a novel by Philip Salam PLAYBACK I' ( b- r~ ~ BACK Jack Biner, folklorist and gifted listener, imagines Windru p is just another country town and its people. But soon he is entrusted with the vivid and often moving world of these people's memories. His need to remain an impartial collector is shaken. He finds he must live through much more than his own dilemmas as he meets Mrs Bukowski, the moody landlady; Laura, the painter; her cagey husband; and the enigmatic Fisher . , ... poet Philip Salom's first novel (has) an intensity and strong contemporary motion which will 'honey the nerves' of its readers ... ' Australian Bookseller & Publisher FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE PRESS WESTERLY a quarterly review ISSN 0043-342x EDITORS: Bruce Bennett, Peter Cowan, Dennis Haskell EDITORIAL ADVISORS: Margot Luke (prose ),Delys Bird (poetry), Brenda Walker (reviews) EDITORIAL CONSULTANTS: Diana Brydon (University of Guelph), John Hay (Monash University ),Dorothy Hewett (Sydney ),Brian Matthews (Flinders University), Vincent 0' Sullivan (Victoria University, Wellington), Peter Porter (London), Anna Ruthelford (University of Aarhus), Edwin Thumhoo (National University of Singapore ), Alhert Wertheim (University of Indiana) ADMINISTRATOR: Caroline Horohin Westerly is published quarterly at the Centre for Studies in Australian Literature in the English Department, University of Western Australia with assistance from The Literary Arts Board of the Australia Council, the Federal government's arts funding and advisory body, and the State Government of W.A. through the Department for the Arts. 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Subscriptions should be made payable to Westerly and sent to The Secretary, CSAL, Department of English, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Western Australia 6009, Work published in Westerly is cited in: Abstracts of English Studies, Australian Literary Studies Annual Bibliography, Australian National Bibliography, Journal ofCommonll'ealth Literature Annual Bibliography, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Current Contents/Arts & Humanities, The Genuine Article, Modern Language Association of America Bibliography, The Year's Work in English Studies, and is indexed in APAIS: Australian Public Affairs Information Sen'ice (produced by the National Library of Australia) and AUSTLlT, the Australian Literary On-Line Database. Three Westerly Indexes, 1956-77, 1978-83 and 1984-88, are available at $5.00 each from the above address. Department for theArts Australia •Government of Western Austmlia WESTERLY, No.2. JUNE. 1991 2 WESTERLY. No.2. JUNE. 1991 CONTENTS WESTERLY VOLUME 36, No.2, JUNE 1991 STORIES The Return Hal Colehatch 5 The Projectionist Jamie Stewart 8 Woman in Dark Clothing Carmel Bird 9 Jealous Ann Domhroski 27 And Then Paris Susanne Germy 29 One P.M. Marsh 33 Colour Me Black Hugh Roherts 35 Thirroul, 1970 Gail Bell 53 Strange Things Grow at Chemobyl Rosaleen Love 55 People and how they Respond to Bagpipes in the Evening Dm'id Cohen 59 The Walk (New Street, 1937) Yl'e Louis 62 Here is a Woman Nikki Gemmell 78 Bitter-Sweet Brigid Lowry 81 POEMS Faye Davis 10 Stephen Magee 26 Barhara Giles 13 Martin R Johnson 38 Graeme Wi/son 14 Bruce Dawe 39 David Buchanan 35,37 Anne Fairhairn 44 Catherine Con:ato 22,51,84 Alec Choate 50 Andrew Lansdown 23 Pat Boran 52 Alan Alexander 24 ARTICLES "A Pleasant, Meaningless Discord": Helen Gamer's 'The Children's Bach' Nicholas Mansfield 17 Reflections on 'Ingelba' Patsy Cohen. Margaret Somerville 45 Jack Lindsay's Romantic Communism Paul Gillen 65 REVIEWS R.F. Brissenden, 'Sacred Sites' Alec Choate 85 Gary Anson, 'Pamphlet Poets Series One' Philip Salom 86 Katherine Gallagher 'Fish-Rings on Water' Lawrence Bourke 88 Laurie Duggan, 'Blue Notes'; Peter Rose 'The House of Vitriol' Chris Wallace-Crahhe 89 Alan Brisseden ed., 'Aspects of Australian Fiction' Amanda Nettelheck 91 Livio Dobrez, 'Parnassus Mad Ward' Andrew Burke 93 CONTRIBUTORS 95 Cover design by Susan Ellvey of Designpoint. Printed by Lamb Printers Pty Ltd. WESTERLY. No.2. JUNE. 1991 HAL COLEBATCH The Return The old couple's visit was part pilgrimage, part tourism. Now, as they left their hired car, their gait as well as their voices betrayed a mixture of fear and resolution. "I'm sure it's safe. They know who we are. They granted us visas, after all. And nothing happened at the hotel. If they were going to do anything they would have done it by now." "Who knows how closely they read the application? They might be re-reading it and realising who we are at this moment. Or it might be a cat-and-mouse game." "I'm sure it's safe" Paul's sister said to him again after a pause. Not far to the back of both their minds was the voice of a ruined century's wisdom and the stench of an infinity of graves: let's go back to the city. Keep our heads down. We shouldn't have come. Part of the purpose of their speech now was to drive that wisdom away. "They're not going to arrest us! We don't matter to them one way or the other. We're simply an irrelevance." "They never forget." The voice was of those memories that were never far away in this country. "The past is too far past. They don't see us as Enemies of the People any more." "How do we know?" Both were nervous now, giving each other courage. "This is 1990. Look, we have our passports. The consulate knows where we are. The worst they'll do is deport us." But this time is a moment, an episode, a temporary accident, the voice said. "The place seems deserted." "It's the off-season." "They probably won't let us in." "Well, we can ask." "Are you sure it's wise?" "We should have checked the opening hours." They needed protective camouflage here. A busy day would have protected them, bustling with parties of tourists to see this ornate relic of Feudalism. Among the crowds in Moscow they had, after the first few days, felt safer. But still the thing that had brought them spoke against wisdom, among the dusty sunflowers. "Would Father have hesitated? Or Grandfather. Come on!" They looked in awe as they approached the palace up the rutted, unkempt driveway. Ancient sepia photographs had given them some idea of its size, but not, somehow, of its reality. Photographs on a sideboard in Paul's home now, that had WESTERLY, No, 2, JUNE, 1991 5 once been treasured in their grandfather's Paris tenement. Those photographs had been talismans in years of utter loss and emptiness for two generations, easier to look at, even now, than the albums of dead faces. For the third generation of exiles, for Paul and his sister, foreign born, they were talismans still, though it sometimes seemed they were changed by time and circumstance towards mere curiosities. Am I tourist or pilgrim? The old man wondered again. Or am I just a part of a century when all sign-posts have been erased, when the only certainties are crumbling photographs? Then he stared again at the reality of the palace. "My God! No wonder they ... " "Can you see anybody?" A couple of dilapidated vehicles were parked before the collonaded entrance. The bell was broken. The old man knocked with a tentative hand, then, and it seemed he needed to summon up some resolution to do so, with the handle of his cane. After several minutes an attendant appeared. He was tired-looking, unshaven, heavy-set and wearing the same drab clothes they had become used to during the past ten days in Moscow. "What do you want?" "We wondered if we could visit the museum." "Is closed." "Yes, I'm sorry to trouble you, but we're visitors. We've come a long way," said the old woman. The attendant looked at the pair incuriously. The foreign accents and slightly strange idioms, the obviously Western cut and quality of their dress, made no apparent impression on him. The doors began to close. Then the old man spoke. "Our family used to live here." "So?" "You understand, Sir? I mean our family used to live here." He stumbled. Had something come into his voice? The visit was becoming an ordeal as he had expected. Easier to tum and go, yes, even to obey instinct and run, but... "Our father... We would like to see where our father was bom." "Museum is closed." The door began to shut. Then the attendant spoke again: "Who was your father?" "Alexis Birilov... " began the old woman. She stared at the attendant defiantly. Alexis Birilov had died the part-owner of a tiny photographic studio, his dead hands stained with developing fluid.