Jack of Diamonds

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘You didn’t love her or anything?’

  Mac laughed at the thought. ‘Nah, nothing like that. Dolly was getting taller and I wasn’t growing none too fast. I suppose we were both kinda misfits. She was already six foot in her teens and I’m five foot one inch. I have to say it, she was big but not fat back then, and not too bad on the eye neither.

  ‘I had to work until midday each Saturday and Dolly was working as a waitress downtown all week and Saturday until 7 o’clock at night. In them days unless there was a dance or a party at someone’s place you didn’t go out Saturday night. So I’d only see her mostly Sundays, when we went to church and then we’d have lunch with my folk or hers, alternate like. Then I’d have to start back to the lakes. We were sort of engaged but goin’ to wait until my apprenticeship was over and we’d both be eighteen. But the war broke out, of course, although I was too young to join up.

  ‘Anyhow, Dolly started to volunteer at night as a waitress, doing her duty for king and country at an officers’ canteen. She’d get home real late and sleep in Sunday mornings, so I was lucky if I saw her for an hour before lunch. We’d go for a walk along the Don or to Queens Park.

  ‘I completed my apprenticeship just before my eighteenth birthday. The war had been going for two years, and Dolly had changed a lot. She was much more worldly in her ways and used different words, like more lah-de-dah ones, and even swore sometimes. She was always goin’ on about the officers at the canteen, but somehow we were still together.

  ‘As soon as I turned eighteen I wanted to join up, but my birthday was on a Sunday. I remember we went for a walk along the banks of the Don, and we were walking along chatting – well, she’s chatting and I’m listenin’ – when suddenly we came to this group of bushes a bit away from the path. “Come on, soldier boy, it’s your birthday!” She laughs and takes me by the arm and drags me into the bushes. “Get your pants down!” she says.’ Mac laughed. ‘I’m still a virgin. I didn’t know a thing except how to jerk off.’

  I laughed nervously. I wasn’t used to adults talking like that, and also because Mac might as well have been talking about me. ‘Jesus, Mac, what did you do?’ I was trying to imagine how I would have acted but all I could see in my mind’s eye was the Dolly I’d always known – a giant – in the bushes and it wasn’t a beautiful or seductive vision, I can tell you.

  ‘Jack, you’re about the same age as I was . . . I don’t know how much I should tell you,’ Mac said a little sheepishly. He’d gotten carried away telling me the story and forgotten my age, and I suppose he was now remembering my innocence as well.

  ‘Mac, I’m going scuffing. I’m a virgin like you were, so maybe you can tell me something useful, you know, in case I find myself in a similar situation.’

  ‘Okay, but understand, Jack, I’m no expert. I knew damn all then, and I still don’t know that much. You’d be better asking Joe Hockey or one of the musicians at the Jazz Warehouse.’

  ‘But what happened in the bushes? You can’t just leave it like that,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I’m too surprised to, you know, get a hard-on. “I ain’t got no rubbers,” I say.

  ‘Dolly just reaches into her bag and hands me one. “Your second birthday present,” she says. Then she unbuttons my fly and gets to work on me, and we fit the rubber and I’m up for it. She lifts her dress and pulls down her bloomers and . . .’ Mac pauses. ‘I’m not sure how she managed it, but next thing I know I’m in. Holy shit! But I ain’t no Casanova, it’s biff-bam-thank-you-ma’am. I’m ashamed of meself because I should’ve lasted longer or something.’

  I couldn’t help laughing but I was curious too. ‘How come Dolly knew all that stuff?’

  ‘At the time it don’t occur to me, only much, much later. I apologised and Dolly said it don’t matter, at least I ain’t going to the war a virgin and she’d done her duty for king and country and happy birthday.’

  ‘How did it feel?’ I asked. ‘I mean, did you feel any different afterwards?’ It was a serious question.

  ‘Nah, just a bit of a failure because it’d been so quick. But by next morning, on my way to the recruitment centre, I was quite pleased. I imagined myself in the barracks and being able to say honestly that I’m not a virgin. I’ve got, like, bragging rights. But of course I got knocked back: flat feet and too short.’

  ‘Then you must have known this time they were going to reject you?’

  ‘Yeah. I sort of hoped maybe the rules had changed, but obviously they hadn’t.’

  ‘Go on, so what happened next?’

  ‘Well, when she heard I’d been rejected Dolly gave me the cold shoulder. She wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with me no more.’ Mac glanced at me. ‘She even gave me an envelope with a white feather in it, calling me a coward. A fucking coward!’

  ‘Holy smoke! She did that?’ I exclaimed. ‘A white feather, but, but . . . she knew you’d tried to enlist. I mean, it wasn’t your fault you were rejected!’

  ‘You know Dolly, she ain’t the forgiving type, even then.’

  ‘So how come you got together again?’

  Mac stopped and turned to me. ‘That’s the whole point of everything I’ve bin sayin’. It all made sense when she told me about doing her duty for king and country and the twins doing the same.’ He turned and threw his fists in the air and looked up like he was appealing to the Almighty. ‘Jack, I am some dumb fucker!’ he yelled.

  ‘Mac, you’re not dumb, I assure you,’ I said, putting a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.

  ‘Yeah, thanks, Jack, but let’s be honest. Anyhow, a month after it’s all off and she’d given me the white feather I got home from looking for a job, and her parents and mine were at my place and Dolly was with them. Then Dolly starts sniffing and acting kinda tearful. Well, it turns out she’s pregnant and she’s told them about my birthday present. It ain’t no big deal, like now. Most of the girls were knocked up by sixteen, and she’s eighteen so practically an old maid. “We’ll arrange the weddin’ pronto,” Tom Butcher says, that’s her father. Everyone nods, that is, ’cept me.

  ‘“No, I ain’t doing it!” I shake my head and say. “She handed me a white feather when they wouldn’t take me in the army!” They can all see I’m mad as hell, like all the disgrace and stuff is coming out.

  ‘“She what?!” her father shouts. “A white feather? She did that to you, young Mac?”

  ‘“Yeah,” I say. I don’t even call him Mr Butcher, like usual.

  ‘He’s a real big guy, bigger even than your dad, Jack. He gets up from his chair and whacks Dolly across the head so hard she falls off the chair. Nobody says nothin’, not even my mother. What she’s done can’t be forgiven. Dolly gets up and she ain’t even blubbin’. Sniffin’ a bit, but that’s all. But she’s got a black eye coming, sure as mustard.’

  ‘So, I mean, what happened then?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, her old man takes mine to the tavern and they get legless and come home supportin’ each other and singing “Daisy” and the wedding’s on. They don’t even wait until her black eye is gorn.’

  ‘Oh,’ is all I can think to say, and then, ‘Tough luck.’

  ‘Six months later the twins are born.’

  ‘Six months!’ I exclaim. Even I know it takes nine months.

  ‘Yeah, well, they said they was three months premature. They looked okay to me, but what would I know? I’m no expert on what’s premature and what’s not.’

  ‘But surely folk would have remarked. I mean, when they saw the twins?’

  ‘What, in Cabbagetown? You should know. “Premature” was a word used as often as “pregnant”. Nobody took no notice. Besides, all the girls, even from school, were dead scared of Dolly Butcher. They knew not to mess with her.’

  ‘Jesus, Mac. What are you saying?’

  ‘Well, it took me a long time to figure it out. I mean, it stands to reason, don’t it? I’m wearing a rubber. It ain’t broke or anything, I remember that much.’

  �
��So you think . . . ?’

  ‘It ain’t too hard to figure out, is it? The twins don’t look like me or Dolly or anyone in our families.’

  ‘But they’ve got red hair like Dolly and you.’

  ‘Yeah, perhaps that’s why I never questioned it until now. But Toronto’s full of redheads, Irish and Scottish, that’s not such a coincidence.’

  ‘So, you reckon . . . ?’

  ‘Well, you’ve seen the twins, Jack. See any resemblance, ’cept the hair?’ Mac shrugged. ‘Bit late now. Probably wouldn’t have made any difference anyhow. I guess you have to take the rough with the smooth in life; whatever will be will be. Poor folk are not usually given a choice, but the twins made one for themselves. That’s another reason I think I’m not their father. They went and got themselves out of the shit hole they was born in and I never done that until now and then only with their help.’

  ‘Yeah, they made their own luck. Some people may not like it, but the girls haven’t forgotten their parents and that, for a start, says a lot for them.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess. Even if I wasn’t their dad, that don’t happen every day, do it, Jack?’

  ‘You can say that again, buddy.’

  Mac may have been diminutive, but as far as I was concerned he was a giant. He’d stuck by Dolly and the twins through thick and thin, though God knows why. I suppose it was like my mom would have stuck with my dad and continued to take his drunken backhands if he hadn’t gone with that Milly woman at the tavern. Poor stupid thing, it wasn’t hard to imagine what her nose must look like by now.

  So it seemed, despite all her nastiness, Dolly McClymont possessed a strong streak of pragmatism as well as a sense of duty towards king and country. The sad thing was that moving to a swanky apartment in High Park wasn’t going to change a thing for Mac. He would still be sleeping with the enemy. I don’t mean, of course, in the literal sense, although if nocturnal dalliance still occurred between them this conjured an instant picture in my mind of tiny Mac disappearing between Dolly’s gargantuan thighs, never to be seen again. I could see that despite my recommendation they make the move to High Park, he hadn’t yet entirely made up his mind. Mac, in his own way, was an independent man, and while he was dead proud of the twins for what they’d done, he couldn’t change a lifetime’s habit.

  ‘Mac, didn’t you say it was a garden apartment?’

  ‘Yeah, but I wouldn’t know a rose from a daisy, Jack. It’s even got a bit of grass out front.’

  ‘So maybe you could build a shed – your own workshop. You’ve always wanted one. You know, put in electric light so you can spend evenings there in the summer?’

  Mac stopped in his tracks. ‘Jack, you’re a goddamn genius!’ he cried, suddenly very excited. ‘There’s plenty of room out the back. I could have me a turning lathe and build me a proper workbench, eh?’ Then, as an immediate afterthought, he said, ‘Hey, I could put in heating for the winter as well!’

  ‘Great! Give you a bit of time on your own, buddy.’

  He gave me a knowing smile, but then suddenly he stopped, the grin leaving his face. ‘But what about us, you and me? Our being buddies? We don’t see much of each other now – once a week at the most these days.’

  ‘Mac, something happened this morning with Joe Hockey I need to tell you.’ I then began to tell him about Uncle Joe’s scuffing tour to far-flung places starting with Cowtown, Calgary. As usual he listened quietly. I then explained why this hardening up was necessary for my future as a jazz pianist and, of course, he already knew I’d be joining the army when I returned.

  ‘Be great to go with yer, Jack. I’ve always hankered to see the rest of Canada. Be nice to be together a stretch before yer go off to the war.’

  I had an instant vision of Mac informing Dolly that, to use Joe’s word, he was vamoosing to all points west for nine months with the goddamned little guttersnipe downstairs, informing her just as they were moving into the new apartment in High Park. I didn’t like the picture in my imagination of his poor little battered face. I’d seen enough smashed noses to last a lifetime, and now that my dad was no longer around I had decided that as soon as I made a decent salary in a regular job I would pay to have my mom’s nose straightened. But with poor little Mac, that would have been a terrible waste of money.

  ‘Yeah, both of us together going west . . . would have been good, Mac,’ I said, not wanting to start any more senseless speculation.

  ‘Yeah,’ he answered, ‘yeah, it sure would have been, buddy.’ He sounded resigned, the idea already in the past tense. We both knew Daunting Dolly would be an impossible obstacle to overcome. I reckon if Dolly was standing at the front door with her great big pink hams folded across her enormous bosom, not even Joe Louis, the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, would get past her.

  ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ I promised, then in an attempt to cheer him up I said, ‘Just think, you’ll have your workshop truly up and going by the time I return.’

  ‘Then, lucky bastard, you’ll be off to the war.’

  ‘Yeah, as soon as I turn eighteen next August.’

  Poor Mac, how desperately hard he’d tried to join up, almost going down on his knees and pleading with the recruitment officer. But, alas, he’d been rejected on three major counts: he was one year over the age limit, he was too small, and he had flat feet. Every eligible male in Cabbagetown had practically wrestled each other out of the way to be the first in the voluntary recruitment line. For them it meant the Depression was finally over.

  Due to the burgeoning war economy, Mac had all the work he could manage, but people still weren’t re-upholstering their couches, which would be a low priority after the Depression. But the point was he had a regular wage coming in. With practically the whole male population strutting around in uniform, it wasn’t the same thing, and he found it hard to conceal his disappointment. On one occasion he’d lamented, ‘Jack, I’m helping to build a soldiers’ canteen at the camp, and I’ll never get the chance to relax and share a beer with an army buddy after a day of firing a rifle on the practice range.’

  Mac, more than anything, wanted to fly the coop, to leave Canada and fight for his country. But instead, he was stuck with the odious Dolly for the entire duration of the war. Still, a new workshop in High Park would at least be better than remaining in Cabbagetown.

  We walked home like old times and when we got to the point where Mac traditionally went on ahead alone he turned to me. ‘Jack, you’ve been real good never mentioning the subject of the twins after they come back from Montreal and don’t think I don’t appreciate it.’

  It was late when we shook hands and Mac disappeared into a Cabbagetown where most of the men were away in a military camp and only women, children and old men slumbered. Dolly must have known for ages about our friendship, but she still hadn’t spoken to my mom or me, so Mac and I continued to go through the dumb masquerade of appearing not to be on speaking terms. All I could think was that I hoped Dolly also wanted to move to High Park.

  My mom was in bed but still awake when I came in. ‘What happened with Miss Frostbite, Jack?’ she called. ‘I haven’t slept a wink from worrying.’

  ‘She said to see her tomorrow afternoon, but she didn’t seem angry. I don’t think it’s about the broken glasses,’ I called from the kitchen.

  ‘What did Mac want?’ she called out.

  ‘Shhh, Mom!’ I called, then hurried from the kitchen to her bedroom. I pointed towards the ceiling. ‘They’ll hear you if you shout.’ I sat on the edge of her bed. ‘He wanted to tell me about the twins, you know, tell me himself so I got it from the horse’s mouth.’ I bent and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Go to sleep, Mom. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.’ My mom already knew about the twins from working at the club, so I wouldn’t have cause to tell her about the apartment in High Park. She’d love the story of Dolly’s contribution in the First World War and I went to bed chuckling to myself. The thought of Dolly servicing a platoon or all the officers in
a battalion on her own would be a sweet revenge for my mother to carry around with her.

  The following afternoon I checked in early to see Miss Frostbite.

  ‘Well, Jack, how’s it all going?’ she asked.

  ‘You mean the . . . ah, cocktail glasses? Miss Frostbite, you must take it out of my pay.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Jack. These things happen. I should dock the careless waiter who didn’t clean up the mess you slipped in.’ She laughed. ‘Cook grumbles he’s still finding bits of glass in the kitchen.’ She paused, took a breath and smiled. ‘I have a proposition, one that I hope you’ll like, Jack. Four of the band members are joining the army and we’ve been managing with only one trumpet player for a while, so that’s five missing. But Joe thinks, and I agree, we could reduce the band numbers to seven if we can find the right musicians. Not easy, though, with the war on. We’ve got clarinet, drums, double bass and trumpet, not a great sound. We need an alto saxophone, and possibly a tenor sax as well, and, most essential, a piano player who can sing. Joe says he could sit in for piano, but the twin-piano act is what keeps the club doors open and it seems unfair to have him double up.’

  Oh my God! My heart started to beat faster. She’s going to let me play jazz piano in the band! Although my voice had long since broken, I’d been left with a half-decent baritone. But then, what about everything Joe had talked about yesterday? Maybe they hadn’t compared notes. But then again, he seemed to know what she was going to say to me.

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame they’re going, Miss Frostbite.’ It was all I could think to say.

  ‘Well, I can’t complain. After all, they’re doing their duty to their country. But here’s what we’ve decided to do. The war promises to be a busy time for all of us – soldiers need entertainment – so we’re going to shut the club for two weeks and paint and generally spruce the place up. The kitchen needs updating and the couches will all need to be re-upholstered.’