Deadly Kerfuffle

by Tony Martin

Genres: Humor & Satire

Synopsis

It’s 2006, and terror scaremongering in the media has rattled the residents of sleepy, suburban Dunlop Crescent. When a Maori family moves into number 14, the local cranks assume they are Middle Eastern terrorists hell-bent on destroying the Australian way of life. Rumour has it that they plan to turn their house to face Mecca. This sets off an extraordinary chain of events that embroils the entire neighbourhood as well as cynical media figures, bumbling antiterrorist police and a gang of white supremacists with a radical plan to wake up the country and ‘preserve Australian values’. At the centre of it all is Gordon, a retired widower, who just wants a bit of peace and quiet. Deadly Kerfuffle is a smart, riveting and incredibly funny novel inspired by actual letters to the editor in a local newspaper. Through biting satire and a cast of unforgettable characters, it’s an insight into the kind of paranoia that could only ever blossom in the quietest and safest of places.

Release date: November 1, 2017

Publisher: Affirm Press

Print pages: 288

Sample

1

The Get-Go

It was clear, from what Herb Turgent was saying, that the people at number 14 were different.

‘They’re different, that’s for sure,’ he’d said, even before Gordon had unhooked the chain on the back door. ‘And I wouldn’t put anything past ’em. You heard it here first.’

Herb was always saying ‘You heard it here first,’ and Gordon, his closest friend and neighbour, was always shaking his head, a response Herb chose to read as agreement.

‘Am I putting the jug on?’ Gordon enquired, as Herb stumbled into the kitchen, disentangling himself from a glaringly inappropriate parka. ‘Mandarin Breakfast?’ he offered, waving some orange packets of tea he’d won at the bowls club.

A puff of bluster implied yes, so Gordon filled the kettle and steeled himself for Herb’s findings.

‘I reckon they could be a cell.’

Here we go.

‘A what?’

‘I saw this on Current Affair,’ said Herb, lowering his voice for effect. ‘They move into a normal neighbourhood, get about assimilating for a few years and then, just as you’re getting used to them … bang! September bloody eleven.’

‘But this lot … aren’t they from New Zealand?’

‘They’re from somewhere, I’ll tell you that much.’

It was dangerously close to Price Is Right time, so Gordon decided to hasten Herb’s theory and, hopefully, his departure. An hour earlier, he’d have taken him on, tried to get him to think things through before going to town on this latest evidence of the ‘multiculturalism’ they were all supposed to be getting the hang of. But that could take hours and would inevitably end down at the Standard, with both of them shitfaced before teatime.

‘You didn’t go sneaking in there, did you? Not in that bloody coat?’

‘This is genuine Safety Lime, I’ll have you know,’ said Herb, folding the parka into a phosphorescent pillow.

‘So,’ began Gordon, reluctantly. ‘What’s your theory, then? Terrorists?’

‘I’m not saying that …’

‘Royce down the Standard knows Ponch from the estate agents and he says they’re Maoris. From Auckland. New Zealand.’

‘Maoris. Are they Islamic?’

‘He’s a teacher and she’s some sort of counsellor. They’ve got two kids. And a speedboat.’

‘A speedboat?’

Gordon could see that Herb was just getting started. Larry Emdur’s prize showcase would have to wait. He wondered for a moment whether he could be bothered trying to work the video.

‘So, how did we get from a family of Maoris to … potential nuclear catastrophe?’

‘No need for that tone, Gordon,’ said Herb, setting his chin at an angle that implied mild offence. ‘I’m just trying to be “precautionary”.’

‘Geez, Herb, can we turn the drama down for half a minute?’

The two men – Gordon, spry and wiry with a full head of silver hair, and Herb, barrel-chested and thinly thatched – collapsed into place at opposite ends of the formica table, which displayed an assortment of cartons and containers of as-yet-undetermined recyclability.

‘You can’t go by everything you see on bloody Current Affair,’ said Gordon, entertaining, to his horror, the idea of a cigarette. ‘It’s all designed to inflame and provoke.’

‘I know that. But look at what happened in London with all them bombs goin’ off. We’ll be next, you know.’

Gordon braced himself for the assertion that he was hearing it here first.

‘I’m just saying, we’ve got to keep our eyes peeled.’

‘It’s a normal bloody family from New Zealand, not … Al Qaeda-stan, or wherever.’

‘I’m serious, Gordon.’

‘I know you are. But surely we can cope with a couple of educated Maoris. Haven’t we been drinking at the Maori Chief for over twenty years?’

‘Educated,’ echoed Herb, as though the notion itself was cause for alarm.

‘Don’t get too worked up about this, Herb. Have some mandarin tea and calm down.’ Gordon leaped to his feet and tackled the orange packets with sudden gusto. ‘I’m sure they’re just normal bloody Kiwis.’

‘Yeah, maybe. There’s just one niggling detail.’

‘Of course there is,’ expelled Gordon, brimming two mugs with boiling water and steadying himself for the bombshell.

‘They’re moving the house.’

‘What? Where to?’

‘They’re turning the entire structure on its axis. Now what’s that about?’

‘Can you do that?’

‘It’s a mammoth bloody exercise.’

‘There must be a good reason.’

‘They’re making it face Mecca.’

‘Oh, get on with you!’

‘No, I’ve heard of this being done.’

‘What, on Current Affair?’

‘No, for real. Place over in Northcote.’

Gordon plonked the mugs down in front of them and fell back in his chair as though winded. None of it made any sense, but he knew Herb had given himself just enough to go on. Much like the last time. And the time before that. ‘It’s good we’re onto this, Gordon,’ said Herb, sipping his tea in apparent triumph. ‘Onto it from the get-go.’

Ten minutes later, Gordon was sitting on the back step, smoking a cigarette and hating himself for it. Now he’d have to re-quit for the third time since Christmas. Thanks for that, Herb. Gordon had been putting up with his mate’s paranoid carry-on since he’d first moved into Dunlop Crescent back in the early 1980s. In those days Herb had a wife, Deirdre, to keep his bullshit in check. But she’d finally cracked it and shot through about three years previous, around the time her husband made it onto the front of the Melbourne Tribune, with his campaign to force local mosques to fly an Australian flag at half-mast on Anzac Day. Gordon had thought that Deirdre’s departure – not to mention Herb’s recent triple bypass and double hernia – might have knocked some sense into him. But no, ever since those bombs had gone off in England he’d been spending all his time watching the news with a notepad, phoning 3ML, pointing the finger, and calling for a return to ‘traditional Australian values’. All that palaver.

Not that Gordon had always considered it such. He’d been all for traditional Australian values up until about five years ago, when his wife of thirty-two years had died, leaving Gordon to make sense of this mad new century on his own. Since then he’d decided to stop being so worried about things that didn’t really matter. The world was obviously changing, and Gordon was quite happy to be along for the ride. Herb wanted to wind the clock back to when everything was in black and white. When dinner was on the table at the appointed time and everything made sense. But things were different now. Brylcream had been replaced by something called Garnier Fructis.

And these young people, these Asians and whatever they were … Islamics. These ‘new wogs’, these kids with their internet and whatnot. He’d met a few of them and there wasn’t much talk of ‘smashing the system’ like he used to hear from his daughter Denise when she was at uni. This lot wanted more of everything as it was, but faster, bigger and with norgs akimbo. That’s why the terrorists would never win; the young ones had their iPods and pornography to defend, and defend them they would, to the bitter end. Best leave them to it and, in the meantime, take advantage of some of the perks. Like online betting.

Maoris. There was a time when Gordon might even have referred to them as ‘boongs’. But then he also remembered watching – and enjoying – a TV program called The Black and White Minstrel Show, and what the bloody hell was that all about? But you know, he’d say to Denise, there weren’t a lot of black people in Melbourne in the old days. ‘Once they started coming here and beating us at the cricket, that’s when I started my re-think.’

Gordon’s ‘re-think’ had resulted in, apart from anything else, a welcome reduction in his blood pressure. Why get worked up about stuff you can’t do anything about? Life – while not necessarily too short, given the long, slow descent into decrepitude he was currently experiencing – was perhaps too fragile to withstand the red-faced indignation required for, say, the average call to 3ML.

He’d not bothered to explain any of this to Herb, however, as even a whiff of it would send him into paroxysms of ‘Bleeding hearts!’ and ‘You’ve gone soft!’

‘Maoris. Are they Islamic?’

Gordon wanted to laugh, but he knew this would trigger a coughing fit that would see his neighbours calling for an ambulance. Nonetheless, he sparked up a second cigarette and asked himself the following: If they were a ‘cell’, who were ‘getting about assimilating’, wouldn’t they be going out of their way not to do anything that might attract attention? Like turning their entire house on its axis, for example? How did Herb find out about this anyway? From the same paper that had reported on those ‘paedophiles’ who’d moved into number 49? (The ones who’d actually moved into number 20.) It had taken the fire brigade nearly half an hour to extinguish the ‘mystery blaze’ that had engulfed the carport belonging to those two elderly paraplegics. The culprit was never found. The Tribune blamed ‘Muslim extremists’. Herb blamed the inaccuracy of the map in the Tribune.

Gordon wondered if he should maybe warn the Maoris about Herb. No, best steer clear of them – at least until their house stopped turning. He hissed the cigarette into the dog’s water bowl, tipped it out and refilled the bowl from the hose. Time to get inside and start defrosting tea. He’d missed The Price Is Right, but Millionaire was coming on later and tonight it was one of those celebrity specials. Now we’d find out how smart that plonker from The Footy Show really was.

Gordon found the phone off the hook and this worried him. Had he forgotten to hang up after a call? How long before he’d be wandering up to the shops in his pyjamas? Then he remembered: he’d disconnected it earlier while trying to beat his best time on the crossword. Unfortunately, by the time he’d finished, he’d forgotten what time he’d started. In future he’d remember to write that down. He wrote himself a reminder to do this, and replaced the phone. Just as it rang.

‘9595 7711,’ he announced.

‘Who have you been talking to?’

‘No one. Apart from Herb.’

‘Did he tell you about this house-turning?’

‘Yes, he did. Incidentally, Coral, hello.’

‘Yes, yes, no time for that. We’ve got to get a petition going.’

Coral Stooles loved nothing more than to get a petition going. Her last, to have the street’s ‘traffic splinter’ – itself the product of an earlier petition – painted green, had been a roaring success. The result was a popular, if in the end dangerous, addition to the local streetscape.

‘This turning has to be stopped, Gordon. It’s all hands on deck.’

‘Really, Coral, what’s it got to do with us?’

‘Oh, right. I see. I might’ve expected you to be …’

‘Reasonable?’

‘Difficult, Gordon. Difficult. You can be a very difficult man, with all due respect.’

‘Here’s what I’m finding difficult, Coral: understanding why Maoris would be turning their house to face Mecca.’

‘Well, haven’t you heard?’

‘Heard what?’

‘They’re Islamic.’

Gordon noted that if he’d gotten one of those new cordless phones, like Denise had suggested, he could be outside right now, having another smoke.

‘Let’s assume, Coral, that that’s true. That it’s all true. Why exactly does this have to be stopped?’

‘That’s what Herb will be explaining tomorrow afternoon. At the rally.’

2

The Cretard

‘Nyaarrrgghhhh!!!’

Jonah’s right arm had been sharply twisted behind his back, and less than a second later, his face made hard contact with the counter in front of him. A security guard a good foot shorter than his quarry was pressing Jonah’s face into a stack of leaflets promising ‘banking tailored to suit your needs’. The guard barked something into a walkie-talkie and moments later the alarm ceased. With a rumbling of metal, the screens lifted and there were the teller and three fellow bank drones, all regarding Jonah as though he were a stingray that might well strike again.

‘What’s this about?’ demanded a sparsely haired higher-up, appearing from underneath a desk. His ‘Ask me about a term deposit and get ready to smile’ badge identified him as Colin Tile.

‘Coat pocket,’ grunted Jonah from the counter.

The guard lifted a folded copy of that morning’s Epoch from the side pocket of Jonah’s Columbine-style overcoat.

‘Page three.’

While the teller flattened out the paper, the guard loosened his grip and gave the prisoner a thorough frisking, which yielded nothing more dangerous than a packet of molten Soothers.

‘Is this what you’re talking about?’ spat Tile, pointing to a headline reading, ‘Bank posts record profit’.

‘Sure fucking is,’ responded Jonah. ‘I’d like you to explain why, given that massive windfall, you’re still laying waste to my account with a relentless battery of so-called “servicing” fees.’

‘Well, Mr … Cretardo, is it?’ said Tile, consulting Jonah’s severely screen-crimped passbook, ‘If we don’t charge you fees, how do you expect us to service you?’

‘Given those figures, I’d expect to be serviced by Elle Fucking Macpherson herself!’

‘Get him out!’ ordered Tile, slipping the passbook into Jonah’s top pocket.

‘I hope by “him” you’re referring to my penis!’ blurted Jonah as the guard dragged him through the bollards and toward the automatic doors. ‘No? I thought your first priority was my needs!’ he shouted as the doors slid shut behind them, revealing a life-size poster of the aforementioned Ms Macpherson, grinning with interest-rate-induced glee.

As the guard escorted him down the escalator, Jonah finally fell silent. He’d made his point. Score one to the customer. His head held high to avoid the stares of startled shoppers, he distracted himself by observing that if you glanced at the Medicare logo and then looked away quickly, it appeared to read ‘Mediocre’. That would make a good letter to the Tribune’s ‘Your Say’ column.

‘And don’t come back!’ concluded the guard unimaginatively, making an awkward attempt to fling Jonah into the street.

‘Certainly not!’ replied the unbowed flingee, loud enough for passers-by to enjoy. ‘This was the worst first date I’ve ever been on!’

Dissatisfied with this final rejoinder, Jonah belatedly appended it with a single, shouted ‘TOOL!!!’

His name was indeed Cretardo. ‘The Cretard’ they’d called him at primary school, and from time to time over the subsequent thirty years, that brilliant handle had reared its head again. Jonah didn’t mind one bit, preferring it to the mateyness of the ‘Robbos’ and ‘Maccas’ so many Australians seemed to favour. He savoured his nickname, liked that it came with a ‘The’ at the front and admired the ease with which it combined ‘cretin’ and ‘retard’ without cheating on its source.

The Cretard was a bear-like creature of imposing size but unthreatening effect, with a fine cluster of light-brown hair nestled atop a face that would plainly struggle to produce a moustache. That, incidentally, was something he’d never been tempted to try. ‘Crumb-havens’ he called them, and anyone sporting one was viewed with disdain – as was nearly everyone else. Needless to say, The Cretard lived alone.

Home was a ground-floor flat in a seventies-era block of six, mystifyingly labelled ‘The Conquistador’. It was wedged between two rather more attractive properties on the south corner of Cosgrove Avenue and Dunlop Crescent, a quiet street that diverged from busy Cosgrove and curved around to rejoin it a block later. The only access to Jonah’s flat was via the front door, one of two that shared a roast-scented alcove at the foot of the block’s main staircase. Jonah had fitted his door with three separate deadlocks, not foreseeing that the thirty seconds it took to negotiate them all greatly increased his chances of an encounter with one of his neighbours. As he jangled through the keys in sequence, he prayed the noise would not bring any of them scurrying from their holes. No such luck.

‘Mr Cretardo?’

Jonah froze. It was Coral Stooles from upstairs, a spindling seventy-something whose hunched posture made her resemble a crimplene question mark. He said nothing, as even the most innocuous of pleasantries could unleash a tsunami of scuttlebutt, implicating anyone and everyone in the block, and beyond.

‘Will you be attending Herb’s rally this arvo?’

‘Is this for “Say No to Treated Effluent”?’

‘No. Something much more disturbing.’

‘Untreated effluent?’

‘Something unnatural.’

‘All right, Coral,’ said Jonah defeatedly. ‘Tell me all about it.’

‘You have five messages,’ announced the answering machine with robotic pride.

Five messages? Jonah had only been gone for an hour and a half. Could someone have died? He punched the play button and padded off to the kitchen to begin assembling his third cup of instant for the day. As the first message rolled, an unfamiliar voice wafted across the breakfast bar.

‘Hello Mr Cretardo, this is Irvine Pell from the Gas Board. Just enquiring as to your whereabouts today, as we need to gain access to your flat to check up on a suspected leak that’s been reported. You’re obviously not there, um … I’ll try again later. Thanks.’ Click, beep, beep, beep.

That’s odd, thought Jonah, filling the kettle slowly, so as not to drown out the messages. How could there be a gas leak when everything in the flat, heating and hot water included, was powered by electricity? In fact, as far he knew, the entire block was without gas. Wasn’t theirs the only address for miles around not affected by the gas crisis a few years back? Hadn’t they all been pestered to the shithouse by desperate, shivering locals offering up to ten bucks for a hot shower, for that very reason? And the oddness continued, for the following four messages consisted of nothing but click, beep, beep, beep.

What the fuck was this all about? And was it somehow connected to the proposed house-turning Coral had just previewed in imaginative, if unlikely, detail? (‘It’ll probably attract rats and interfere with TV reception.’) The one that had prompted a public rally Jonah had no intention of attending. When it came to acts of local agitation, The Cretard worked alone.

Jonah sat, slowly sinking into his fat brown couch, cradling his coffee, feeling prickly and dissatisfied. This wasn’t how Tuesday was supposed to pan out. The ‘bank raid’ had been intended as a mere prelude to a full day’s activities along similar inflammatory lines. At 11am he had planned to call Pizza Hut head office and inform them of the results of a study he’d conducted, which proved that their recent introduction of a centralised phone-ordering system had in fact delayed delivery times by up to fifteen minutes. At midday, he was due at the Boroondara Council buildings to register his disgust re: the recent upward proliferation of different-coloured wheelie bins along shire nature strips. The remainder of the afternoon was to have been spent at the Jam Factory cinema, where he intended to loudly register his disapproval at the number of fucking ads, until the feature finally commenced some twenty-two minutes after the advertised start time. But now his whole schedule would be thrown into disarray by this gas leak bullshit.

Clearly, as there was no gas, there could be no leak. Pell had referred to ‘Mr Cretardo’, so it wasn’t a wrong number. Spurred by the sudden prospect of imminent burglary, Jonah located a brochure amidst the snarl of paperwork on the coffee table in front of him. He still hadn’t got back to the people at Strongbolt Security about that alarm system. Their quote was $899.99 and he was just starting to calculate how many DVDs that would buy when, without any kind of warning, his front door was punched off its hinges by a small battering ram and, tink, tink-tink, three tear-gas canisters appeared on the floor in front of him.

It happened that quickly, that suddenly.

And yet somehow, on some subconscious level, he’d been expecting it. As jets of foul white gas began to hiss round his ankles, Jonah carefully placed the coffee mug on the table, stood up, and calmly walked toward the doorway. There was no point fighting it. Tuesday was officially shot to hell.

3

The Write-Up

These days, the crossword was the only part of the paper Gordon devoted more than a few minutes to. In the past he would read the front part of the Tribune from top to bottom and form an opinion – almost always negative – about every last item, including all the letters in ‘You. . .