Jack of Diamonds

by Bryce Courtenay

  I nodded. So we did it again and, like I’d done probably hundreds of times before, I sang Daisy’s reply on my own.

  There was silence when I finished singing and Miss Frostbite looked over at Joe Hockey. ‘Remarkable,’ she said.

  Joe nodded. ‘Atta boy! Not jes the harmonica, hey, Jazzboy?’

  Miss Frostbite rose from her piano, walked to the edge of the stage and addressed my mom. ‘Has Jack had any formal training, Gertrude?’

  My mom shook her head. ‘No, his father gave him the harmonica for his eighth birthday and he’s taught himself to play. But he started singing before that.’ She made it sound like we were a happy family, with my dad being a real nice, caring guy.

  ‘I see, and that’s when you discovered he had perfect pitch?’

  ‘Perfect pitch?’ my mom asked. Like me, she didn’t know what Miss Frostbite was talking about. ‘He’s always been a good singer,’ she said, trying to cover our ignorance.

  Miss Frostbite returned to her piano and we played some more, with the music getting more and more complex. I mean, I could hear it in my head but I just couldn’t play it quickly enough. I apologised to them both.

  ‘Jack, if you hadn’t made those mistakes, me and Miss Floss would be thinking maybe we had George Gershwin Junior on our hands. That ain’t kid’s stuff, even for good jazz musicians.’

  Miss Frostbite left the stage and went to sit beside my mom. They talked quietly for a bit then stood up and left the room together. It was already late and I knew my mom’d be thinking about getting to work. She’d been very patient, just sitting and watching. ‘Won’t be long,’ Miss Frostbite called back. ‘Perhaps you can go over the bits Jack didn’t understand, Joe.’

  Joe and I started working on one of the bits I couldn’t play, but I still couldn’t quite get it. ‘Never mind, Jack, you’ll get it next time,’ Joe said. Then he laughed. ‘It took Joe Hockey a long time to perfect that particular phrasing and those progressions on the piano.’

  It was funny how he referred to himself as if he were someone else. He’d also done it the previous night when he told me I had pride and talked about playing twin pianos, like it wasn’t a good thing to do for his pride. I’d definitely never heard two pianos playing together in a jam session, so either he or Miss Frostbite didn’t play in the jazz band.

  The foyer door opened and a head appeared. ‘Tony, you gotta wait in the foyer till I holler. Tell everyone!’ Joe called to him.

  It was a quarter to five, almost time for the jam session to begin, when my mom finally returned from seeing Miss Frostbite. ‘I have to hurry, Jack,’ she called up to me.

  ‘We can work some other time, Jazzboy Jack. Better go say goodbye to your mama.’

  ‘Wait! I’ll come with you to the streetcar,’ I called to Mom, running across the stage and down the steps.

  When I got to her, she said in a low voice, ‘No, Jack, she wants you to stay back a while.’

  ‘Stay? What for?’

  ‘Come outside with me.’

  ‘But the jam session starts in about ten minutes.’

  ‘Shhh, Jack!’

  We walked silently towards the door leading into the foyer. All the band members were sitting around talking, and although some glanced up, they went back to talking. It was obvious they didn’t think they’d been asked to wait in the foyer because of a boy and a woman carrying a lumpy white cotton bag. We hurried past them, out the door and into the late-afternoon sunshine.

  ‘So, what happened? What did she say to you, Mom? Why must I stay?’ I asked, all three questions tumbling over each other.

  My mom stopped walking and turned to face me. ‘It’s all a bit much to take in, Jack. I’ve got to hurry. Can we talk about it when I get home tonight? As it is, I’m going to be late for work. I don’t know why she wants you to stay back; she just asked me if it was all right and said she’d give you your streetcar fare home. I wanted to get away,’ she confessed. ‘People like her are a bit much for such as us, Jack.’

  Just then a streetcar came rumbling down the street towards us. ‘Am I in trouble, Mom?’

  ‘No, nothing bad.’ She kissed me hurriedly. ‘I’m very proud of you, Jack.’ Then she turned and broke into a half run in her good shoes, the cotton bag jumping up and down in her hand as she ran. She stopped for a moment, slung the straps over her shoulder and held the bag tight against her body. ‘Don’t forget to eat your sandwiches!’ she yelled as she started to run again towards the rapidly approaching streetcar.

  My whole life was changing in front of my eyes and my mom was thinking about my dinner.

  I waited to make sure she caught the streetcar and watched as she climbed aboard, then I waited outside for a minute or so to collect my thoughts. My only hope was that Miss Frostbite would allow me to hit the steps again, and that, by doing my best and playing for them on the stage, I had earned the right to continue to jam under the steps. There’d been no mention of the missing burlap on the pipe.

  As I turned towards the front door, I thought to myself that so far they’d been very nice and complimentary about my harmonica playing. But I hadn’t forgotten Mac’s warning that Miss Frostbite was as hard as nails and that this was because a woman had to be tough to run a nightclub. With my mom no longer present, anything could happen. I didn’t know what I’d do if I was forbidden to hit the stairs.

  It was still summer and lots of brothers and sisters, the jazz fans who hung about outside listening, had turned up and were waiting in their usual groups. The jam session must be just about ready to start. Maybe Miss Frostbite would take me into her office, like Mrs Hodgson at the library, in which case it wouldn’t be anything to look forward to.

  I finally summoned enough courage to go back inside. The foyer was empty and when I pushed open the door to the main room, I saw that the band was just about ready to begin the jam, with everyone seated between the two pianos.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Jack. Over here,’ Joe shouted, summoning me forward with his big bony hand. He was standing at the centre of the stage, right next to a microphone, and his voice, caught by the mike, boomed out in the big room. I cringed at the unexpected sound and the musicians all laughed. There was no sign of Miss Frostbite. ‘Jack, come up here on the stage – I want you to come close and see what a real jam session is all about. Come and join us.’

  Then the session started with a number I had heard under the stairs a hundred times. I knew the chord progressions off by heart and could join in easily. Three more followed and I was able to play along, but then Joe Hockey pulled up a chair and placed it beside me and said, ‘Jazzboy, what you now gonna hear be where you gonna go sometime later when you have learned yourself a lot more jazz and growed up a whole lot. You just sit now and listen, then after, if you want explainin’, you come to me, okay?’

  It had been easy enough to listen to these guys and then play a few little riffs in the same key, but I now realised, when I was finally among them and not under the stairs, just what they were doing. One guy would get up and start honking on his trumpet and then suddenly tone the whole thing down. He’d do that for a few minutes then begin climbing up the scale. Just when he’d taken it about as high as a note could get, he’d come back down again and give the whole thing a slower and easier blues feel. As soon as it felt comfortable and familiar he’d change everything, as if to say, don’t think it’s gonna be that easy. And all the while he did this in time with the bass player and the percussionist.

  Then another trumpet player picked up from where he’d left off, moving in all directions, going from top to bottom at lightning speed, sometimes making a woofing sound, sometimes honking, sometimes screaming. Then the first guy would come back in. They were duelling! It seemed to be getting faster and faster and yet the beat never changed. The second guy seemed to be coming off the first, as if he was finishing off what the first guy had begun. And then the first would come back again. It was like a conversation where each of them finished off the other’s re
marks. I had the feeling it was like a kind of boastful argument – one guy says, ‘I can do this,’ and the next says, ‘So what? If that’s your best, get a load of this, man!’

  Somehow they seemed to know when it was their cue to come back in; there was some unspoken rule I couldn’t for the life of me work out. It was pretty friendly, but there was no doubt about it – they were in a contest. I realised jamming was not just about knowing music. They were feeding off each other’s music; they needed each other, but they were also trying to surpass each other. Wow!

  More solos followed: the piano, drums and clarinet. But nothing compared to those feuding trumpets. I knew it would take me years to be anywhere near as good as these guys, and I guessed they were nowhere near the top players in America. But I knew, I just knew, I would get there some day.

  After the jam session was over, I got lots of pats on the back and my hair ruffled, and guys saying I could come back anytime to jam with them and that it was a pity I wasn’t eighteen so I could play nights in the band.

  Then Joe Hockey took me aside while the musicians went off to have their dinner and handed me a dollar. ‘Yeah, I know, Jack, the streetcar fare to Cabbagetown, it only ten cents. You don’t have to show no pride tonight, Jazzboy. You played real prideful. I talked to Miss Floss when you were outside wid your mama and she says to give you a dollar, so I am only followin’ orders. She says you may call her “Miss Frostbite”, like the other musicians, except for yours truly. I call her Floss because we bin together even before the Jazz Warehouse. Miss Frostbite be the name she prefers for musicians and staff, and now, because you been in a jam session, you are like family.’

  My head was still full of what had just happened on stage and I accepted the dollar without really taking in what he said. It was too much money for a boy to have, and I was going to walk home and present it to my mom. ‘Thank you, Joe, for letting me play in the session. It was the best thing I’ve ever done! Will you please thank Miss Frostbite for my dollar and everything?’

  ‘Our pleasure, Jack Spayd. You done real good today, earned your respect wid them other cats. Your mama will tell you what she and Miss Floss discussed this afternoon. Now you better get goin’, son. You are welcome to jam wid us any afternoon you want.’ He grinned. ‘Only one rule: no drinkin’ rye whisky or bum wine before you come to work. No bottle allowed wid you on stage. Miss Frostbite, she don’t tolerate inebriation.’ He paused. ‘You know what inebriation mean, Jazzboy?’

  I nodded. ‘Being drunk.’ I’d read it in a book and looked it up at the library.

  ‘Hey, that’s good!’ he said, laughing. ‘You is even gettin’ yo’self educated. Not too many jazz men had that privilege when they was young.’

  Of course, I couldn’t wait for my mom to get home that night, and when she arrived it was hard waiting until she’d settled down and I’d handed her the King George. She took a sip of tea and then said, ‘I suppose you want to know what happened in Miss Byatt’s office, Jack? It’s been going round and round in my head ever since, and I couldn’t hardly concentrate at work.’

  ‘Same for me!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Did you eat your sandwiches?’

  ‘Yes, they were nice. Now can you please tell me what she said,’ I begged.

  ‘No, first tell me why she wanted you to stay back.’

  ‘Mom, I asked first!’ I protested.

  ‘Yes, but if I know everything that happened it might make more sense, I mean, me and her this afternoon, in her office,’ she replied.

  So I sighed and told her about jamming with the band and explained that I hadn’t seen Miss Frostbite again. Then I fished in my pocket and handed her the dollar.

  ‘What’s this, Jack?’ she said, surprised.

  ‘Miss Frostbite gave it to Joe to give to me for the streetcar.’

  ‘Oh, so she must want you to go on with the harmonica, too.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked fearfully. ‘Joe Hockey said I could sit in on the jam session any night I liked.’

  ‘She wants you to learn to play the piano, Jack.’

  ‘The piano!’ I was shocked. ‘What about my harmonica?’

  ‘She says you’ve got a huge talent but you need to study classical music as well as jazz. She says you’re not too old, but you should have started when you were seven.’

  ‘The piano?’

  ‘And learning to read music.’

  ‘Read? You mean like what’s on a song sheet?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. You know, like the music notes the musicians have on those stands in the rotunda.’

  I liked this idea a whole lot. I supposed it was like another kind of reading, only music reading. ‘Really, Mom? She said that? But where could I learn? And how would I practise?’

  My mother nodded. ‘Aha, that was exactly what I was thinking but she said never mind the details – if I gave my permission she’d take care of the rest. In fact, her exact words were, “Leave the details to me – the piano and the tuition, Gertrude. Just let me have your boy.”’

  ‘Have me? You mean go and live with her?’ I exclaimed, appalled.

  My mom laughed. ‘No, of course not! How could I ever part with you, Jack? No, she meant give her permission to pay for your training, your lessons.’

  ‘Why can’t I have lessons on the harmonica?’

  ‘She said the harmonica wasn’t enough for a musician to learn. That if you were going to go far, you needed classical piano training as well.’

  ‘I’m not giving up the harmonica, Mom!’ I said, suddenly alarmed.

  ‘I told her I didn’t think you would and she said, “That won’t be necessary; it’s a minor jazz instrument but it’s another string to his bow and an excellent skill for a jazz musician to have in his back pocket.”’

  I was a bit miffed that she’d described the harmonica as a minor jazz instrument, but I had to admit there wasn’t a single harmonica player among the Jazz Warehouse group. But the good news was that she’d let me keep my harmonica. ‘What will Dad say if I learn piano as well as harmonica?’

  ‘Who knows? She said I should discuss it with my husband.’ We both laughed at this. Then she went on, ‘Jack, I don’t think he’ll ever ask, so let’s not worry about it. I told her that I would discuss it with you, that we discussed everything and we only did what we both agreed to do. She smiled and said, “Gertrude, I agree your son seems very bright and has a great talent, but sometimes parents have to do what’s best for their children even if the child is unhappy at first. You and your husband must surely know this.”’

  ‘Mac said she was hard as nails,’ I volunteered.

  My mom ignored this remark. ‘I had to come clean and tell her your father has a drinking problem and a violent nature, and didn’t even know about you playing jazz in the first place.’

  I was truly amazed. My mom never talked about my dad to anyone. ‘What did she say, Mom?’

  ‘She looked a bit puzzled. “But didn’t you say he gave Jack the harmonica for his birthday?” So I told her that he’d won it in a card game at the tavern two weeks after your eighth birthday. That it was second-hand and he had never asked about it since. “How extremely fortunate that he’s good at cards,” she said, and we had a bit of a laugh.’

  My mom handed me the King George for her second cup. Even when it wasn’t chilblain time, she always had two cups of tea when she got home. That way we could have a good chat right off.

  While I poured her tea, I said, ‘School starts again next week and there’s the library, and now that I can jam with the band I’d be mad to give that up. How are we gonna fit all this in?’

  ‘Jack, she may be hard as nails but she’s also smart as a whip. I told her school started again next week and she said: “Mrs Spayd, Cabbagetown is only ten minutes on the streetcar. He could get here by four-thirty, I have my own piano room out back, which he can use, and we’ll have a tutor come at five-thirty. He can practise for an hour and then spend the last half hour with his
harmonica, jamming with the band, as his reward.”’ My mom looked directly at me. ‘She thinks on her feet. She worked all this out on the spot.’

  ‘What about my dinner?’

  ‘Oops!’ My mom covered her mouth with both hands. ‘Stupid me, I forgot!’ She was clearly upset, like she’d let me down as a mother. ‘Oh, Jack, you’ll have to tell her! I’m so sorry.’

  I nodded, not sure how I was going to manage to change my after-school timetable. Miss Frostbite was clearly nobody’s pushover. What’s more, I didn’t need to be Einstein to see the other catch – no piano lesson, no jam session. Or that was how it seemed to me at the time, anyhow. One of Mac’s favourite expressions was, ‘I found myself between a rock and a hard place.’ Now I knew exactly what he meant.

  ‘What about the library?’ I asked.

  ‘Jack, I don’t know. After I told her we needed to talk about it and she asked about your school hours, it was time for me to go.’

  ‘What do you think we should do then, Mom? Jamming with the band was one of the best days of my life. I definitely want to be a jazz musician when I grow up.’

  My mother was silent for a while. ‘Jack, most people, especially now with the Depression, don’t get too many chances to improve themselves. Why don’t we give it a try, hey? I’m sure she – Miss Byatt – will agree to you having an afternoon off to go to the library. In fact, she doesn’t have a choice. I’ll put my foot down. She’ll soon learn how smart you are, and it’s not just that you’ve got a good ear or perfect pitch or whatever they called it. Besides, just think, even half an hour with your harmonica in the jam session will mean you’ll learn a whole lot. It would be worth much more than two hours sitting under the stairs, straining to hear. Then you can always practise your harmonica when you get home.’

  ‘Mom, I can’t go to the Jazz Warehouse tomorrow to see her, it’s library day.’

  ‘Jack, an opportunity like this one comes along once in a blue moon. We’d be mad not to accept it. I’m sure the library won’t fine you for being one day late. Go see her tomorrow and thank her, and I’ll give you a note from me to thank her as well.’