Comfort Zone (4 page)

‘And my book?'

‘Yeah, sorry, all yours.' Jack handed over his bargaining chip with some reluctance. Once it had changed hands, he had no other way of keeping Farhia talking.

He fidgeted on the hard, uncomfortable bench and turned his head directly towards her, hoping she wouldn't notice how unattractive his nose was. He raised his right hand to his face, scratched the side of his nose, and allowed his forefinger to rest on his upper lip for a moment. Nerves were getting to him, now that his excuse for being with her had gone.

‘How old are Yusuf and Omar?' Jack knew that all women liked to talk about their children.

‘Yusuf is nine, and Omar will be eight very soon. They go to school over there.'

She indicated towards the west, where a small primary school serving the high-rise flats was located. She grasped the upper part of her robe and wrapped it more tightly around herself, increasing her protection from the biting wind.

‘And their father?' The crucial question.

‘He is dead. In Somalia.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Thank you. It is alright.'

‘Must be hard looking after them by yourself?'

‘It is alright.'

‘But no family to help or anything?'

‘No, but there are friends here.'

‘If there's anything I can do … I'm happy to help out. I'm around a fair bit, you know, with the taxi and all that …'

Jack was now blushing and stuttering, and starting to feel ridiculous.
Christ
, he thought,
what would I be like if I was asking her out?

‘That is very nice of you.'

‘Here, here's one of my cards. Got my number on it. Don't mind giving you a ride to the hospital or whatever. No charge or anything. Seeing as how I was part of it all … Must be hard with the kids. You work as well?'

‘I help at the welfare centre at Lygon Street, and I have trained to be childcare worker. But the boys are young. Their mother must be there for them.'

‘Yeah, true. Otherwise they might grow up like those big kids …'

Jack sensed her stiffen, and instantly regretted this casual comment. He was starting to suspect that there was a lot more to the incident than he realised. He kept talking, trying to prolong the encounter as long as possible.

‘Look like good kids, though. You've obviously done a good job. Tough in the flats …' His voice trailed off as he realised how this might be interpreted.

‘You must work very long days in your taxi,' Farhia said, shifting the small talk to safer territory.

‘Yeah, ten hours-plus, some days.'

‘Many of my countrymen drive taxis. It is sad — so many of them are highly educated, but they cannot find other jobs.'

Jack absorbed the implied put-down, knowing that he could not deny his humble status. He might also have a foreign-sounding surname, but he didn't have an excuse for being a failure. Somebody had to drive cabs.

‘But you, I think, also are educated. So why do you do this?'

‘Yeah, I went to uni for a bit.' He didn't mention that his two years at La Trobe had left him with virtually nothing to show for it. ‘Just wasn't my thing, I suppose.'

‘You have been driving taxis for a long time?'

‘Yeah, years. I've done other stuff, though' — his voice rose a fraction and he straightened his aching back — ‘like worked in bars, run a shop, worked on building sites, that sort of stuff.'

‘And you have children, too?'

‘No, never happened. Didn't get around to it.' He smiled ruefully, amused by the thought that his failure to have kids was a minor oversight, like losing his wallet or forgetting to vote in the local-council elections.

‘That is sad for you. Children are very beautiful.'

‘Yeah, suppose so. I don't really think about it.'

‘Never mind. I must go now. I must do things before I get Omar from the school. Thank you for bringing back my book. It means a lot to me. You must be a very good man, with a good heart. You have helped Yusuf and Omar, and now you make work for yourself by bringing back my book. That is very kind. Many people in this country do not like African people. It is good that you are not like them.'

Jack reconnected with his multicultural roots for a moment.

‘Yeah, well, I'm not that different really. My parents were refugees, too. Dad came from Holland, and Mum was Czech … We're pretty much the same, just a few decades apart.' He laughed self-consciously at the absurdity of this notion.

‘That is why you have a good heart. You understand people who do not have much.'

Jack started blushing again. He stood up slowly and turned to face her.

‘I'll be seeing you then.'

‘Thank you.'

Farhia walked across to the swings and collected Yusuf. As she turned and walked back towards the flats, Jack stepped carefully over the scrawny shrubs and got into the cab, his mind awash with intoxicating possibilities.

He wasn't concentrating as he drove back along Nicholson Street towards the city. The encounter had gone much better than he'd expected. His body was tingling, and his mind was in turmoil. That old, long-forgotten feeling, the strange mixture of desire, anticipation, and apprehension, was loose inside him. The fact that the idea of a sexual relationship with Farhia was obviously ridiculous had no bearing at all.

‘Maybe I'm in love,' he said out loud to himself as he crawled towards Victoria Parade in the afternoon traffic. His rational self understood how delusional this was, but he didn't care.

Jack's history with women was modest — a parade of sporadic and disappointing encounters. He'd had a few girlfriends in his twenties, but none of these relationships had evolved into anything serious. As time marched on and his late twenties drifted into his early thirties, romantic encounters were few and far between. Now he'd reached his mid-fifties, and even brief moments were little more than a fading memory. Occasional visits to brothels had proved profoundly unsatisfying, and prohibitively expensive. Luckily, porn was cheap and readily available — because that was all he had now.

Underneath Jack's crusty exterior lay a dank, stagnant pool of loneliness that was slowly consuming him. With no partner, no children, no assets, and no prospects, he often wondered about the point of staying alive. He knew he'd become a caricature, the proverbial grumpy old man. In his darker moments, he acknowledged that he was one of the ultimate outcasts of modern society: a loser.

Any sexual relationship with a beautiful young Somali woman was such a nonsensical concept that it was safe for him to fantasise about. Its sheer impossibility made it appealing, because that protected him from inevitable disappointment.

Farhia might be beautiful, but she was also very vulnerable. He'd already helped to rescue her sons from those nasty teenagers, and had recovered her precious book for her. He was taken aback by the warmth of feeling that these two selfless acts had induced in him.

He smiled at the thought of how some of his drinking mates would view this situation — a cantankerous old cabbie with a chip on his shoulder and a healthy dislike of Somalis getting off on helping a Somali single mum. He wondered whether he needed to see a shrink. Maybe this was the beginning of a mid-life crisis.

Very little happened during the remainder of his shift. He was polite and helpful to his passengers, and went out of his way to engage with the less attractive ones. He was energetic, stimulated, and optimistic, all of which felt very unfamiliar. He wondered what might come next. Buying a Harley? Joining a religious cult? It was all quite disconcerting.

As he ambled down Albion Street to basketball training, Jack tried hard to focus on the ordinary things that dominated his existence. When he arrived at the local secondary college, there were only a couple of his kids there, which wasn't unusual. One or two more would probably wander in in due course.

‘Okay, let's do some shooting! Ben, get a move on! Do you know if Nick's coming?'

‘Dunno.'

Jack rolled his eyes and said nothing. He didn't know why he kept at it — habit, probably — but it had become part of him. His team wasn't that good, and most of the parents weren't even interested enough to turn up to the games. He liked the kids, though. Maybe that was it.

As he led the two boys through some low-key shooting drills, Jack noticed one of the more annoying parents shepherding his pale, overweight son across the court towards him.

Uh-oh, here comes trouble
, he thought. Alistair Taylor was a university lecturer — something in the arts, Jack was sure — who was a rather over-protective and intrusive parent. His son laboured under the name of Gideon, and wasn't very good at basketball. Or anything much else, apparently.

‘Hi, Jack. Not a bad day, all things considered.'

‘Yeah, hi, Al. How're you goin?'

‘Uh, need to talk to you about something.' He turned to his son: ‘Why don't you go and do some shooting, Gid?'

Jack stayed silent, not sure where this was heading.

‘Need a bit of advice. Gideon's at Brunswick Secondary College, and he's having a hard time. Getting bullied — that sort of thing. It's very worrying. I don't know what to do about it. Thought you might have some ideas.'

Alistair's voice shook as he spoke. He was embarrassed, almost radiating pathetic helplessness.

You could try changing his name, for a start
, Jack mused.
And finding him a dad with balls
.

Suppressing this inner contempt, he asked for more details.

‘The usual stuff — constant taunting, belittling, hassling. He's coming home from school in tears, most days. He's the youngest in his class, and he's quite shy. The puppy fat doesn't help … We've had him on a special diet for a year or so, you know, no dairy and sugar, that sort of thing. But it hasn't made much difference.'

No wonder he's upset,
Jack thought.

‘Thought of moving schools? Maybe a private school or something …'

‘Oh no, Angela and I are very strongly committed to the state system. And we think the exposure to diverse ethnicities he gets at Brunswick is really important.'

‘Er, okay. I'll talk to him, find out who's hassling him. Sometimes they won't tell their mum and dad, but they'll talk to someone else they trust. See what I can do.'

‘Thanks, Jack. Appreciate it.' Alistair's relief was evident — it was obvious he'd been dreading this conversation.

He couldn't have known that Jack had copped a fair bit of bullying when he was at school. The world had changed a bit since then, of course, but Jack still had a lot more sympathy for Gideon's plight than he was letting on. He knew how vicious early-teenage boys could be, and it wasn't Gideon's fault he was lumbered with parents who'd OD'd on political correctness. He decided to have a quiet chat with the boy at the end of training, maybe under the guise of some special-skills practice.

3

Rendezvous

The next morning, Jack was back at the rank on Collins Street. It was popular with drivers — it offered an unusual ratio of airport jobs and good tips — so he was stuck in a queue for a while.

He made it to the front after forty minutes. He was listening to talkback radio, barely absorbing the predictable opinions he'd heard so often before, when a passenger swung the front door open and leapt in with a single, fluid movement, casually throwing a thin leather briefcase onto the back seat as he did so.

‘Hey! It's Jack the cabbie super-hero! How're you doing? Been to the cops yet?'

Of all the gin joints in all the world
, Jack thought.

Once he had adjusted to Matt's surprise appearance, Jack responded easily, his face relaxing as he replied.

‘No, probably later on today. Where are you heading?'

‘Airport. Sydney trip. You know what it's like, up and back for a meeting.' Matt rolled his eyes. Jack didn't know what it was like, but he nodded and clicked his tongue sympathetically.

‘What time's your flight?'

‘Ten. Plenty of time.'

‘Just a day trip?'

‘Yeah, back tonight.'

‘Exciting life, mate,' Jack said, as he finally managed to ease out into the Collins Street traffic and position himself for a right-hand turn into Russell Street.

‘Yeah, maybe. I guess it has its moments.'

An easy silence descended as Jack concentrated on escaping the traffic snarl caused by construction sites spilling out onto Russell Street.

‘Cool chick, that Somali girl, hey? Did you call her?' Matt asked.

‘Yeah, just gave her the book back.'

‘Maybe I should ask her out …'

Jack gulped, unable to believe his ears.