Jack of Diamonds (10 page)

‘Half-past four, did you say?’

‘Yes, and I’m pretty scared . . .’

‘I’m coming with you, Jack,’ she announced firmly.

‘Could you, Mom?’ I asked, relieved. Then, suddenly concerned, I added, ‘What about your work?’

‘I can go from there. I don’t suppose this Miss Frostbite business will take very long, and I can be a bit late. I haven’t been late for work in two years.’ She laughed. ‘Anyhow, I’m the head cleaner now, so there’s nobody except me to sack me and if I’m an hour late, the girls know what to do. We’ll have a big lunch and I’ll make you sandwiches for tomorrow night.’

Boy, oh boy, was I ever relieved! My mom wasn’t the fierce Dolly McClymont type, but she could stand her ground if she had to. Mac had said Miss Frostbite was hard as nails, so having my mom with me was good; a kid can’t stand up to an adult who’s hard as nails. My experience with Mrs Hodgson at the library had taught me that you couldn’t always talk your way out of trouble.

I polished Mom’s best black shoes, the ones she wore on special occasions that she’d had since before the Depression. They had mildew on them from the damp and I had to wipe it off first. She kept them in a shoebox that was almost worn out and was held shut with a red rubber band. She wore her best dress that smelled of mothballs, and packed her work clothes and shoes in a white cotton bag to take with her. I polished my boots and, even though it was only Wednesday, I wore my good weekend shirt and pants.

We took the streetcar and Joe Hockey was right – it took less than ten minutes to get to the Jazz Warehouse, so we were a bit early. We went around the back, and I showed my mom the steps and pointed to the missing burlap on the pipe, warning her that the topic might come up with Miss Frostbite and that I’d take the blame for doing it.

She nodded. ‘Jack, it’s wicked to tell lies, but in this instance I’m sure God will forgive you.’

At exactly half-past four we were at the front door. We rang the bell and soon we heard footsteps, and Joe Hockey opened the door himself. ‘Ah, Jack, welcome,’ he said, then looked at my mom. ‘Good afternoon, ma’am.’

I was about to say, ‘I brought my mother,’ and then introduce her, when she smiled and extended her hand and said, ‘Gertrude Spayd, Mr Hockey, I’m Jack’s mother.’ She didn’t sound a bit nervous.

‘Nice to meet you, you are most welcome, Mrs Spayd.’ They shook hands and Joe stepped aside. ‘Would you both kindly come in.’ He was wearing a brown business suit and grey-striped white shirt with no collar attached instead of his blue outfit, which must have been for performing.

In the large foyer I noticed three of Mac’s purple velvet couches and the famous sign he’d told me about:

Warning!
When you enter
the Jazz Warehouse
you become colour blind!

There were also five signed and framed black-and-white photographs on the walls, which I took to be of musicians who must have come up from the States because most of the people in them were black. Two, the horn and saxophone players, were pretending to play their instruments. Then there was one big hand-tinted photo of a very pretty young woman dressed in a long pearl-coloured satin dress. I took this to be Miss Frostbite when she was young. You could see it hadn’t been taken recently because of the fashion she wore, and her short hair and the dark curl sort of pasted down in the centre of her forehead like a kewpie doll’s. She had bow lips and dark stuff around her eyes, and she was holding a long cigarette holder with an unlit cigarette in it, like I’d seen in pictures from when women were called ‘flappers’.

Joe Hockey indicated a purple couch. ‘Please wait here, ma’am. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll fetch Miss Byatt.’

Miss Byatt? Not Miss Frostbite? Then again, maybe it was. Maybe ‘Byatt’ was her real surname. Joe Hockey had never used the name Miss Frostbite.

Several minutes later he came back with a lady wearing a posh-looking black lace dress and black high heels, with pearls around her neck. I could smell her perfume and it was nice. She smiled and you could see she was the person in the coloured picture, only older. She was still very pretty but now her hair was longer. I jumped up and clasped my hands behind my back as she came up to us and smilingly held out her hand to my mother. ‘Mrs Spayd, how very nice to meet you, I’m Floss . . . Floss Byatt.’

‘Gertrude . . . Gertrude Spayd,’ my mom answered, taking her hand but not shaking it like a man, just quickly gripping it. I noticed that Miss Byatt had painted nails.

‘Welcome to the Jazz Warehouse, Gertrude,’ Miss Byatt said, smiling again. ‘May I call you Gertrude?’

‘Thank you, you may, Floss,’ my mom replied, calm as anything and really dignified. I was very impressed and glad she’d come with me.

I’d read about puns and got it right off: Floss Byatt equals Frostbite. I had trouble not laughing out loud. Miss Frostbite turned to me. ‘And this is the young man Joe has been talking about! Jack, isn’t it?’

‘How do you do, Miss Byatt,’ I replied, giving a sort of bow, the way Miss Mony said you did when you first met a lady.

‘Well now, how long have we got?’ Miss Frostbite asked. ‘I was hoping you’d play for us, Jack. Did you bring your harmonica?’

‘Yes, Miss Byatt.’

‘I have to leave by five,’ my mother answered.

‘Perfect, that gives us just on half an hour,’ Miss Frostbite replied.

We were led into a big room with lots of small tables, with an ashtray on each one and comfy chairs around them. Six of Mac’s purple couches were at the far end of the room in front of the stage, arranged sort of casually so they didn’t look all lined up in a row. There were lots of knee-high tables where I guessed people put their drink glasses, with more ashtrays scattered about on them.

On the stage were what I later learned were baby grand pianos, one on each side. One was the same blue as Joe’s pants, and one was white. The space in between them I took to be where the jazz band sat because it had chairs and, at the back of them, a set of drums.

Joe Hockey indicated a couch facing the centre of the stage. ‘Gertrude, would you oblige by sitting right here, ma’am?’ he said. ‘Jack, you go on up, stand in the centre of the stage.’

I hesitated, not sure what he meant.

‘Come, Jazzboy Jack, up on the stage, my man,’ Joe repeated. My mom laughed at the ‘Jazzboy Jack’ nickname, but I could see she liked it.

I hoisted myself up onto the stage and went to stand in the middle between the two pianos, suddenly scared. My knees began to knock, like the time my dad gave me the thrashing, only then I knew what was going to happen and now I didn’t. I tried to think of something else so they’d stop and I looked about the stage. On the wall to the left was a clock that made no sound but told the time. It was the first electric clock I’d ever seen and must have been there for the musicians.

Then both Joe and Miss Frostbite climbed the steps at the side of the stage and each took their seat at a piano, Joe at the blue one. ‘Take it easy, Jazzboy Jack, ain’t nothin’ to be scared about,’ he called. ‘Miss Floss and myself, we are goin’ to play a few chords and cadences just to see how you follow them. Okay?’

I nodded, still scared as anything, but I reached into my pocket for my harmonica. I didn’t dare look at my mom.

‘We’ll do them one followin’ the other right off and we want you to listen, right?’ Joe instructed.

‘Yes,’ I said, my voice all squeaky.

‘Then we’ll play them separately. After each separate piece, we’ll stop, and we want you to try to repeat it on the harmonica.’ Joe paused. ‘You okay wid that arrangement?’

I nodded. The roof of my mouth had gone dry, so I was glad I didn’t have to play right off.

‘Good.’ He looked over at Miss Frostbite. ‘Let’s go, Floss,’ he called.

They started to play, changing every bit of the music as they went, the beat, the tune . . . I didn’t have the words to describe what they were doing, but I could hear it and I knew I could remember it. Then they stopped and before Joe could speak, I played it right through and then ended with my signature
‘Whap-whap-whap-woo-whaaaa!’
I glanced at my mother, who was trying hard not to laugh, her hand covering her mouth.

‘Hey, whoa! Jes you wait a cotton pickin’ minute!’ Joe exclaimed. ‘What you doin’, Jazzboy Jack? Why, that was grand, man!’ Laughing, he looked over to Miss Frostbite.

‘Remarkable. He has a great ear,’ Miss Frostbite said, then turning to me she added, ‘Jack, that was very good indeed.’

To my surprise, my mom piped in. ‘Jack can also sing.’ She was leaning forward on her purple couch.

‘Oh? Will you sing for us, Jack?’ Miss Frostbite asked. But it wasn’t like a real ask, more like a command. I nodded, a bit dumbstruck. ‘What will you sing? Perhaps I can accompany you?’

‘A Bicycle Built for Two’ was all I could think of because of the second verse when Daisy replies.

Miss Frostbite laughed then hummed the tune for a few moments. ‘I think I can manage that,’ she said. ‘What key?’

‘Pardon, Miss?’

‘What note do you want to start on?’

I sang the note I usually started on and she played it on the piano. She and Joe exchanged a look. ‘I think this child has perfect pitch,’ she said, and then she played the first few bars and nodded for me to come in. I sang it, trying my best, and when it was over she said, ‘Let’s play it again, Jack. This time I’ll only accompany you on the first verse and then I want you to sing the second verse solo . . . that is, on your own.’

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.’