Yes, Max, liked it - just a peak behind the door of a thespian clan. There
are layers within layers in that world - from buskers to film stars. Such
colourful characters!
Andrew
On 15 September 2016 at 16:18, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> I liked this too, Max as a portrait of untypical Melbourne life, of a
> risk-taker, and ber entourage. I take it the final stanza refers to a scene
> in one of C-A's films, Doug. 'going doing' looks a bit odd at the end of
> line 5.
>
> Bill
>
> On Thursday, 15 September 2016, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > Carole-Ann, My Neighbour’s Wife
> >
> > I did not covet, but others had.
> > She chose actor Terry Gill, traded
> > West End showbiz for the new
> > life, Melbourne showbiz.
> >
> > They kept going doing
> > December shows in malls -
> > whatever held kids still,
> > amused while parents shopped.
> >
> > TV gave them bit parts -
> > when one worked, the other
> > minded the son and daughter
> > growing up into showbiz.
> >
> > They were good neighbours.
> > Our homes above the Yarra
> > in a bush suburb, each summer
> > might have burned to ash,
> >
> > had fire come our way.
> > Keep the vegetation down!
> > Terry bought a goat - any green
> > plant it munched. Me, its holiday
> >
> > minder, when I shifted its tether
> > and peg and replenished its water,
> > it tried to butt. That hot summer,
> > goat and us - we weren’t roasted.
> >
> > We’d warn each other: ‘neighbour,
> > watch for snakes in that border.’
> > My dog startled the Gill daughter
> > off her pony. Her arm fractured,
> >
> > threatening her dance career.
> > Watched close by father and mother,
> > it healed, but Erin rode no more.
> > The December show had its star.
> >
> > TV personalities
> > thronged their loud weekend parties.
> > Their big cars blocked my driveway.
> > Deathly silence all next day.
> >
> > The former show-girl, Carole-Ann,
> > admired by many in the West End,
> > promised she would introduce,
> > when he visited from England,
> >
> > her writer friend - ever since her
> > fan letter to him on his first book,
> > The Outsider. Did I know it?
> > Everyone knew it, I knew of it.
> >
> > The tale I knew: slim bookish lad
> > sleeps rough, writes best-seller
> > both wide and deep, surveying
> > genius, on his way to being one.
> >
> > He came, stout stolid stupefying
> > in his certainties, bestowing
> > on his hosts and Melbourne
> > England’s - Europe’s - bounty.
> >
> > One of his biographers,
> > a Melbourne man, consulted;
> > corrected, corroborated,
> > enhanced his manuscript.
> >
> > We shook hands - he resumed
> > his monologue. I lacked words
> > to make it dialogue. Home
> > beckoned. Too late for fandom.
> >
> > But first I sat with Carole-Ann’s
> > Dad, retired London law clerk.
> > Such a nuisance - living his last days
> > on top of them, and useless.
> >
> > Another monologuist! - but fun.
> > Tales of judges, barristers,
> > crims, molls and con-men. None
> > genius outsiders. But real.
> >
> > I missed all their funerals.*
> > Carole-Ann survives - on film,
> > a toaster brings electric death
> > while she enjoys a showbiz bath.
> >
> >
> > *I may yet predecease C-A, whose happy 80th
> > is on Youtube, I now find.
>
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
Books available through Walleah Press
http://walleahpress.com.au
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