Comfort Zone

by Lindsay Tanner

  Might as well check it out, he decided, so he tried to hurdle the border shrubbery again, but this time his thigh muscles got the better of him. His left foot landed awkwardly on uneven ground, and his ankle crumpled beneath him. He pitched headlong to the ground with a strangled cry.

  As he lifted himself up onto one arm and started to get up, he saw Farhia walking towards him, with the two boys tagging along. His entrance might have been humiliating, but at least he’d spotted her.

  ‘Er, hi, Farhia. Sorry … tripped over. Leg’s a bit wobbly …’ he babbled, wheezing and grunting as he stood up. His face reddened from effort and embarrassment.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Farhia sounded genuinely concerned, which salved his wounded pride a bit.

  ‘No, I’m fine. Just tripped.’ He dusted down the front of his pants with the palms of his hands and straightened up, endeavouring to reclaim some dignity.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you at the welfare centre. Need to talk …’

  ‘Is something wrong? Omar, do not do that!’ Omar was examining an interesting piece of rubbish he’d picked up from the ground. Farhia added a few words in Somali for good measure.

  ‘Yes … er, no. Not really. Just stuff I need to work out. Just worried … getting messy … don’t want to mess anything up … ’ He was really babbling now.

  ‘Perhaps we sit down?’

  Jack sat on the wooden bench as Farhia shooed Yusuf and Omar towards the playground. She turned back to him and sat down.

  ‘You are in trouble?’

  ‘Sort of. It’s complicated.’

  Jack wriggled on the bench, trying to make himself more comfortable. He flicked some imaginary fluff from his left sleeve and took a couple of quick, shallow breaths.

  ‘You know that little book I brought back to you?’

  ‘Yes?’ Farhia accentuated the up-tick at the end of the word, almost turning it into two syllables. Together with the arched eyebrows, it was not a good sign. Once again, mention of the book had put her very much on guard.

  ‘I … um … er, took some photos of it. With my phone. Um … I was worried I might lose it, I’m always losing things, people take stuff from the cab, thought I’d better make a copy just in case … might be important. Don’t know what’s in it, of course, because it looks like it’s in Somali.’ Words came cascading from Jack’s mouth at an accelerating rate. His face was reddening, and he was almost panting.

  ‘Why did you do this? It is private.’ Her tone was stern, like a teacher reprimanding a small boy.

  ‘Don’t know.’ Jack felt like he was eight years old again, and almost added ‘Miss’.

  ‘Is this still with your phone?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the problem. You know I told you about the ASIO guy? Well, I … um, accidentally told him, and he’s been chasing me for it ever since. He thinks it’s part of some terrorist plot, and I’m worried if I delete it I’ll be committing a crime. Like an accomplice or something.’

  ‘Have you given it to him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You can throw the phone away, or give it to me.’

  The ultimate sacrifice.

  ‘I can’t afford it. Haven’t got enough money to get a new one. Need it for work.’ He was deeply embarrassed now. ‘Anyway, I lost it before — for real — so he’s not going to fall for that again.’

  She looked pensively over his shoulder into the distance.

  ‘Why’s it such a big deal? I know you’re not a terrorist — can’t we just show them to prove it?’

  ‘No. These are private things, family things, in Somalia. My cousin would be angry.’

  ‘The guy who answered the phone when I rang the other day?’

  ‘Yes.’ For the first time, Jack sensed fear underneath her calm, measured demeanour. Maybe he imagined it, but her hands looked like they were shaking.

  ‘Sorry for asking, but is he hassling you? I might be able to help.’

  ‘You cannot help. It is Somali things.’

  ‘So what am I going to do about ASIO? I spent most of last night running around Brunswick and Carlton trying to get away from the ASIO guy. I can’t avoid them for long. They can probably hack into my phone or something, anyway.’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  After an uneasy silence, Jack felt the need for some more contrition.

  ‘Sorry, I really like you a lot, Farhia, I wanted to help, and I’ve messed things up. Sorry.’ It sounded pathetic, but it did give him a chance to express his feelings about her.

  ‘You were not knowing. You cannot understand. I have not forgotten what you did for Yusuf and Omar.’

  ‘Do the kids who attacked them have anything to do with this? What about the guy with the knife?’

  Farhia looked at him with a hint of warning in her eyes.

  ‘We cannot talk of this any more. I hope I will see you again. I must take the boys to home. I know you will do something about the phone.’

  Farhia stood up, said goodbye, and swirled towards her two boys. Yusuf’s broken arm wasn’t stopping him from clambering over the monkey bars with Omar, and she had to do some badgering to get them to come down.

  Crestfallen, but relieved the fallout wasn’t worse, Jack walked slowly back to the cab. One of his burdens had been lifted from him: he wasn’t deceiving Farhia any more. He had no idea what he would do next, though. As he approached the cab, it started to rain. The dismal sky suited his mood.

  As he settled into the driver’s seat, an image of Emily flashed into his mind. She was quite pretty, and certainly interesting. Bound to be in her early forties, he concluded.

  He snapped out of this latest flight of fancy, and hit the top of the steering wheel with the heel of his hand with a half-hearted thump. What was he thinking? After years of loneliness, he was now falling for every woman who crossed his path. Maybe he really was having a mid-life crisis.

  With that dismal thought lingering, he drove up Nicholson Street. If the traffic was alright, he would be less than half an hour late for changeover, which wasn’t too bad.

  10

  Violence

  Jack lay sprawled on his couch, emotionally exhausted. Several waking hours had passed without anything dramatic happening, to his great relief. Hopefully, things would calm down now.

  Then his mobile rang. He thought immediately of Robert Jeffrey. How would he explain his behaviour the other night? What could he say? That he and an investment banker he hardly knew were on the run from an enraged drug dealer? Didn’t sound very plausible.

  He couldn’t think of a viable excuse for his failure to be at home when he promised, and he didn’t know if Jeffrey had seen him hot-footing it down Albion Street, but he lacked the energy for further subterfuge. Luckily, though, his caller wasn’t the ASIO man.

  ‘Hi, Jack, how’s it going? Recovered yet?’ It was Matt, as cheery as ever. Jack exhaled and relaxed.

  ‘Er, yeah, mate. Bit stiff and sore. Not used to running. What about you? Terminator hasn’t caught you yet?’

  Matt chuckled. ‘No, still in the land of the living.’

  ‘What about Karl and all that shit?’

  ‘No sign of them.’

  ‘Maybe Rowan got them called off.’

  ‘Rowan?’

  ‘My mate who was fixing it, you know.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘Anyway, glad to hear you’re still with us. Ears okay?’

  Matt went quiet for a moment, then asked: ‘What’s wrong with my ears?’ He sounded embarrassed and defensive, as if he’d been teased about sticking-out ears most of his life.

  ‘Haven’t been sliced off?’

  ‘Oh, no, still there.’

  ‘Good stuff.’

  ‘Got to go. Might catch you in a few days.’ Matt hung up before Jack could respond.

 
He sounded very distracted. Jack couldn’t work out why Matt had called. He hadn’t even asked about Jeffrey.

  Jack stood up and walked over to the kitchen bench. It was time for a cup of tea and a good think. He had some decisions to make. Pressure was building, and he wasn’t handling it very well. He now felt agitated all of the time, his body buzzing, his mind racing, and he was starting to jump at shadows.

  He tried to arrange all the pieces of his messy situation into some kind of order. He made only modest progress, but he did succeed in isolating a couple of critical questions. In particular, he needed to get ASIO off his back. Should he betray Farhia?

  He also needed to work out the truth beneath Matt’s strange behaviour. Was this just about a drug deal gone wrong, or was there something else going on?

  And what was Rowan up to? Somehow he’d landed himself with some kind of obligation to an unknown drug dealer in return for breathing space for Matt that hadn’t materialised. Had Rowan’s deal collapsed? Did it even exist?

  Tomorrow was Friday, so Jack knew he’d be able to find Rowan at the Dan at some point in the evening. Maybe with Laura and Vanessa, which would complicate things, but he would be there.

  He jiggled his Lipton’s teabag in a cracked, stained mug that had once been pale blue, and settled back down on the couch.

  He lifted his right leg, and with some difficulty placed his ankle on his left knee, adopting a relaxed, confident pose in an attempt to influence his state of mind. Just for the moment, he felt like a solution might be in sight. Native cunning honed by years of driving cabs would get him out of this mess.

  Jack spent most of Friday tossing these things around in his mind as he mechanically collected and despatched passengers. Shortly before four o’clock, Ajit collected the cab from him at the top end of Lygon Street, which made a pleasant change. He lived in Reservoir, which made the changeover process difficult. Ajit usually did his best to help Jack get home, but his first priority was paying customers. On this occasion, he’d been held up at his call-centre job, so he didn’t have time to go home before his taxi shift started. Jack often marvelled at how hard Ajit worked.

  After some general unwinding, sorting out his collection of letters and junk-mail, and some half-hearted cleaning up, Jack cooked himself an early dinner. He defaulted to his mainstay menu — three super-cheap Coles sausages, a pile of mashed potatoes, and an enormous mound of frozen peas. It ticked all his boxes: cheap, simple to prepare, and filling.

  He knew he could do better than this, but he didn’t have the motivation. He reflected on his lack of cooking skills as he sat down on the couch to watch the news. Perhaps one day he would buy a simple cookbook. Surely it couldn’t be that hard.

  There was always a satisfying dimension to the crunch of lightly charcoaled sausages and the sheer volume of fluffy mashed potatoes. The peas added some flavour variety. However satisfying his meal was, though, it still reminded him of his own inadequacy. What would Farhia think if she could see how he looked after himself? How could someone so hopeless be trusted to look after anyone else?

  A few mouthfuls of home-brand vanilla ice-cream later, and Jack’s evening meal was finished. He tossed up whether to finish with a VB or a cup of tea, and opted for the tea. There would be plenty of time for drinking later.

  He thought about having a shower before he went out, and then decided against it. He was hardly likely to bump into Farhia at the Dan: he would be surrounded by other sweaty, smelly men recovering from a hard day’s work, so what did it matter?

  There was a whiff of spring in the air as he got on the Lygon Street tram. There wasn’t much traffic to slow it down, so he arrived at Princes Street in good time. It was past seven o’clock, but there was still a smudge of daylight retreating over the Gothic gloom of the Melbourne General Cemetery. A pleasant, unfamiliar fragrance was faintly discernible in the air — the smell of flowers, plants, and birds. There was a Friday kind of smell, too, a sense of collective relaxation descending at the close of the working week. Perhaps things smelled differently when everyone was less stressed.

  It made Jack feel good, but also reminded him that serious hayfever season was starting. His Teludene supplies were low, so he needed to stock up.

  As he walked down the Princes Street hill towards the Dan, he reflected on life’s ironies. Here he was, embroiled in a complicated web of drug-dealing machinations, and his only interest in drug deals was securing cut-price supplies of Teludene. Stupid, really, when you thought about it.

  With his heavy, rolling gait and sloping shoulders, Jack was an easily recognisable figure as he approached the Dan. He wasn’t fully aware of it, but he was quite well-known in these parts. He was one of those people that most people in Carlton knew a little bit. The real Carlton people, anyway. The yuppies in their renovated terraces with lofts of glass and pine wouldn’t have recognised him — they looked right through people like cabbies and cleaners — but the old Carlton types all knew Jack. The small-time crims, the chancers, the deadbeats, the ageing hippies, the alcoholic journos, the washed-out academics — they all knew him.

  Jack pushed wearily against the rough wooden door that led to the lounge bar. He had no idea what to expect. It was even possible that Rowan wouldn’t be there tonight.

  He had to sort this mess out. He didn’t want to become a drug courier, he didn’t want to be a target for dealers, and he didn’t really care if Matt was strung up by his testicles for failing to pay his debts. He was tiring of Rowan, too. His mate was turning out to be more trouble than he was worth.

  As he had anticipated, Rowan was there in the lounge. Laura and Vanessa were nowhere to be seen, but Rowan wasn’t alone. He was sitting at a small table in the far corner, deep in conversation with a man who was hunched forward over the table.

  Rowan’s companion was wearing a shiny black-leather jacket and a navy T-shirt. His face carried an unpleasant, aggressive expression that would have curdled milk. He had thick, wavy, dark hair, and a face that spoke of hard living and violence. His small, neatly trimmed goatee, which was several shades lighter than his hair, looked out of place. Jack felt an air of menace radiating from him.

  He approached Rowan’s table warily.

  ‘Hi, mate, okay if I join you?’

  ‘Sure, grab a pew.’

  They remained silent as Jack scraped and shuffled his way onto a chair between them. The shape of the corner cramped them, the result of a protruding timber beam that was probably a relic of some earlier structural arrangement. Jack felt uncomfortably close to Rowan’s anonymous friend.

  The mystery man spoke suddenly. ‘This the guy?’ He glanced at Jack, but otherwise maintained a fixed stare in Rowan’s direction.

  ‘Yeah, he’s cool. User-friendly bloke, aren’t you, Jack?’ Rowan maintained his avuncular demeanour in spite of the hostile atmosphere.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jack was on his guard.

  ‘You forgotten?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You owe us a small favour.’

  ‘You’re kidding! The dogs were supposed to be called off, remember? So how come we got chased halfway across Melbourne the other night?’ Jack’s voice had risen, betraying his mounting apprehension.

  ‘Deal’s a deal, Jack. I’ve got no idea who was chasing you.’ Rowan kept his voice low and calm, but his message was clear. There were no choices on offer here, just obligations.

  ‘I didn’t sign up to anything, mate,’ Jack objected. ‘You just told me. And you didn’t fucking deliver, anyway.’ Jack was agitated now, unnerved by the glowering look of Rowan’s mate, who was sitting disconcertingly close to him.

  ‘Jack, Jack,’ Rowan replied in a fake-friendly tone. ‘Everything’ll be fine. There are serious people involved here. Nasty people. Can’t afford to upset them.’

  I seem to be surrounded by nasty people these days, Jack noted in passing.
r />   ‘That’s your problem, mate. I’ve got enough things to worry about without getting into this shit.’

  Rowan shifted his weight forward on his chair and fiddled with his sleeve. Then, without warning, Leather Jacket grabbed Jack’s collar with his right hand, twisted it to half-choke him, made a fist, and lifted him off his seat.

  ‘Think again, we aren’t playing games here.’ His flat, threatening tone carried a touch of an Eastern European accent. The threat felt and sounded authentic.

  ‘Get the fuck off me!’ Jack squeaked. He grabbed his assailant’s arm, and tried to stand up and extricate himself from his grip. Leather Jacket was too strong for him. He rose onto his haunches and leant into Jack, tightening his grip even further.

  Furtive glances were now being cast in their direction, but no one intervened. Minor altercations were not uncommon in the Dan, although this one was happening unusually early in the evening.

  Jack knocked over his chair with a loud clatter, and then his glass fell off the table and shattered on the floor. His face was now bright red. He arched his back and threw himself backwards, dropping his knees as he did so. As he fell to the floor, Leather Jacket fell on top of him. Jack glimpsed Rowan as he fell, still sitting at the table with an impassive expression on his face.

  Even before he hit the floor, Jack felt an excruciating pain in his genitals. Leather Jacket now had him by the throat and the balls — definitely not a good position to be in. He bellowed with shock and pain, thrashing about wildly in a desperate effort to escape the madman’s grasp.

  Things became even more confusing from this point, and Jack’s sense of what was happening started to scramble. He somehow registered that Rowan was now entangled in the mess of arms, legs, and furniture. Leather Jacket had lost his grip on Jack’s genitals, but he still had hold of his collar. He could hardly breathe as the crush of bodies pressed against him and the choke-hold took him to the brink of unconsciousness. Other people seemed to have got involved, pushing and shouting above him, and the lights had been turned up. The fight was spreading.