Comfort Zone (2 page)

Jack's would-be passenger was now taking advantage of the fact that the policeman had taken charge of the suspect, and was picking specks of dirt from his jacket.

Jack looked at the young Somali woman, and was instantly transfixed. She looked quite magnificent. Her robes framed a stunningly beautiful face. The mixture of tears, anger, and fear emphasised her large, deep-brown eyes and soft, sepia skin. The passion in her voice animated her entrancing features. A sudden burst of fascination spread through Jack's body like a shot of whiskey.

He didn't like Somalis, and he didn't find black women very attractive. Jack had lost count of the number of minor confrontations he'd had with Somali taxidrivers. As an old hand, he was always quick to take offence at any breach of the unwritten laws of taxidriving. Queueing etiquette was sacred, but seemed largely unknown to many newcomers to the trade. The ensuing disputes generally didn't come to blows, but yelling, pushing, and shoving were all too common. These incidents always put Jack in a bad mood, muttering curses about Somalis and thinking dark thoughts about what he would do with African refugees if he were running the country.

He wasn't thinking such thoughts at the moment. This woman was different. There was an irresistible, magnetic quality about her. Jack stood and stared at her, momentarily forgetting that he had just come within inches of being stabbed.

‘These two thugs attacked the kids, officer. My name's Matthew Richards. I'm a banker. I was just getting into this guy's taxi, when they laid into them. We jumped in and stopped them.'

An air of superiority pervaded this announcement, a presumption of authority — as if he assumed the policeman would respond by saying: ‘Well, that settles it then.'

Jack's usual contempt for this kind of casual posturing was overtaken by disappointment at the likely loss of a substantial tip. And his fascination with the Somali woman was distracting him.

‘My son is hurt! We must take him to the hospital.' She was calmer now, back in control.

‘I'll make sure he's okay,' the policewoman said. She knelt down beside the crying boy, but he refused to allow her to touch him.

Her superior turned to Jack: ‘Was what he said true?'

‘Yep. Big kids beating shit out of the little ones. We stopped it.' Jack wasn't big on talking at times of stress. ‘There was this other guy …'

‘Looks like the kid's arm's broken.' The police officer turned to the two teenagers. ‘Better take you two to the station for a chat.' He turned to the boys' mother: ‘I'm Senior Constable Davies. Officer Haysman' — he waved his left hand towards the policewoman — ‘will stay with you, help get him across to the Royal Children's.'

One of the assailants interrupted him.

‘He kicked me. Here.' He pointed to his genitals. As they were not much lower than the boys' shoulders, it was an unlikely defence.

‘You are a lying hyena! He was here, on this' — she pointed to the slide — ‘and you take him and …'

‘Alright, alright!' Senior Constable Davies held up his hand as if directing traffic. ‘We'll sort it all out round at the station. You two — you're coming with me.'

‘What about the other guy? He had a …'

The young woman interrupted Jack: ‘It does not matter. He is gone, he also tries to stop this. We must help my son, he is hurting!' Her voice rose as she spoke, her fear and anger apparent.

‘But you can't …' Jack stopped mid-sentence, his instinctive pragmatism taking control.
The guy's disappeared, and I didn't get hurt. Why make it a big deal and end up wasting hours of my life with stupid cops?

‘Okay, boys, let's get moving.' Davies radiated the kind of battle-hardened authority that usually intimidated all but the most aggressive teenage boys.

The two young thugs looked frightened, and offered no resistance as he escorted them away. Davies turned back towards the others as he was walking and said: ‘Officer Haysman'll get your details and arrange for you to do statements.'

The banker looked across to Jack and said softly: ‘Sorry, mate.' Jack gave a noncommittal shrug in response, as if this were an everyday kind of occurrence. He was still breathing heavily from his exertions. He wasn't very fit, and a couple of minutes of wrestling had taken a lot of effort.

Winter was almost over, and hayfever season was approaching. Jack was a chronic sufferer. He suspected he might even have asthma, but he didn't want to get medical confirmation. He could live with some occasional wheezing, and he tried to keep physical activity to a bare minimum anyway.

The policewoman pulled out a small pad and pen from her pocket.

‘Okay, just names, addresses, and numbers for now. We'll get the kid to Casualty, and you can drop into the station and make statements in the next day or two.'

Jack noticed a thinly disguised line of acne below her bottom lip, partly spoiling what was otherwise a fresh, attractive face. He couldn't quite come at female police officers, and one who looked like she was barely out of school was even harder to cope with.

‘Jack van Duyn, spelt d-u-y-n, Flat 7, 25 Balmoral Avenue, Brunswick. My mobile's 0419 375 048.' Jack hovered over her right shoulder, checking that the spelling of his name was correct.

‘As I said before, I'm Matthew Richards, Flat 227, 299 Queen Street. My main mobile is 0407 216 000.'
Christ
, thought Jack,
I
wonder how many he's got.
He marvelled once again at the life of the other half.

The policewoman turned to the woman in purple, who was still comforting her injured son.

‘And your name is?'

‘Farhia Mohammed. I live there' — she pointed to the nearest high-rise tower — ‘in Flat 113, 20 Elgin Street.' Her robe billowed in the wind like a cloak as she gestured.

There was something formal about the way she spoke, a hint of an educated migrant who'd done plenty of English-language classes but didn't use her new skills a lot in her daily life.

Jack descended into a brief fit of coughing as she gave her phone number.

‘And your boys?'

‘This one is Omar, and that one is Yusuf.' She gulped back a tiny sob as she turned to Yusuf, who was in a fair bit of pain but remaining stoic.

‘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.