Comfort Zone

by Lindsay Tanner

  ‘Okay, let’s get him to hospital.’

  Jack took one last yearning look at Farhia, scarcely able to hide his admiration.

  ‘Thank you for being brave. You have a good heart, I think.’

  Jack blushed, and mumbled a meaningless reply. The young banker came to his rescue.

  ‘Still for hire, mate? Looks like the fun’s over.’

  ‘Yeah, no worries.’

  They waved goodbye to Farhia and the two boys after another round of heartfelt thank-yous. Jack agreed to attend at the Carlton police station to make a statement some time in the next couple of days. Matthew made a similar commitment, but his airy, dismissive tone suggested a lack of sincerity. No doubt he had many more important things to do.

  ‘Big one’ll get charged with assault probably, especially if the boy’s arm’s broken.’ Constable Haysman was very businesslike for someone who looked like she would have been playing with dolls only a few years ago. Jack noted the slightly masculine tone in her voice, and wondered if she was a lesbian. Most policewomen were, apparently. Perhaps she was playing with trucks.

  As he walked back towards the cab, he noticed a small book lying on the ground on the edge of the playground area. He bent down and picked it up. It had a pale-blue cover, and looked like a diary or address book. He flicked through it, and saw several pages filled with longhand in a foreign language with lots of long words in which the letters ‘x,’ ‘g,’ and ‘a’ figured prominently. Probably Somali, he thought. She must have dropped it in the scuffle.

  ‘Better get this back to her, I suppose,’ he said to Matt.

  ‘Yeah, guess so.’ He wasn’t interested, now that the action was over.

  ‘I’ll drop it in when I go to the cop shop.’

  ‘Yeah, good idea.’

  As Jack edged himself into the driver’s seat, already feeling pain surging through his lower back, he asked Matt for directions.

  ‘101 Collins Street. There’s a rank outside.’

  ‘Know it well. You see where the other guy went?’

  ‘What other guy?’

  ‘The one who went for me. Bastard had a knife.’

  ‘Didn’t see him. Too busy trying to keep hold of the other one.’

  Jack was beginning to wonder if his knife-wielding attacker had even existed. The banker hadn’t seen him, the mother wasn’t interested, and the cops hadn’t noticed him. Was he some kind of stressed-out hallucination? All Jack could do was park these disturbing thoughts and return to the task at hand.

  After all that carry-on, it wasn’t much of a fare. He kept talking in the hope of shaming Matt into providing a tip. Always a good idea to talk when you’ve got a rich guy in the cab, he often said to other drivers.

  ‘So where you work, Matt?’

  ‘Holman Frank. Probably heard of them …’

  ‘Yeah, sure. One of them millionaire factory joints. You a millionaire?’ Jack looked over at his passenger as he spoke, noting the smooth, even features, wavy brown hair, and dark-blue eyes. A pretty face, he concluded, but something was not quite right. Insincere, shifty — maybe?

  ‘Sadly, no. I do okay, but I’ve only been in the game for a few years.’

  ‘What stuff do you do?’

  ‘Work on big deals, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Like takeovers?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Jack knew very little about investment banking, but he loathed investment bankers on principle. Having exhausted his conversation options about Matt’s occupation, he changed tack.

  ‘She was pretty awesome, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Somali chick. Farhia.’

  ‘Fa Hia?’ Incomprehension spread across Matt’s face.

  Suddenly Jack was distracted by a wayward pedestrian crossing Russell Street against the traffic.

  ‘Fucking idiot!’

  Matt’s focus returned. ‘Oh, yeah, sure, very cute. Maybe you should give her a call.’

  ‘Haven’t got her number.’

  ‘Ah-ha. 9347 1982. Problem solved.’

  ‘How the …’ At first Jack didn’t believe him.

  ‘You should listen if you’re chasing a woman, mate. Number’s easy to remember — I was born in 1982.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Jack turned left into Collins Street, and then quickly executed an illegal U-turn and stopped at the rank. Matt sniffed a couple of times, then unbuckled his seat-belt.

  ‘Thanks, mate,’ he said, handing Jack a large note. ‘Hey, hang onto it. You deserve it.’

  Jack fingered the twenty gratefully. It had been worth it, after all.

  ‘Thanks. Might see you at the cop shop. Good luck with all the deals and stuff.’

  Matt started to lift himself up from the seat, and then slumped back into it.

  ‘Hey, got a card? I use cabs a lot for work. Be good to grab you now and then. You probably know where you’re going, unlike half the cabbies these days.’

  ‘Sure.’ Jack was liking this guy more and more, even though he was an investment banker. He handed over a dog-eared card that looked like it had been produced by a backyard printer. ‘Number’s there. Give us a call.’

  As he drove away, Jack realised he was going to be very late for his changeover. His partner, Ajit, wouldn’t be pleased. Still, an extra twelve bucks in the kick was worth it — an exciting afternoon, and a happy ending.

  He glanced at the small blue book sitting on the central console. It’d be good to talk to Farhia again some time, without kids running around. Maybe he would give her a call the next day. He memorised her number easily: the Carlton 9347 prefix was very familiar, and 1982 was the year that Helen D’Amico had streaked at the Grand Final. All too easy.

  2

  Return

  As he eased his way through the front door of his flat, Jack did his best to ignore the stale, musty, single-man smell that wafted over him. Jack’s flat was one of eight in a crumbling inner-city block that had been built in the 1960s, as part of a process of urban renewal that was called ‘progress’ at the time. Run-down houses had been demolished, and replaced with smart cream-brick flats. Unfortunately, they didn’t stay smart for long.

  Brunswick had become very fashionable in recent years, full of musicians, Greens, and caffé latte professionals. But Balmoral Avenue wasn’t in a fashionable part of the suburb. It was close to the northern end of Lygon Street, some distance from the transformation that was gradually working its way along one of Melbourne’s most glamorous inner-city streets. Jack’s end of Lygon Street was a world of dusty ethnic cafés and cheap clothing shops.

  His flat was on the first floor at the back. The stairs annoyed him, but they did provide some distance from marauding teenagers and wandering drug addicts. Things were quiet most of the time. No one hassled him.

  Jack dumped a small calico bag filled with basic groceries onto his kitchen table and slumped into the threadbare couch that marked the boundary between the kitchen and the lounge room. The afternoon’s exertions had taken a toll: he wasn’t used to physical activity, particularly anything involving violence.

  He thought about taking some Teludene. The full horror of hayfever season was still a few weeks away, but he could sense the early signs creeping through his body. The pressure in the sinuses, tickle in the throat, water in the eyes, irritation in the nose — they were all there, stalking him like jackals shadowing wounded prey.

  Jack had an unusual drug problem. His hayfever had got much worse over the past few years, so he was grateful that a new, and much better, drug had come onto the market. Teludene didn’t get rid of the hayfever entirely, but it made it bearable. The trouble was, it was expensive because it wasn’t subsidised by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. He’d looked it up on Wikipedia, and discovered that it was a slightly modified version of an earl
ier drug called Teldane, which had been withdrawn because it caused liver damage. Jack wasn’t sure whether he wanted to know if they’d fixed the problem.

  Jack knew a bloke whose brother worked in the warehouse of the company that distributed the drug, so he’d managed to gain access to an illicit supply. It wasn’t easy: security at the warehouse was strict, and Harry’s brother wasn’t very reliable. Luckily, though, he was a keen gambler, so he was always on the lookout for a bit of extra cash. Jack paid well below retail for his Teludene, but it was still expensive, and he had to ration it.

  He gritted his teeth, and accepted that it was more important to preserve the meagre stock that had arrived a few days before. He knew his need would be much greater in a few weeks’ time, and there was no guarantee of future supply from Harry’s brother. Last year he’d gone on holiday at a very inconvenient time, leaving Jack high and dry until early October.

  Another empty, meaningless evening loomed: dinner, crap TV, a few cans of VB, and fitful sleep. Jack thought about watching some porn, but it didn’t feel right. The encounter with Farhia had really got to him, and he didn’t want to sully the moment with the crude trash he used to fill the void in his life. He could indulge in fantasies of a higher kind for a while.

  Jack wasn’t accustomed to being a hero, even a minor one. His life was mundane. He had a few mates, but he regarded them as nobodies like himself. He enjoyed going to the football occasionally, even though his team had been forcibly absorbed by the Brisbane Lions, which meant it wasn’t quite the same. Now and then, he’d have a few beers and a few laughs with interesting characters, but that was about it.

  He hadn’t had any kind of relationship with a woman for years. His only protection against drowning in loneliness and boredom was his passengers. A lot of them were windbags and dickheads, but at least every day was different. That afternoon had certainly been an interesting experience. He grimaced as the aches and twinges in his quads and lower back reminded him of his exertions.

  A Current Affair was running a segment on Melbourne’s worst taxidrivers. Within thirty seconds, he was yelling at the screen. There were plenty of bad drivers, that was for sure, but if people had any idea what cabbies had to put up with … aggressive drunks, obnoxious teenagers, middle-class twerps, smelly wogs, vomiting dickheads. You name it, we get it. Who cares if a few drivers don’t know where the Royal Melbourne Hospital is? Jack was too tired to continue seething, so he turned the TV off and got up to start cooking his dinner.

  The standard Balmoral Avenue dinner consisted of cheap sausages, mashed potatoes, carrots, and beans. Jack liked good food — and even ate out at restaurants from time to time — but when he was home alone he made little effort. He couldn’t afford to spend much on food, once rent, bills, cigarettes, and alcohol were taken care of. He worked long hours for a limited reward, and was so settled in his ways that even if he had more money he knew he wouldn’t know what to do with it.

  The kitchen was very basic. A tarnished steel sink fronting the picture window was littered with dirty dishes and scraps. An inch or so of dishwater lingered at the bottom of the sink, held in place by food scraps clogging up the plughole.

  To the right of the sink was a set of cupboards, hovering over a food-preparation area. On the bench was a tube of Glad Wrap, a battered old toaster, and a liberal sprinkling of bread crumbs.

  Directly opposite was another bench that, along with Jack’s old couch, marked the boundary of the kitchen. An old Yellow Pages, some unwanted junk mail, and a couple of newspapers lay at the far end, while next to the window was an old grey phone that had been disconnected long before.

  Against the free-standing wall that separated the kitchen from the entrance area was a yellowish Kelvinator fridge, a tiny round wooden table, and a couple of plastic chairs that Jack had pinched from the local scout hall. The only decoration was a calendar for the previous year, courtesy of Donellan’s Tyres, which Jack kept because he liked the nude model, and a poster for a 1982 Cold Chisel concert.

  He made a mental note that he had basketball training the next day. For nearly six years, Jack had coached the Brunswick Bullets under-12 team. A mate had roped him into it, and he’d never had the gumption to bail out, even though his mate had long since moved to Geelong. He didn’t get paid, and he had to cadge a lift with parents to away games, but he enjoyed it enough to stick at it. He’d played a bit of basketball in his youth, and the kids were still young enough to take notice of what he said.

  Once he had mechanically munched his way through dinner, Jack sat back with his first can for the night. He scanned the Herald-Sun TV guide, and noticed a documentary on the Horn of Africa. He normally didn’t watch SBS — except the late-night porn movies — because the signal was poor and the content was boring. Tonight, things were different: he now had a serious interest in Africa.

  He didn’t have the stamina, though. After twenty minutes of a snowy screen and crackling voice-overs, Jack fell asleep, half-sitting, half-lying on the couch, mouth wide open, snoring fitfully. When he woke up a few hours later, an obscure Mexican historical drama was playing. It was after ten-thirty, so he crawled off to bed, forgetting to brush his teeth. In the world of the single middle-aged bloke living by himself, such things didn’t matter that much.

  Jack was in a remarkably sunny mood the following day. He didn’t abuse any other drivers, or complain to any passengers about the nation’s politicians. Tiny grains of hope and expectation mingled with absurd fantasies as he thought about the prospect of meeting with Farhia. With the ingrained pessimism of the chronically single, he put off calling until the afternoon. At least that gave him some time to prepare himself for the inevitable rejection.

  He wasn’t able to hold out much beyond his lunch-break. After dropping off a passenger in Collingwood, he stepped out of the cab, took a few deep breaths, and punched Farhia’s number into his phone. She answered after the second ring.

  ‘Er, ah, hi. Is that Farhia?’

  ‘Yes, it is me. Who is speaking?’

  ‘Um, er, it’s Jack. Er … the cab driver who helped with your kids yesterday. You know, when those two big kids …’ Jack’s voice trailed off as he thought better of reminding her of the ugly details of yesterday’s confrontation.

  ‘Yes, I do remember.’

  ‘How’s your son?’

  ‘Yusuf? His arm, it is broken.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that. Look, I found a little book with a light-blue cover, with writing that might be in Somali or whatever, thought it might be …’

  ‘It has a blue cover?’ There was excitement and anxiety in her voice.

  ‘Yeah, kind of pale-blue, I guess.’

  ‘Allah be praised! I am now two times in your debt. Can I take it back from you?’

  Jack did his best to ignore Farhia’s unusual use of language.

  ‘I can come round in a few minutes, if you like. I’m just over in Collingwood — not much of the shift left.’

  ‘Can we meet in the playground?’

  ‘Yeah, no worries. I’ll be there in five minutes.’

  Jack got back into the cab and punched the air in triumph. The book had to be important.

  This was puzzling. It didn’t look like an address book or diary, or anything like that. It only contained a few pages of handwriting in a language he assumed was Somali.

  On a sudden impulse, Jack took a photo of each page with his mobile. He wasn’t a tech head, but he did own one of the latest-model phones, one with a camera built in. He still enjoyed the novelty of taking pictures for no particular reason, as he’d never owned a camera before.

  He didn’t think about why he was taking pictures of the book: his fascination with Farhia was sufficient motivation. He knew a few Somali drivers. Perhaps he could get one of the ones he hadn’t had a fight with to translate the writing for him. It might contain interesting information about Farhia.
There was no harm in it; she would never know.

  He also wondered about the man who had attacked him. Was he the teenagers’ father? Farhia’s husband? Why would someone flash a knife in a harmless scuffle with a few kids?

  He arrived at the Elgin Street rank just as Farhia and Yusuf were getting out of the lift on the ground floor of the flats. They walked around the outside of the building past a bank of overflowing rubbish bins and a couple of scrawny druggie types arguing about something, and spotted Jack as he got out of the cab.

  He noticed Farhia’s robes straightaway. The multiple shades of blue stood out against the drab, depressing landscape, as though she was in three-dimensional colour standing in front of a black-and-white movie backdrop. With a calm, imperious air, Farhia floated towards him, trailing a downcast Yusuf close behind her.

  In Jack’s limited experience, small boys with broken arms were usually rather upbeat about their situation once the initial pain and shock had passed. It was a magnet for sympathy and attention. But Yusuf must have been an exception. He stood silently at his mother’s side, his eyes fixed firmly on the ground in front of him. Jack offered a token expression of concern, but when he got no response, he turned back to Farhia, shivering momentarily as a nasty gust of wind pierced his thin uniform.

  ‘Perhaps we must sit,’ Farhia said as she pointed to a wooden bench next to the playground. She said something to Yusuf in Somali, and he went and sat on one of the swings. He had the playground to himself this time.

  ‘Do you know the kids who attacked him?’ Jack asked.

  ‘A little,’ Farhia replied.

  ‘Why’d they do it? Big kids pick on little kids all the time, but they don’t usually break their arms and stuff. Not in front of their mum, anyway. And who was the guy who went for me? Had a knife …’ A touch of indignation crept into Jack’s voice as he recalled his apparent brush with death.

  Jack was trying to look at Farhia as much as he could without making it too obvious. Sitting side by side made it difficult, so for much of the conversation he was peering at her out of the corner of one eye. He sat forward on the bench, with one buttock half-suspended in mid-air, to allow him to face sideways more. Farhia was sitting about three feet away from him.