Comfort Zone (6 page)

‘I do not know.'

The interview continued in this vein, becoming ever more circular. After writing some more notes, he turned to Jack. He wasn't able to cast any light on the origins of the affray. He didn't mention the man with the knife, and the cop made no attempt to question him about it.

‘Didn't really see how it started. Matt was hopping into the cab, and we heard all this yelling and screaming. We hopped over the bushes and broke it up. Didn't see the little kids doing anything. Just looked like big kids having some fun, roughing them up, that sort of thing, you know.'

Jack felt embarrassed at how inarticulate he sounded. He noticed the police officer had a habit of sucking his knuckles while he was listening — first the right hand, then the left, then back to the right again. It might have been an unconscious device for covering his face, which was odd, considering he was reasonably good-looking in a craggy, cop-like kind of way.

‘So you've never met Mrs Mohammed before? That day the only time you've ever seen her?' The fine distinction between these two questions eluded Jack, and he answered the second.

‘Yeah. Er … apart from yesterday, that is. Had to take her book back to her.'

‘What book?'

‘Just a little diary or something. Picked it up in the playground right after the fight. Had a few pages of funny writing, so I thought it might be hers. So I took it back to her.'

Senior Constable Davies turned to face Farhia.

‘That correct?'

Farhia threw a disapproving look at Jack, fleeting and subtle, but clear enough for the cop to notice.

‘Yes.'

‘So what's in the book?'

‘Just family things.'

‘What kind of family things?'

‘You understand … family matters. Personal things.'

The interview became very circular again, with Davies probing for details, and Farhia exchanging words in Somali with Aicha.

‘We'll speak in English, if you don't mind, Mrs Mohammed,' he reprimanded her.

‘My friend does not speak well. She is worried.'

Eventually, Davies became exasperated with Farhia's evasions, threw his arms up in a gesture of surrender, and stood up with a clatter as his chair hit the wall behind him.

‘I give up. That'll do for today. The two kids might be charged with assault, the big one with assault occasioning actual bodily harm maybe. If it goes to court, it'll be on in a couple of months and you'll get a summons. Thanks for coming in.'

Maybe he hasn't had lunch yet
, Jack thought, as he marvelled at the cop's loss of patience. Davies' body language betrayed a sudden loss of interest, as if he had already moved on to the next minor annoying matter, and they were irritating him by remaining in his presence. Jack didn't know much about police procedure, but he thought it strange that he was interviewing two witnesses together. He suspected that Davies was just going through the motions, and that no charges would be laid. He couldn't help himself: ‘Won't it be in the Children's Court or something?' he asked as he tucked in his shirt and started to walk towards the door.

‘One's eighteen, the other's nineteen. Melbourne Magistrates'.' Davies' economy with words in reply sent a clear message.

‘Okay.' Jack knew when a conversation like this one was finished.

They departed in some confusion, with Jack twice treading on the hem of Aicha's dress. The narrow corridors of Carlton police station had clearly been built in an era when people were smaller, and women wore sensible clothes.

Out in the open air again, he decided to seize the opportunity.

‘Hey, want to get a coffee? Got a big tip this morning, so I can shout.' He hadn't received any tips at all so far that day, but he felt it wise to cover his offer with a plausible excuse.

The two women exchanged glances.

‘I don't have to pick up Yusuf yet,' Farhia said in reply.

‘I am going in soon,' Aicha said.

Better and better
, Jack thought.

‘Great, let's go round to Tiamo's.' Displaying an authority that he hoped masked his nervousness, Jack made it difficult for them to refuse his hospitality.

A few minutes later, they were sitting on wobbly wooden chairs in Tiamo, a longstanding Lygon Street institution that had somehow defied the relentless gentrification of the precinct and retained the bohemian atmosphere that had long since disappeared from most of Carlton.

It was unnaturally gloomy inside. The walls were covered with colourful posters advertising long-forgotten bands and political causes. It was very noisy, even with only a modest number of customers. Most of the lunch crowd had already drifted away, though it was just after one-thirty.

‘So what do you make of that, hey?' Jack asked cheerily as he ordered coffees from a bored waitress who was so thin she might have been anorexic.

‘I do not want to go to court,' Farhia said.

‘Why not? Teach them to leave little kids alone.'

‘They have nasty friends. I am upset about Yusuf, but I do not want more trouble. You can run away in your taxi. We have nowhere to run.' She demonstrated by raising her right arm with her hand cocked and moving it quickly from left to right.

Aicha fidgeted awkwardly as she tried to get comfortable on her wobbly chair. ‘Other people nasty, too,' she said.
They sure are,
Jack thought.
They wave knives at innocent cabbies
.

‘Yeah, I know some nasty people, too,' Jack added. Most of the people he knew were more pathetic than nasty, but one or two were rather fearsome.

Their coffees arrived, and they sipped quietly for a few moments. Then Aicha said something to Farhia in Somali, and Farhia replied with a word that sounded to Jack like ‘magician'.

‘Sorry …' he interrupted, hoping to forestall a conversation in Somali.

Farhia looked back at him, and returned to English.

‘These boys are Majeerten. Their people do not like us. We are Darod like them, but not Majeerten.'

‘They hate Hawiye,' Aicha chipped in.

Jack was now out of his depth. He had worked out that they weren't talking about magicians or musicians, but that didn't help much.

Farhia noticed the bemused look on his face, and smiled.

‘These are tribes. You think we are all Somalis. On the outside, yes, but underneath we are from different tribes.'

Aicha interrupted again in Somali, and then reverted to English. ‘Sorry, I must going. Thank you for my coffee.' She stood up in a swift, fluid movement, her robes swirling around her, and walked towards the door. Jack acknowledged her departure with a nod and a smile, and then turned back to Farhia.

God, you're beautiful
, he mused as she rummaged around in the small bag she had with her. She glanced back up at Jack, and he felt like he'd been sprung.

‘Tell me about the tribes.'

‘This is the reason there is much war in Somalia. Tribes and clans. We look the same, we speak the same language, and we hate each other.'

‘Which tribe are you from?'

‘Somalia is three different countries. Separate parts were owned by the British, the Italians … I am Darod from Puntland.' She pronounced the ‘u' like the ‘oo' in book, and spelt out the name for Jack. ‘Then there are clans and sub-clans. Majeerten is a sub-clan of Darod. Puntland is right on the Horn of Africa. We have always been the traders of Somalia.'

‘What about the pirates?'

Farhia ignored this diversion, and continued with her explanation.

‘In the south are Hawiye — also Digile and Mirifle, away from the sea.'

Next time I yell out ‘stupid Somalis'
,
I'll need to be more specific
, Jack noted.

‘The war, it is in the south. Puntland is peaceful. We have a government in the capital, Garowe, led by Australian Somalis. The president is from Heidelberg. He went to La Trobe University.' There was some pride evident in this statement.

‘Hey, me too!' Jack couldn't resist responding.

‘The Puntland finance minister lived in the flats in Lygon Street for ten years. I know him.'

‘What about the north?'

‘I have not been to Somaliland. It is different. It has a government also. The problems are around Mogadishu and the south. The world only sees one Somalia, and we are all blamed.'

‘Why are they fighting?'

‘It is very difficult to explain. Fights over land, tribes, positions in the government, too many guns … There was a dictator, Siad Barre. He was also Darod. The Hawiye fought him, killed many Darod, and we went back to Puntland.'

‘Hmm.' Jack was struggling to absorb this lesson in Somali geopolitics. This kind of stuff wasn't his strong suit.

‘Thank you for coffee, Jack. You are a kind man.'

Jack blushed. He was mesmerised by Farhia's calm, sweet voice, its charm only enhanced by her unusual use of English. He didn't want the encounter to end.

‘Let me know if I can help. I know my way around. Like I said, I've got a few nasty friends, too.' He smiled weakly, subconsciously apologising for knowing undesirable people.

‘If your nasty friends fight their nasty friends, my sons will be hurt.'

‘Yeah, I suppose so. Anyway, you've got my number. I might give you a call next week, check everything's okay and that, you know.'

‘Thank you. I hope your day will be good.'

Farhia floated majestically from the café, leaving an awestruck Jack still sitting at the table. She reminded him of a Jane Austen character, all demure charm and proper speech — or at least the ones Jack had seen on TV, given he hadn't ever read a Jane Austen novel. He marvelled at how a poor single mum from the high-rise could look and sound so aristocratic, so full of character, depth, and learning.
Bit of a change from the scrubbers I usually mix with
, he thought.

He paid the bill and walked across Lygon Street, silently praying he hadn't got a parking ticket. He was only ten minutes late, but the council vultures were relentless. He sighed with relief as he approached the cab and saw that the windscreen was clear. Definitely a sign from the gods: his pursuit of Farhia was blessed.

‘Life's getting more interesting,' he said to the rear-vision mirror as he drove off in search of more passengers.

Jack did a great deal of daydreaming over the next couple of days. He saw himself defending Farhia's honour in the face of brutal assaults from enemy tribes. He rescued her from a fire raging through the high-rise. He took the controls of a plane whose pilot had died, and guided it to a safe landing — with Farhia and her sons on board. He tracked her down when she was wandering lost in the bush, and brought her home safely. He fought and overcame rabid thugs with knives. And so it went on.

Jack wasn't that romantic as a rule, as he'd had decades of getting used to a life almost completely devoid of romance. Underneath his ordinary appearance, though, was a vibrant imagination and a latent thirst for excitement.

He couldn't understand how he'd ended up where he was — a loser going nowhere. It had just happened. He wasn't happy about it, but he didn't care enough to do anything to change it.

He had no plan for getting closer to Farhia. The relative success of his first two encounters had caught him by surprise. Jack's world was full of pessimism, low expectations, and failure. Missing out was normal. People like him were always at the end of the queue.

What Farhia thought about all this was unclear. Jack wasn't adept at dealing with women from his own background, let alone someone as exotic as Farhia. The fact she had children at least established that she was sexually experienced and heterosexual. Jack wasn't sure whether there were any lesbians in Somalia — he regarded lesbianism as a kind of female fashion statement — but he was relieved he didn't have to find out.

In truth, sex wasn't the main issue. He thought about the desultory relationships he'd had in his twenties and thirties with women who'd regarded him with an attitude of benign contempt. These relationships had lasted only weeks, a couple of months at the outside, and then fizzled out. There were no dramatic endings, no emotional showdowns, not even any ugly betrayals — just pathetic deflation, like a balloon gradually leaking. They just got sick of him and drifted away.

His forties had been very barren years. Aside from an affair with a woman who had just split up with a nasty, manipulative husband, his scorecard was almost blank. Jack had resigned himself to indefinite single status. The internet appeared at just the right time — when he became a regular consumer of pornography — and it soon became a mechanical means of satisfying his declining sexual urges. These days, it was all about loneliness, not lust. Jack's dreams of Farhia were about protecting her, not ravishing her.

Jack wanted to call Farhia again, even though he had no suitable excuse for doing so, but he had a practical problem: he'd lost his mobile phone. Endless daydreaming had made him absent-minded, and the phone had disappeared.