KEY POINTS:
Drunk, angry and lapsing in and out of consciousness, the middle-aged passenger glared at cabbie Martin Edmond and demanded his change.
"But you haven't paid," Edmond told the bloke who, minutes earlier, had been swearing and lashing out.
He knew the passenger, a Serbian immigrant, had no money to pay the A$40 ($47) fare to Parramatta. But he drove him anyway, figuring he needed some help. The man paused, muttered to himself, lurched out the door and stumbled towards his gate.
Good deed done, no physical injuries, and thankfully no defilement of cab. Edmond drove back to Sydney's city centre in the hope his next fare hadn't been spent at the bar.
Edmond, born and raised in Ohakune, is described in various awards blurbs as one of New Zealand's sharpest intellectual minds. He's also driven taxis in Sydney since 1981 to supplement his income. The surname is big in NZ literature - his late mother Lauris is one of the country's best-known poets.
By day, he's churned out screenplays, poetry, essays and novels, won a Montana New Zealand Book Award in 2005 for Chronicle of the Unsung and was a finalist in 2000 (The Resurrection of Philip Clairmont) and again this year for Luca Antara: Passages in Search of Australia.
Yesterday, Edmond flew to Auckland to be honoured with a Copyright Licensing Ltd (CLL) Writers Award to write his next book, The Zone of the Marvellous, which examines the place of the Antipodes in Western imagination. The cherry is a $35,000 grant.
Edmond almost hung up on the woman who called with the news.
He doesn't like Mondays, and an eight-hour shift behind the wheel beckoned as he snapped "hello".
"I was astonished. When the phone call came, I had to ask her to repeat it. I didn't know who she was or what she was talking about."
The cash injection, half now and the rest next June, will allow the cab to be parked up for the early part of the summer - but it's inevitable he'll be back behind the wheel. Writers don't generally get rich.
Edmond, 55 this year, says driving taxis is almost a hindrance to life as a writer: stressful, risky and occasionally dangerous. It's his "last resort" job, but it's sociable, pays his rent and he doesn't have a boss to answer to.
He hires the cab, starts at 3pm but rarely works a full eight-hour shift. When he reaches his target, usually A$200 ($234), he clocks out and gets his sleep, ready for a morning of writing.
Conversation is optional, but Edmond enjoys the social side. The rule is a passenger has to initiate.
"Most people are interesting if you can get them talking about the things that interest them.
"But I find a lot of business people - the suits - are extremely rude.
"Some of them treat you like you're their servant. They also treat the cab as an extension of their office.
"These blokes get in the front seat, pull out their palm pilot or cellphone and have excessively loud, boastful conversations as if you're not there.
"The main thing I've learned from cab driving is that I like ordinary people best. Ordinary people are often the most extraordinary."
Touch wood, he's never been mugged or assaulted. Edmond says the key is to identify trouble and not let them in, or keep talking and try to relax anyone who threatens to turn ugly. He doesn't work weekends, when most of the trouble happens.
He agrees Sydney cabbies have a bad name but he does his best to convince people otherwise.
"There are some people who drive like madmen, are obsessed with money and cheat and lie and scheme, but there are others who are perfect gentlemen, decent honest people.
"I guess it's just luck if you get a madman or a decent human being."
As an author, Edmond is fascinated by explorers and travel. Luca Antara was a memoir, a history and a travel book, which drew parallels between the author and the life of a historical figure, Antonio da Nova.
The Zone of the Marvellous explores the progression of explorers, like Marco Polo (who got as far as Timor) and Abel Tasman, towards New Zealand and Australia.
"There was a lot of speculation about the other side of the world. It goes back about 2000 years. Sometimes they thought hell was down here and sometimes they thought it was heaven.
"I'm interested in tracing that history and bring it up to the present and figure out why New Zealand and Australian artists are obsessed with heaven and hell.
"We always seem to be on the brink of paradise or apocalypse."
He's also had a small advance from an Australian publisher for a book on German Dr Ludwig Becker, the official artist on the Burke and Wills expedition in 1860.
A two-week safari/research project will start in Melbourne by viewing his art, and end at Becker's grave somewhere in south-west Queensland on a stock route along the Bulloo River.
"Travelling and writing have got an intrinsic connection with each other. I even think reading a book is sort of like going on a journey. Travel's a great way of getting into a writing project."
Edmond's works have generally been recognised but he's grateful for every award, not only for the cash windfall.
"As a writer it's extremely important. Some do it for all their life and never get recognised, whereas a guy who fixes drains or makes money for a bank will always be recognised for what they do.
"You want to get your name around and sell books, and more importantly for the confidence it gives you. Confidence is so important. I was a very unconfident person for a very long time. Recognition is a great boost to confidence and that feeds back into the work."
When he returns from Auckland, Edmond will spend some of the school holidays with his sons, aged 7 and 10, who live with their mother on the New South Wales Central Coast.
Then he's off on safari, and back to Sydney to weave some literary magic, before the taxi beckons again sometime next year.
* Last night's other $35,000 CLL award recipient was poet and academic Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, who will write Best of Both Worlds, an examination of the relationship between 19th-century ethnographer Elsdon Best and the Tuhoe chief Tutakangahau.
Holman, a former shearer, sawmiller and social worker, returned to study in 1997 at the University of Canterbury, where he is currently a research assistant.
- NZPA
