Comfort Zone (24 page)

‘Haven't opened it for months, so it's stuck. Maybe something like humidity expanding the wood. Climate change, all that stuff. I'm not that strong because of my illness … it's hard enough getting all my stuff into boxes.'

‘I'll give it a go.' Jack couldn't understand what was happening to him. Grumpy, cynical Jack, adept at avoiding physical labour and responsibility, had been superseded by obliging Jack, ready to tackle any task, large or small.

He bent over, grasped the drawer handle, and braced his left foot against the wardrobe frame.

‘Nghrr …!' he scream-grunted as he pulled hard at the drawer. All the injured parts of his body screamed back at him.

‘Sure is stuck. I'll give it another try.' He took a couple of deep breaths and braced himself again.

‘Rrrghh …!' He turned up the volume even louder and pulled at the drawer as hard as he could.

Just as he was about to relax his grip and surrender, it gave way and flew out of its socket. Jack stumbled backwards, tripped over a small box, and fell flat on his back onto a pile of clothes.

Emily couldn't help herself. The tinkling, musical giggle that had enchanted Jack at the welfare centre came flooding out.

‘A ten! Double back-flip with pike!' She held up an imaginary scorecard to enhance the effect.

Jack was embarrassed. He'd done his masculine duty by dislodging the drawer, but the immediate aftermath was a little humiliating.

‘Thing must've been stuck,' he gasped, pointing to an odd-shaped silver object that might have been an ornamental knife. The red in his face had moved a few notches along the colour chart.

‘I'm sorry, Jack, but it was a great circus act. You must be really strong to have gotten it out.'

He rearranged his shirt, and brushed away a few specks of lint.

‘No harm done. Any other jobs for Arnold Schwarzenegger while we're at it?'

‘No,' she smiled sweetly back at him. ‘Just have to take all this stuff down to the car. How about you do the boxes, and I'll do the little stuff?'

‘No worries. Going to leave the door open? Otherwise we'll have to go up and down together — unless you've got a spare key …'

‘Sure, leave it open. Why not?'

‘Dunno, stuff might get nicked …'

‘No way! Everyone knows me up here. Wouldn't dream of pinching my stuff. Anyway, can you see anything worth stealing?'

Jack didn't respond, in case agreeing with her last comment would upset her. He shuffled towards the door, then turned back to her: ‘Better get started. Hope the lift doesn't break down.'

For the next thirty or forty minutes, he tramped back and forth to the cab, barely exchanging words with Emily as they passed each other. His experience of cramming luggage into a family sedan came in handy. He was confident they could do the lot in two trips.

Emily's new flat was much more pleasant, but a fraction smaller. The lingering smell of new paint wafted through the lounge room, and the fittings looked like they were brand new. He assumed it had had one of the token upgrades that the Ministry did occasionally.

Jack huffed and puffed as he dumped boxes on the floor. He pulled out a faded green handkerchief and wiped his forehead. He was enjoying being useful and helping Emily, but part of him was wishing that he hadn't volunteered. Moving house was always an enormous hassle. He stayed in the Balmoral Avenue flat while it crumbled around him mainly because he couldn't handle the thought of moving. He must have been crazy to think of doing it for someone else …

The second load was easier. There were still a few bits and pieces left in the flat when they departed, but Emily dismissed Jack's query with an airy wave of her hand.

‘No problem. Couple of trips with shopping bags. Easy.'

He didn't argue. As they walked in and out, unloading the second instalment of assorted items, he felt himself flagging. After depositing the last big box on the floor of Emily's new bedroom, he sank to the floor. He sat with his back against the wall, staring into space for several minutes.

As he was about to stand up, Emily poked her head through the doorway.

‘Thanks so much, Jack, you're a lifesaver. That's really broken the back of it. Sorry I can't do too much, it's my illness you know, it's really …'

‘No worries, happy to help.' Jack levered himself back up again and walked towards her.

‘Want to grab a coffee now?'

He looked at his cheap digital watch, a Victoria Market special that had proved amazingly durable. He weighed up the risks of annoying Ajit again with the attractions of spending more time with Emily.

‘Sure, why not?'

‘Let's go round the corner to Harry's.'

‘Great stuff.' Jack had no idea who Harry was, but he thought he knew which café Emily was referring to.

It was a tiny place, sandwiched between a messy laundromat and an old-style shoe-repair shop. There were only three tables and about ten plastic chairs inside. There was one free table towards the back, so they headed towards it, taking care to avoid bumping into people at the other tables.

Emily waved a cheery greeting to a grizzled, overweight, and unshaven man who could well have been Harry. A couple of cappuccinos appeared shortly after they sat down. The chairs made an irritating squealing-scraping noise when they dragged them over the floor. Jack didn't mind, though — he had other things on his mind.

‘Thanks so much, Jack. My illness is such a pain. There's lots of normal things I can't really do, or I can only do for a short time. Even carrying a few bags at the wrong time would half-kill me.'

Jack looked at Emily with renewed interest. It was strange how someone with such a vibrant personality could be so physically constrained.

‘So it's some kind of virus or something?'

‘No one knows. For years, they all pretended it didn't exist. Doctors'd say you're run down, depressed, or whatever. It's now recognised as a real illness — they just don't know much about it.'

‘How long've you had it?'

‘About fourteen years.'

‘Jesus!'

‘I was just finishing my Masters at uni, and I got really sick. Some flu kind of thing. It went away, but I stayed exhausted — like all of the time. It goes up and down, but it's always with you.'

She's got to be in her late thirties
, Jack was thinking,
maybe just forty. Doesn't look it
. Not doing much was obviously good for her appearance.

‘What'd the doctors say? Any chance of fixing it?'

‘Not really. It's still a mystery to them. At least they accept it's real now. Drove me nuts early on. You're too physically exhausted to do anything for more than about twenty minutes, so you have to lie down for half the day. And most people think there's really nothing wrong with you.'

‘What'd you do your Masters in?'

‘Art history at RMIT. Not much use for anything — even if I could work.'

‘Haven't worked since then?'

‘Not much. I've done odd bits and pieces, a few part-time things at galleries. I helped out at the State Library for a while — very short hours, though. I've been on the DSP for ages.'

Jack had sometimes thought about applying for the Disability Support Pension himself. Surely chronic hayfever and general physical decay would qualify.

His scepticism about people on the disability pension was wavering. He had always assumed that most DSP beneficiaries were frauds and bludgers. From the little he'd heard of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, he'd decided it was just another haven for the pathetic and inadequate, like worker's compensation stress claims. Emily was so transparently sincere and decent that he was rethinking this opinion. Maybe some of them were fair dinkum after all.

‘So most physical stuff's a no-no? Like washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, and stuff?'

‘I can do things like that, but only in short bursts. Then I have to lie down for a while.'

Jack wondered if people with chronic fatigue could have sex, but thought it better not to ask. He looked at Emily's face, and concluded that she was more attractive than he'd initially thought. Her skin was creamy-pink, smooth and unblemished, and her petite snub nose sat easily between pale-blue eyes and full, even lips. She wasn't stunningly beautiful, but there was something pleasant and endearing about her features that drew Jack to her. Nothing was outstanding, but nothing was wrong either. He was even getting used to the clashing colours of her outfit and the peculiar hair colour.

‘What about going out — the movies, or even having a coffee, like now?'

‘I could get to a movie, if you're asking. It varies. Some days, I literally can't get out of bed. Others aren't too bad. Last week or so's been good.'

‘Shit.' This was all beyond Jack's comprehension. He had never met anyone with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome before. He didn't know how to offer help and sympathy.

‘What about your family, boyfriend, or whatever?'

‘Don't have anything like that. I grew up in Adelaide, and Mum's in a nursing home with Alzheimer's. Dad left when I was four, and my brother was killed in a car accident when he was nineteen. And if I had a partner it'd be him carting boxes around for me, not you, wouldn't it?' She smiled at Jack, and he basked in the implied admiration. He marvelled that someone who had been dealt with so unfairly by life could be so upbeat, and felt a twinge of shame at his tendency to grizzle about life's unfairness at every opportunity.

‘I'm not complaining, Jack. I've got lots of friends round here' — she gestured in the general direction of the flats — ‘and I try to do my bit at the welfare centre.'

‘Yeah, I got volunteered to help out, too.'

‘They're like that. Beautiful people, though. Especially the women.'

‘Yeah. When I bump into Somali blokes, it always seems to end up in an argument. Who was that lunatic anyway?'

‘Not sure. They treat women pretty badly, some of them, but the women stand up for themselves.'

‘He Farhia's cousin or something?'

‘Dunno. They're obviously connected somehow. Hard to tell with the Somalis. Clans, tribes, cousins, it all blurs into the same thing …'

Jack looked up and shifted awkwardly in his seat.

‘What do you think of Farhia?' As he spoke, he noted with surprise that he had barely thought about Farhia over the last hour or so.

‘Nice lady. I think she's quite well educated, and she's a bit of a leader with the Somali women. Must be hard with the two boys …'

She looked off into the distance for a moment, weighing her thoughts. Jack tried to look relaxed and nonchalant, just making polite conversation about a person he was only mildly interested in.

‘A bit hard to read?'

Emily tilted her head to one side and gave him a quizzical smile. ‘Some of them are like that … been through a lot, awful things.'

‘How long's she been in Australia?'

‘I don't know — a few years maybe.'

‘She's very beautiful, of course.' Jack thought he noticed a half-shadow flit across Emily's face, and he regretted this unguarded comment as soon as he had made it.

‘Yeah, I guess so.'

He sipped at the dregs of his coffee, now heading beyond lukewarm towards cold.

‘Anyway, it's all window shopping when you get to my age.' He underlined this tactical retreat with a short burst of laughter.

‘Don't be too hard on yourself, Jack. You're obviously a good man. You've helped Farhia, and now you're helping me. That's more important.'

Jack blushed, and sipped at his empty coffee cup to hide his embarrassment.

‘Yeah, well, the only thing that stopped me from being a Hollywood movie star is lack of talent!'

They both laughed, and he sensed that it was the right time to leave.

‘Better get moving. Got to do the cab handover, Ajit gets cranky if I'm late too much.'

They stood up. In spite of Emily's protestations, Jack insisted on paying for the coffees. As they walked out into the creeping gloom of late afternoon, Emily grasped Jack's arm and looked straight at him with wide, clear eyes.

‘Thanks so much, Jack, you're a lifesaver. Let's catch up again some time soon.'

‘Yeah, that'd be great. Might see you around the Somali joint or something. Give you a call, maybe. Good luck with the rest of the move.'

As he walked back along Elgin Street, Jack marvelled at his own confusion. Not so long ago, he had been resigned to spending his declining years with porn and pub mates. Now he was infatuated with one beautiful woman, and was talking about catching up with another one.

Yet he was vaguely conscious of a fundamental truth: however low his value in the sexual marketplace might be, there were attractive women out there who faced similar challenges. Somali single mums and middle-aged women with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome weren't exactly market leaders, either.