Comfort Zone

by Lindsay Tanner

  COMFORT ZONE

  Lindsay Tanner was the minister for finance and deregulation in the Rudd–Gillard governments, and held the seat of Melbourne for the ALP from 1993 to 2010. Having retired from politics at the 2010 federal election, he is now a special adviser to Lazard Australia, and is a vice-chancellor’s fellow and adjunct professor at Victoria University. Mr Tanner is the author of several previous books, including Politics with Purpose (2012) and Sideshow (2011), also published by Scribe.

  For my mother, Maree

  Scribe Publications

  18–20 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria 3056, Australia

  2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom

  First published by Scribe 2016

  Copyright © Lindsay Tanner 2016

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

  9781925321029 (Australian edition)

  9781925307245 (e-book)

  A CIP entry for this title is available from the National Library of Australia

  scribepublications.com.au

  scribepublications.co.uk

  1

  Rescue

  Why is life mostly just standing around doing nothing? Jack flicked away a dead leaf caught in a windscreen wiper of his taxi and gazed into the distance, pondering this unfortunate fact. His shift was nearly over. One more fare would be good, but preferably nothing too far. He’d had a good day — a few airport jobs, several good tips — so the pressure to earn enough cash was off for one more day. Now he just had to wait for a bit more.

  He didn’t like being on Elgin Street in Carlton. It was always noisy, dirty, and blustery, and right now it felt a lot colder than the temperature update Jack had heard on the cab radio just a few minutes before.

  A biting wind hustled down the hill from around the university, cutting right through him. Leaves, lolly wrappers, and leaflets tumbled along gutters and footpaths. The red-brick tower blocks next to the rank looked grey. They were starting to show their age.

  Jack shivered, drew heavily on his cigarette, and kicked a discarded Styrofoam coffee cup along the footpath in the direction of Fitzroy.

  As far as Jack was concerned, driving cabs wasn’t much fun at the best of times, but late winter in Melbourne was the absolute pits. Jack’s was the only cab on the rank, so he didn’t even have another idle driver to complain to. Most of them were Indians and Somalis these days, so it wasn’t the same anyway. Can’t even find their way to the MCG, most of them, Jack muttered to a stray pigeon waddling along the footpath.

  Jack van Duyn didn’t exactly cut an impressive figure. He was quite tall, but a gently protruding potbelly was accentuated by Australia’s least imposing set of shoulders. Jack suffered from the shoulder equivalent of the weak chin. His shoulders were so pathetic they were virtually concave. It was as though a mad scientist had transplanted a jockey’s shoulders onto the body of a six-foot-three labourer. The frayed epaulettes on Jack’s taxi uniform only highlighted his deficiency.

  In his teenage years, Jack had earned the unfortunate nickname ‘skittle’. As he grew older, the tag had become even more appropriate.

  He wasn’t a great deal more attractive above the shoulders. Jack had a large head and longish face, crowned with unkempt, curly dark hair fading to grey at the sides, and thinning on top. His nose had an awkward shape to it, his lips were thin and chapped, his teeth were crooked, and his skin was weather-beaten. He was not a regular user of male vanity products.

  Jack noticed a handful of dark-skinned children romping in the playground on the other side of a line of shrubbery that separated the grounds of the public-housing estate from the footpath. A slim, dark woman swathed in flowing robes of varying shades of purple stood guard beside a bright-yellow slide. Bloody Somalis, he muttered to himself. Why can’t they stay in their own shithole of a country?

  Jack ground the remains of his cigarette into the crumbling edge of the pavement and glanced along Elgin Street as he leaned back against the cab. There was no sign of likely passengers.

  Suddenly, a piercing, high-pitched scream made him look back at the playground. A fight had erupted, involving a couple of older kids and two smaller ones. He saw the smallest one slip from the grasp of a tall, slim youth in jeans and hoodie, and run towards the woman in purple.

  Jack took little interest in the affray. Big kids hassled little kids all the time, all around the world.

  He wasn’t looking back up the street, but he could sense that someone was walking towards him. Experienced taxidrivers have a sixth sense for the presence of potential fares. He adjusted his gaze just in case.

  The newcomer certainly looked like a passenger worth having. He wore a nice suit, fancy shoes, and striped shirt, and walked like a self-satisfied young professional.

  As this picture of success and power strolled towards him, Jack amused himself by guessing his name and occupation. Definitely a lawyer, he concluded. Few things annoyed him more than successful, attractive men parading the evidence of their status, especially when they were young.

  Jack wondered what his name might be — maybe Sebastian, Luke, or Oscar. The man called out to him: ‘You free?’

  ‘Yeah, mate — hop in,’ Jack mumbled.

  His passenger reached for the front-door handle on the passenger side, and Jack moved himself into a fully upright position with exaggerated effort.

  He’d only taken a couple of steps when another scream, this time too loud to ignore, came from the playground, followed by much yelling and wailing.

  Jack and his passenger both stopped and stared, unable to ignore the minor riot that had erupted about ten metres away.

  A very tall boy had hold of one of the smaller boys, and was banging his arm hard against the side of the monkey bars. The other small boy was being held in a headlock by a second teenager, while the woman was struggling to dislodge him. It was difficult to work out what was happening, with the amount of noise and thrashing around that was going on.

  Jack and his well-dressed companion stood frozen to the spot for a few seconds, and then the other man reacted.

  ‘Hey, that’s not on! Come on, we’ve got to break this up!’

  Jack wasn’t the Good Samaritan type — for him, personal survival always came first — and, anyway, this sort of stuff wasn’t in the taxidriver’s manual.

  But there was something insistent, almost irresistible, in his passenger’s voice. It was a tone of command, expressed with an air of natural authority. The usual, easy option of ignoring the fight was being denied to Jack. Refusing to get involved now required an overt decision, and an admission of selfishness — even cowardice. And he might lose his fare.

  ‘He’ll break the kid’s arm, for Christ’s sake!’

  Jack’s decision had been made for him. If he didn’t intervene, he would effectively be guilty of breaking a small boy’s arm.

  The young man didn’t wait for Jack to respond. He bounded effortlessly over the small shrubs separating the playground from the street. With much less athletic elegance, Jack followed.

  His new partner leapt on the youth who was torturing the small boy, and wrestled him to the ground. Jack went to the aid of the woman. Within a few seconds, they had freed the second boy from the headlock. The crisis was averted, but the raucous yelling and crying continued.

  The woman was sobbing, panting, and abusing the small boys
’ tormentors. Jack couldn’t understand the language, but he noticed a smooth richness in her voice. In his more idle moments, he sometimes associated voices with different kinds of alcohol. Most men had beer voices, some had whiskey ones, and the better-off had wine ones. Plenty of women had wine voices, too, some even had beer voices, and there were lots with gin and vodka voices. This one was relatively unusual: it was a liqueur voice. Bailey’s, maybe.

  Jack grabbed the older boy around the waist and dragged him away from his victim, carefully avoiding his flailing arms. The child’s mother — surely only a mother would have responded with this level of agitation — shepherded him away from the danger zone, like a billowing purple shroud protecting him from the elements.

  Definitely Somalis, Jack thought, as he and his wrestling partner stumbled in an ungainly dance around the playground, never quite managing to fall over, but always appearing off balance. Their heights were similar, and Jack’s advantage in weight and strength was offset by his opponent’s youth and fitness.

  They came to a halt next to the slide, close to where Jack’s companion was grappling on the ground with the other youth. The playground was covered with grey woodchips that had absorbed a good deal of rain recently, so it wasn’t as bad as fighting on concrete.

  As Jack wrestled his opponent back and forth, he glimpsed another figure emerging behind him to his left. He half-turned his head, and saw a contorted, dark face and, a little below it, the unmistakable glint of a knife. The person holding it was not a skinny teenager but a grown man, and was also apparently Somali.

  This new assailant screamed something at Jack and leapt at him. Jack tried to fend off his attacker with his left arm while his right remained entangled with the teenager. They stumbled and fell to their knees on the woodchips, panic surging through Jack like an ice-cold wind as he realised he was at the mercy of a knife-wielding maniac.

  As bits of his life exploded in flashes through his mind, Jack heard a loud voice barking from the direction of Elgin Street:

  ‘Alright, break it up! A night in the cells for the next one who moves!’

  This threat came from a tall, solid man in police uniform who was hurdling the shrubs and heading towards them. He was followed by a youthful-looking policewoman. Jack could see a police car parked behind his cab. For once, it was welcome.

  The teenager scrambled to his feet, made as if he were about to run for it, and then thought better of it. Jack was still holding his antagonist’s arm, and was now grunting and wheezing from his exertions. The man with the knife was nowhere to be seen, almost as if he had never existed. Jack’s heart was beating wildly, and his mind was racing. Since when did breaking up a kids’ fight in a playground mean getting attacked with a knife?

  Jack’s well-dressed passenger had also risen to his feet and, after straightening his clothing, placed himself right next to the other boy to make sure he didn’t escape.

  As he recovered, Jack began to absorb the sights and sounds around him. One of the small boys was cradling his left arm, wailing and sobbing. The other was clinging to his mother’s leg. Jack was now convinced that she was their mother.

  ‘Explain yourselves fast …’ the policeman began, but the woman interrupted with great passion.

  ‘They are cowards, jackals! They fight little boys! You are dirty and disgusting …’ Her English had a peculiar, formal quality that suggested she was well educated.

  ‘Enough, enough!’ the policeman yelled back at her. He now had a tight grip on the arm of the taller boy. Jack still had hold of the other attacker, and they both looked as if they didn’t quite know what to do about it. The policewoman took a light hold of his other arm. He was shaking, doubtless apprehensive about any encounter with the police.

  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.