered further in embarrassed silence. There seemed to be nothing she could say except to attempt an apology, but Charlie, going to answer a telephone ringing in another room, ignored her.
‘There y’are,’ Wayne said in his absence. ‘Told you he wasn’t an optic.’
With difficulty, Bridget heaved herself out of the sofa’s grasp and stood up. She felt like a bad-mannered fool, making a fuss about something so innocent. In agitation she began to pace about, looking at various paintings as inscrutable as their owner. On a small boulle chest next to the red bass stood an ormolu-framed photograph of a woman who looked familiar, and Bridget was distracted enough to pick it up. It was inscribed To Long John, with love everlasting, Carnal. She was still looking at it when Charlie came back into the room. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, flushing. ‘I hope you don’t mind me looking at that. I didn’t mean to pry but she looks familiar, only I don’t know anyone by that name.’
‘You wouldn’t. It’s a nickname I gave her.’
‘Oh,’ Bridget said, backing away. She found she was standing on the zebra-skin rug and hurriedly stepped off it.
Wayne had picked up the photograph. ‘I know who that is,’ he said. ‘That’s Elsa Carnaby. The Queen of Country Rock.’
In her embarrassment, Bridget hardly heard him. ‘And I’m sorry too I called you Charlie,’ she said, then was unable to remember whether she had. ‘I mean, what I mean is, I was sure I heard you say that was your name.’ She felt terrible. She had come in with right on her side but all she’d done was apologise and somehow had even got his name wrong.
‘What the hell else would you call me?’
‘But ... it says John. On the photograph.’
‘That was just her nickname for me.’
It was a queer thing to call a man John when his name was Charlie, she thought, and he wasn’t tall at all. Nothing about him made sense, which made her more unsettled. She just wanted to go home. She looked to Wayne but he was staring at their neighbour with great intensity.
‘Changa!’ he said suddenly. ‘Thought I knew your Salamanca from somewhere. Charlie Angas – Changa. You was the bassist with the Mulga Country Mob, Elsa Carnaby’s group. And didn’t you write Love Everlasting? Jeez, that’s one of our most favourite songs.’ Charlie’s expression darkened but Wayne was talking to Bridget now. ‘Jeez, love, a celebrity, livin’ right next door to us.’
‘Listen, just keep it under your fucking hat,’ Charlie growled. ‘I’m not interested in advertising who I am or where I am. As far as anyone’s concerned, I’m just plain Charlie Anderson, retired nobody. Understand?’
‘Whatever you like, mate. I won’t say a dicky. But what’re you doin’ in Tassie?’
‘I was hoping for a quiet life where nobody knows me. Was.’
Wayne screwed up his face in thought. ‘Yeah, wasn’t you in the Engelbert Humperdinck … somethin’ to do with drugs?’
Bridget was rigid with horror. This was worse than being ogled, worse than having a sex pervert next door. Here they were, drinking coffee with a criminal, a jailbird, a drug fiend. Her body poised itself for flight but she did not trust her legs.
They were all standing. Bridget was looking with longing at the door. Wayne was looking at Charlie whose expression had darkened. ‘Yeah, I got busted once too often for coke,’ he said in a low voice, ‘and they threw the fucking book at me.’ For the first time he noticed Bridget’s expression. ‘You needn’t worry, love. Charlie Angas’s dead and buried and Charlie Anderson’s as clean as a whistle. Doesn’t even smoke.’
Wayne put the photograph back on the chest. ‘We got the band to play it at our wedding,’ he said. ‘For the bridal waltz.’
‘What?’
‘Love Everlasting. We had it for our bridal waltz. It’s our favourite song.’
‘But it’s not a fucking waltz ...’
‘It’s still a great song, mate. Loved Elsa singin’ it. Made a great bridal waltz.’
Silence filled the room in a way Bridget had not previously experienced, not so much an absence of sound as a pervasive presence that highlighted everyone’s discomfort. She tried to catch Wayne’s eye but he was staring at Charlie with something between wonderment and worship.
‘Her record’s still the best, if you ask me,’ Wayne said. ‘None of the others even come close.’
‘No, there’ll never be another one as good as that. I wrote it for her and on the record she was singing it to me.’
Wayne nodded. ‘That’s right, I forgot. You were on together, weren’t you, and–’
‘Wayne!’ Bridget found her voice, although to her it sounded like someone else’s. ‘I think that’s Mr Angas’s private business.’
‘Hardly bloody private,’ Charlie said in a low voice. ‘It was all over every newspaper in the country. Bass star dumps wife, kids for sultry songstress. I’ll never forget that one. Bass star! Nobody’d even heard of me till then. Five months later it was Carnaby chucks Changa, punts on footy legend, and then there was Love Neverlasting: Carnaby, Changa split.’ He poured cognac into his mug, his hand shaking with emotion. ‘One poor fucking muso’s life and career immortalised in half a dozen shit newspaper headlines. I can still remember some others. Mulga Mob cites booze for Changa boot – nice rhythm, that, and double illiteration – and New Changa coke charge: star’s career on the nose. And what about Touching bass: cokey Changa weeps in dock? Loved that fucker.
‘And you know what?’ he said, his voice rising. ‘Somewhere in there was one good one too, one real fucking cracker of a headline: Love Everlasting breaks US, UK chart records, or something like that. That was the only good one. Good news is no news as far as the fucking papers are concerned.’
‘At least you was famous,’ Wayne said.
‘Yeah, I was famous all right. Do you want to know what I was famous for? It wasn’t for being an okay bassist in a pretty fair group or even for writing a pretty good song that broke a lot of sales records all over the world – it was for leaving my wife and kids and going off with Elsa Carnaby. That’s all I was famous for, thanks to crap newspapers and shit women’s magazines. When Elsa dumped me I got to be even more famous, and when I got sacked from the group because I couldn’t stand to be near Elsa after that unless I was so pissed I couldn’t tell you what key I was in, I got more famous still. And when I got busted for possession the last time and chucke
d in the slammer – mate, I was a fucking star.’ He poured more cognac into his mug and drank it straight down.
Silence engulfed them. Charlie, staring into space, was gripping the mug so tightly that his knuckles showed white. He seemed older than he had at first and somehow pathetic, and Bridget had to remind herself that this was a man who had deserted his wife and children, a man who had been a drug fiend and had gone to jail, a man, worst of all, who was now her next-door neighbour. It was all so alien, so unthinkable, that she needed fresh air. ‘I think we should go home now, Wayne,’ she murmured. ‘It’s a work day tomorrow and Mr–’
‘Wanna know something?’ Charlie said suddenly. He had begun to slur words. ‘Since you’ve busted into my house and helped yourself to my life, I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone before. Never.’
They waited, Wayne curious, Bridget apprehensive.
‘It’s this,’ he said. ‘Would it surprise you to know I’m a lucky guy – a very lucky guy? How ’bout that? Quite a surprise, eh? Treated like fucking shit by the woman I love, chucked out of the group I started, done time in stinking jail with the scum of the Earth, always watching my arse in the showers … lucky guy, eh?’
‘Well, you was a big star and had a big hit and probably made a lot of brass,’ Wayne said. ‘I’d call that lucky.’
‘Crap! I’ll tell you why I’m a very lucky guy – because I’ve experienced something most people never do – passion. Real passion. You ever experienced passion, Wayne?’ He answered his own question before Wayne could respond. ‘No, you haven’t. Yeah, I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to tell me how you fell passionately in love with wifey here and got married and plan to live happily ever after. Well, I’ve got bad news for you, sunshine – that’s not passion. I was in love with my wife too, just like you, and I loved our kids to bits, but I left them for Elsa Carnaby because of passion. We had five awesome months together and the sex was fucking seismic and in that time and out of that passion I wrote Love Everlasting and she sang it on the record with the same passion I felt because she felt it too and that’s why everybody loves that song and nobody’ll ever make a better record of it. Passion.’
Nervously, Wayne glanced towards the door.
‘No, don’t go. Let me finish, for Chrissakes, since you started it. Love’s what you got married for, what we all got married for, but it isn’t passion. Love’s for kids, sunshine. Passion is when love isn’t enough and could never be enough. Passion’s what makes you leave the wife and kids you love and burn your bridges. After that, love’s just too fucking pissweak. Yeah, I wrote that song and put everything I felt for Elsa into it but it wasn’t enough. Know why? I wanted to die for her, die a heroic death for her somehow. I’d even have killed for her – wanted to, would’ve killed someone if she’d asked me. That’s passion, sunshine. That’s what I felt for Elsa Carnaby. I’d happily have taken a bullet for her or run into a burning building to pull her out. Jesus, I really and truly wanted that to happen – I really did. I wanted to give my life for that woman just to prove the depth of my passion for her. And that was my big mistake.’
They were helpless to move, gripped by the visceral power of his emotion.
‘It was my big mistake because eventually she knew she couldn’t match what I felt for her, couldn’t even come close to feeling like that for me, and I scared the shit out of her.’ His voice cracked and fell. ‘So she dumped me. For a footballer. A dickhead fucking footballer.’
He seemed spent. His shoulders shook. Bridget tugged on Wayne’s arm. ‘Thank you for the coffee,’ she said, needing to say something to break the binding but surprised she could speak at all. She wanted to say I’m sorry I thought you were ogling me but it seemed irrelevant.
‘Just go away!’ he said, his voice low and choked. ‘Just get the fuck out!’ The last word shattered into a sob, and the sounds of engulfing anguish followed them to the front door and out into the sanctuary of darkness.
Bridget did not feel like sleeping. For a long time after Wayne went to bed she stood in the shower, soaping her body and thinking about Charlie Angas. He was not a nice man. He was coarse, she thought, especially his disgraceful language and his nasty temper, a man who had left his wife and children, a man who had been in jail, but really he was just pathetic. After musing about it for some time she found she was still soaping and resoaping her body. She rinsed it off, stepped out of the shower, and began to towel herself dry with a sometimes uncomfortable vigour.
When she took herself to bed and put the light out she still did not feel drowsy. She lay restlessly amid the rhythmic hills and dales of Wayne’s snoring. The night was pleasantly warm; spring blossoms were opiate on the air. Her body was warm from the shower and warm from the towelling she had given it. Somewhere out in the night two tomcats began to threaten each other but stopped when a dog barked.
Wondering how she could report the night’s events to Aymee while respecting Charlie’s desire for anonymity kept her brain churning. She turned her bedside radio softly on and listened for a while to a favourite talkback program, but tonight the callers’ cavilling opinions made her so irritable that she turned it off. When the tomcats began to yowl again from a different direction she tensed, expecting the barking to resume, but it did not, and as the yowling moved gradually away she relaxed and finally succumbed to sleep. Deep in its eddies she dreamt she had left a door open but when she got up to close it she found it already shut. She returned to her bed and her dreaming but the door was still there and it was still ajar. It was a door to an unfamiliar room and no matter how often she tried to close it, it stayed ajar.
Bios and contact details
Arden, Lynette
Lynette Arden lives in Adelaide, South Australia. Her first poetry collection, A Pause in the Conversation, was published in New Poets 15 (Friendly St Poets and Wakefield Press). She also enjoys writing short fiction.
Assumpter, Irene
Irene is an artist and writer based in Australia. Her first entry to narratorAUSTRALIA, Odd Footy Boy, has been nominated for the Caine Prize for African Writing. The winning story will be announced at a dinner at the Bodleian Library in Oxford on Monday 8 July 2013.
Bingham, Leonie
Leonie has recently moved to the Blue Mountains from the Far North Coast of NSW. She works as a manuscript assessor and has recently completed a university degree in creative writing. Getting to know the Blue Mountains’ landscape and culture is her current passion.
Blackwell, Penny
Penny’s next books, The Hermit and the Ivory Box (a novella based on a character in Loki’s Joke), and Twentieth Century She (a poetry collection), are due out mid-2013.
Bruton, Judith
Judith is a published writer and visual artist who lives and works in Byron Bay, NSW. For more about Judith, visit her website at www.judithbruton.com
Callaghan, Linda
Linda Callaghan is a Blue Mountains artist who released her creativity late in 2008. She exhibits yearly and in 2011 won the Springwood Art Show prize. She uses a wide range of mediums and paints many subjects inspired by her surroundings and emotions. Linda also enjoys writing inspirational poetry to accompany her works. Her paintings and poetry can be viewed at lindart1.redbubble.com/ and her book, Essence of Australia, is available at au.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1466296.
Chaffey, Robyn
Robyn is a writer who says she is ‘still on her “L” plates’. She enjoys experimenting with differing types of writing as well as the camaraderie of the writers she is coming to know.
Cox, Robert
Robert has published two well-received books of Tasmanian history and has just completed a third. His short-story collections Alibis, Lies, Goodbyes; The Clarity of Tears; and Agony and Variations are available at www.ginninderrapress.com.au.
Demelza
Demelza loves to write and loves to read, but doesn’t always understand all the bits in between. You can Google her with ‘call me in the m
orning – poems by mellie’ where she intends to upload one poem, once a week, for one year.
If you like her work you can see more of it at melzapoet.blogspot.com.au.
Dimitric, Irina
Irina enjoys writing short stories and poetry. Most of her work can be found at www.gather.com.
For more on Fibonacci poetry, have a look at The Fib Review at www.musepiepress.com/fibreview and About.com’s Poetry page at poetry.about.com/od/poeticforms/a/fibonaccipoems.htm.
Edgar, Bob
Bob is the author of the young adult adventure novel, SOS from Rhodon Valley, as well as the early reader, Tom Tuff to the Rescue.
Tom Tuff tells the story of a little tug boat with a big heart. It has been beautifully illustrated by Todd Sharp (www.toddsharpartworks.com.au) and is available online through Amazon.
For more about Bob, visit his site at www.robertedgardauthor.com.
Elliott, Hannah Mary
Hannah enjoys writing poetry and short fiction. She is the author of The Brown Exorcist which is available on Amazon.
Hannah’s blog is at hannahmaryelliott.wordpress.com.
Ellis, Phillip A.
Phillip is a freelance critic, poet and scholar. His chapbooks, The Flayed Man and Symptoms Positive and Negative are available from Amazon and his website respectively, and he is working on a collection for Diminuendo Press. Another has been accepted by Hippocampus Press. He is the editor of Melaleuca and his website is at www.phillipaellis.com.
Fermanis-Windward, Michele
Michele finds that poetry allows her to step out of the day-to-day and into a playground of words where she can follow the sandy footprints of her imagination. For more about Michele and her writing, visit her blog at www.michelefermanis-winward.com.
Fogarty, Naomi
Naomi says that she enjoys putting her amateur writing and expert daydreaming skills to some good use! Her alter ego also blogs at queenandsword.com and you can join her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/QueenandSword.
Gardiner, Alex aka The Auld Yin
Alexander Gardiner (aka The Auld Yin) is situated in the beautiful Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. He creates sculptures and poetry in the scenic town of Bullaburra. In real life he manages a small wholesale nursery in the Blue Mountains, propagating everything from African violets to maidenhair ferns and all other sorts of exotic plants. He hopes you enjoy his passion, in this case for poetry in the Scottish vernacular.
To read Alexander’s poetry and listen to it being read in the Scottish vernacular with sound, visit his page at Fanstory at fanstory.com/mypage.jsp?userid=465108.
To view his sculptures and other works visit his Red Bubble page at www.redbubble.com/people/windana1.
Gibbs, Thomas
Thomas Gibbs is a 23 year old writer from Redfern, NSW. Follow Thomas on Twitter: @ThomasAGibbs.
Govier, Mark
Mark grew up in Port Adelaide, went to Adelaide University, and ended up working for Long Bay Prison, Sydney, and in many other court and government positions.
Hall, Emma
Emma is a writer, reader, student, tutor, blogger and perpetual dreamer. For more about Emma and her writings, please visit her blog at www.waywithwords4.wordpress.com.
Heks, Andris
Andris has a background in political journalism and social work. He has written many poems and articles, a few songs and two plays including Ai Weiwei’s Tightrope Act that recently premiered at UTS in Sydney. You can find his music on YouTube and his written works across the internet by Googling ‘Andris Heks’.
Howell, Connie
Connie is a western shaman who loves to write stories that inspire others, especially women. She has worked in the arena of energy healing for thirty years and continues to expand her awareness which then helps those who come to her.
Johnson, Amber
Amber holds the record, we believe, for having one piece of work published in each month that narratorAUSTRALIA has been running. Find out more about Amber and her writing career at her new blog at xianthia.blogspot.com.au.
Kennedy, Rob
Rob is a writer, poet and composer. He has articles plus poetry published in the Sydney Morning Herald, Cordite, AGNSW, State of the Arts, Five Bells, Say Something, Art Interview, Newswrite and the UK based Culture Wars on the arts and social commentary. Find out more about Rob at his website at www.robkennedy.co.
La Porte, Judith
Judith began writing short stories a couple of years ago. She usually bases her stories on personal experience and then allows her imagination to take hold.
Linn, Marilyn
Marilyn has been writing poems and short stories for pleasure for a number of years. She has had several small pieces of work published.
Lock, Julie
Julie Lock lives in Melbourne with her partner, two daughters and two cats. She loves to write so last year she joined the Avenue Writers’ Collective in Blackburn South. Follow Julie on Twitter: @Juli3Martin.
Lutta, Fayroze
Fayroze is a non fiction writer who likes everything real tactile and direct to the touch. She can be found somewhere hiding out holed up in a café-side late night with her Olivetti typewriter skulking in the corner typing away, ghosts of Jack Kerouac and Paul Bowles haunting her moves.
McDougall, Garry
Garry is an author, artist and photographer, not to mention a traveller! His Tribute to Decazeville is part of a soon-to-be published ebook series, Tapas Pilgrimage: French and Spanish Pilgrimage Towns and Tales. Find out lots more about Garry at his website at utrave4.wix.com/garrymcdougall.
McGloin, Barry
Barry has been busy compiling his second book of short stories and poems, called Old Mates. His blog is at barrymcgloin.blogspot.com.au.
Metcalfe, Carly-Jay
Carly-Jay is a Brisbane based writer of poetry, literary fiction and memoir. For more about Carly-Jay visit her blog at bruisesyoucantouch.com.
Paton, Toni
Toni is the author of Whimsical Verse, an illustrated poetry book for children aged four through to 12. It is available from Amazon in print form and for Kindle.
Pensable, Des
Des Pensable is interested in satirical writing, poetry, philosophy and social commentary. You can read some of his recent works at www.despensable.com.au or join him on Facebook.
Portingale, Paris
Paris Portingale is the author of the novel Art and the Drug Addict’s Dog, The Trouble with Daleks, several other unpublished novels, and many, many short stories.
Pratt, Tamara
Tamara’s short stories have been published in Australian and USA anthologies and have placed in several short story competitions, including the Glass Woman Prize. In 2011, Tamara was awarded a Fellowship by the Eleanor Dark Foundation and stayed at Varuna, the Writers’ House, where she was mentored by Australian crime author Marele Day. Tamara has authored crime fiction and young adult novels. Tamara is active in a number of writing groups and is serving as Vice President of the Fellowship of Australian Writers Queensland (FAWQ), and is Senior Editor of Compose Online Journal. Currently, Tamara is represented by literary agent Rick Raftos Management.
Tamara’s website is www.tamarapratt.com, and you can follow her on Twitter at:@tamarapratt.
Renew, Sandra
Sandra lived in the fascinating country of Afghanistan for three years, working with children affected by armed conflict, and worked in other war-affected countries for many years. She is now attempting to capture and share some of her memorable and significant experiences.
Ross, John
Saint-Malo, Shey
Shey is an ex scientist rehabilitated to the arts. She holds a Master of Arts (Writing) and has published short fiction and poetry in Regime, dotdotdash, Islet, Blue Giraffe, Trove, Cottonmouth, Landscapes and Creatrix journals.
Sargent, Susan
Susan is a registered nurse and midwife in country New South Wales. She has always been a writer of sorts, but only rece
ntly brave enough to try publishing ... her hard drives are full of unfinished pieces!
Shankar, Peter
Peter grew up the son of a migrant family and realised the implications of not speaking English over a lifetime. If you’re interested in buying his book, which includes the story Speak English Please, published in this volume, get in touch with Peter at petershankar@rocketmail.com.
Singer, Ariette
Ariette is a performance poet/singer/composer who loves to entertain live whenever possible with her ‘tongue in both cheeks’ poetry and songs, or make her readers and audiences think. She performs live and on community radio, has won national poetry competitions, and her work has been published in anthologies and online poetry magazines in the USA and Australia.
Smith, Winsome
Winsome lives at Lithgow at the edge of the beautiful Blue Mountains, New South Wales. She has always been a writer and a storyteller. She has won prizes and been highly commended for stories, articles and poems. Her latest book, Tales the Laundress Told, will be released later this year.
Smithers, Shane
Shane Smithers is a Senior Lecturer in Humanities at the University of Western Sydney.
Stanbridge, Deborah
Deborah is a free spirited person who is inspired by God, travel, life and friends. She grew up in Western Sydney, studied in Albury and is currently chasing work and adventure around Australia. A creative writing course created a love of writing poetry.
Walker, Vickie
Vickie enjoys writing short stories and poetry and has had some minor success in competitions. She loves to travel and uses her travels often for inspiration.
Wicks, Les
Les has toured widely and been published in more than 250 different magazines, anthologies and newspapers in nine languages across 16 countries. His tenth book of poetry is Barking Wings (PressPress, 2012). Find out more about Les at leswicks.tripod.com.lw.htm.
Williams, Ian Kennedy
Ian lives in Launceston and is the author of three novels and three collections of short stories. He is the books editor for Tasmanian Sagacity magazine.
Zaknic, Athena
Athena is a member of the U3A writing group in Adelaide. She has had her poetry and short stories published in hard copy and online over the past three years.
July 2010
A brief history of narratorAUSTRALIA
Hazelbrook, NSW
It was a dark and stormy night …
Actually, it wasn’t stormy, but it was certainly dark and cold in the Katoomba laneway where we had gathered to shoot the cover of Paris Portingale’s Art and the Drug Addict’s Dog. As we were wrapping up, Paris’ lovely wife said to me that she felt he should publish a collection of his short stories. My first thought was: Who reads short stories? Well, apparently, lots of people!
The wonderful thing about being in small business is that you can make a decision, and then execute it. No committees. No arguments. Screw it, just do it. (With apologies to both Nike AND Richard Branson!)
Ten days after that photo shoot, we ran an ad in the local paper, and seven weeks later released the first quarterly issue of narrator MAGAZINE Blue Mountains.
A year later we released the first issue of narrator MAGAZINE Central Tablelands, as part of our plan to have many regional issues across the country. What we hadn’t counted on was the effects of the GFC – getting advertising was impossible. Trying to produce two quarterly issues without funding was beyond us, so we rolled them into what would be the bigger, better, all new, shiny, singing and dancing narrator MAGAZINE NSW/ACT, with plans to bring out other state issues.
Again the GFC beat us, and in March/April 2012, we figured we were dead in the water. The decision was made to pull the plug, and then, in the dark of night, an idea floated in out of nowhere, thanks to The Sandman. And so narratorAUSTRALIA was born – as a daily online publication, supplemented by a half-yearly print on demand version. It makes us so happy to be able to use modern technology to adhere to ecologically beneficial practices (digital and print on demand publishing) to reach across the country on a daily basis and connect with so many wonderful writers.
Thank you all – readers and writers alike – for your support. Without you, these volumes would not exist.
Jennifer Mosher, AE
Editor-in-Chief