The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife, and other stories and Ceremony for Ground: Narrative, Landscape, Myth By Barbara Temperton This thesis is presented for the degree of Master of Arts (Creative Writing) of The University of Western Australia English and Cultural Studies 2006 Abstract The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife, and other stories and “Ceremony for Ground: Narrative, landscape, Myth” The focus of this project is on poetry, narrative, landscape and myth, and the palimpsest and/or hybridisation created when these four areas overlay each other. Our local communities’ engagement with myth-making activity provides a golden opportunity for contemporary poets to continue the practice long established by our forebears of utilising folklore and legendary material as sources for poetry. Keeping in mind the words of M. H. Abrams who said “an integrated mythology, whether inherited or invented, is essential to literature”, I set about collecting and transforming into poetry narratives drawn from Albany and (for the third poem) from the north of Western Australia that draw on their dramatic landscapes. The creative writing component of this project – The Lighthouse Keeper’s wife, and other stories – consists of three long, narrative poems. 1. “The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife” Based on folklore surrounding the keepers of the old Point King Lighthouse and their families: a lighthouse keeper, his wife and three daughters spend their days - and nights - in a very precarious environment. 2. “The Gap” “The Gap” at Albany has a notorious reputation. So does Julz. From the moment she arrives with the shearing team, life for the farmer’s son takes a different direction. 3. “Jetty Stories” Every year the bird woman follows migrating flocks from the rim of the Arctic Circle south to the tidal flats of the Kimberley and then, at the right time, she follows them north again. When tragedy strikes, the bird woman’s haunted lover finds himself travelling further south. The dissertation – “Ceremony for Ground: Narrative, Landscape, Myth” – succinctly examines the theory and history of narrative; contemporary narrative poetry and its techniques; landscape naming practices, and folkloric myths (including ghost stories). The folklore component also contains the elaboration and analysis of several local narratives: “Reddin’s Ghost”, “Fisherman’s Ghost”, “The Gap” and “Tidal Flats”. (Appendix 4 contains other local legends) The dissertation concludes with a section on sidebars (or marginalia) offering a solution to the problem of the dominance of contemporary narrative poetry by narrative itself. Contents Acknowledgements The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife, and other stories 1 The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife 2 The Gap 29 Jetty Stories 57 “Ceremony for Ground: Narrative, Landscape, Myth” 91 Bibliography 147 Appendices: 1. Publications 159 2. Workshop 165 3. “Wind in the Pines” by Dave Fitzpatrick 168 4. Other Local Narratives 170 Acknowledgements This project has taken five years. During that period many people and agencies have helped, either by providing me with local narratives, technical advice, their editorial and proofreading skills, or by supporting and nurturing me through the process. Although it is not possible to mention everyone by name, or to express fully my gratitude to them, I wish to acknowledge these people here. The Albany History Collection, Albany Public Library and staff University of Western Australia - Albany Centre WA Museum - Albany Albany Town Hall Theatre: Stewart Gartland and Kevin Blyth The Sprung Writers’ Festival for nurturing the Story to Song Project, and my colleague, composer Rod Vervest for his outstanding musicianship and friendship. thewritersgroup@albany: Maree Dawes, Libby Corson, Dianne Wolfer, Joy Kilian, Liane Shavian, and Jackie Marsh – for all the workshops, friendship and support they have given me. Their knowledge and encouragement has been invaluable. Kathryn Trees, whose friendship and timely feedback gave me new momentum when I was struggling. My family, especially Shannon and Clifton Peter Brandt, Thunderheart My wonderful partner, John McBeath, who understands my obsession. Bill Temperton and Mary Whitty Mark Lyall, who gave me the first story Bruce Pope, technical advisor CALM Albany; Mark Roddy – Ranger, and Corinn Hine (author of the text on CALM interpretive signs at the Gap) Linda Elms – State Emergency Service, Albany And, Adam Wolfe; Stan Austin; Dennis Wooltorton; Michelle Frantom; Sarah Drummond; Tony Smith; Peter Blyth; Dan and Dave (Snowy) the fishermen; Naomi Dann; Sally Bin Denim; Albany Port Authority; Bill Temperton Jnr; William Temperton; Dave Fitzpatrick; Barbara Black; Warren Flynn; Val Milne, Lyn Peters and Adrienne Beatty. The anonymous storytellers, I thank you all for speaking in my presence. This project has provided me with the opportunity to work under the supervision of Dr Dennis Haskell, whose scholarship and writing skills I have long admired. Dennis has been unfailingly patient, supportive and generous with his knowledge and skills, and a true friend. Rhonda Haskell inspires both of us. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to the UWA Centenary Trust for Women for the provision of the 2005 CTW Scholarship. Their support meant I was able complete this thesis. Finally, to the University of Western Australia, I thank you for making all this possible. The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife, and other stories 1 (This page has been left blank intentionally) 2 The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife 3 Dawn. There’s still a bit of south in the wind. Waves have worried the beach in two, the keeper’s wife collects driftwood, feathers. There’s something about the air, now: a quality of light, an intensity of colour that awes her, and that place becomes an X on her map of moments with God. Walking in the mist on the beach at dawn: whales exhale just beyond the wave line, flippers and tail flukes slow arc from the sea, leviathans rolling in the shallows. At the high tide line, cuttlefish, shells, mounded kelp – a dead Shearwater half-cast in sand – tail feathers teased by breeze and the memory of flight, and framed by footprints of dogs and gulls. Another Shearwater, feet at point, Degas ballerina, wings splayed, eyes collapsed in their sockets. And thereafter another seven, hooked bill locked mid-cry. The morning mist begins its skyward drift to the sun as horses, with their fierce riders, thunder through the curtain and into day, the sea silver, molten, and the air taking on something like substance, as though she could reach out and touch something solid and she feels she’s left the world, or perhaps only just stepped into it. 4 Cargo ships riding high in the water swing round on their anchor chains – like broad-hipped matrons guarding the approach to the channel. Low tide: a pair of foxes hunt crabs and snails in rusty-lichen lipped pools formed by shallow clefts in the rock. The vixen limps. The keeper’s wife has run away, again, and the furthest she can go and still see the lighthouse is the other Harbour on the opposite side of the Sound. Half-way, she’d watched a sailing boat, two men fighting canvas, ropes, the wind; and the Harbour Master’s steam launch, red, butting whitecaps, getting nowhere. Five cargo ships in the sound today. Five ships. Salmon fishermen on the beach battling nets, breakers, spray. Beams of sunlight pierce clouds – she has heard her husband call them fingers of God. Crushed mussel shells on the rocks at her feet. Pelican suspended in the wind. Beacons. Guano smeared rocks. Evening swimmers, voices drifting to her with seaweed woven round a discarded hawser. The Harbour Master’s launch labours into the channel, 5 wallowing toward the Harbour. Aboard, the crew stand still their gaze intent upon a tow rope astern. Five ships in the Sound. Five ships. Men’s gaze astern intent upon the tow-rope taut over tide change. Sudden rush of fish onto the hooks of fishermen. Five cargo ships. Why, she asks herself, must she always be working towards something, why every moment must be extra-real so she’ll remember, the world often so other-worldly, separate. Why can’t she just sit? Enjoy rocks, wind, sea, because they’re rocks, wind, sea, and not be rising to her feet to watch a red launch tow an upturned sailing boat, not to see one man astern, standing apart from the crew: not to see that one man, wet, shivering. Her bed linen was knotted when she woke, but dawn was soft: Clouds, teased to string, evaporating. The scrub beyond the verandah was still standing, trimmed by broken branches, subsiding wind fretting with battered leaves. Now, the sky is clearing, but the keeper’s wife conjured a storm in her sleeping, 6 it funnelled out into the night through her open window, scattered whirlwinds like confetti across the Sound, wreckage onto the rocks. * On her way back to the lighthouse she stops to watch the keeper swimming in the channel, joins the black dog sitting on the rocks, waits for her husband to come ashore. Two years, he’d said. Three daughters and twelve years later, the keeper’s wife’s sense of another season turning over is as sharp as the thorns on Prickly Moses. Not an ordinary lighthouse, her home on the hillside above the channel. Not an ordinary lighthouse: a cottage with a double-ridged roof, south wall bisected by a weather-boarded tower squared and copper-capped, three keeper-lengths high. Not an ordinary cottage, walls as thick as her husband’s chest. the tower-light a May-pole the keeper’s wife and daughters skip around west-east, east-west. Once, she saw a ghost, grey as possibility, drip salt water along the passageway mount the ladders to the tower, some long-drowned former tenant drawn back to trim the twin wicks, combined bright light visible for miles.