Jack of Diamonds (13 page)

‘We don’t have a piano, Miss Frostbite.’

‘No, of course not, Jack. You will practise here. My own piano room is soundproofed so that my playing doesn’t go through to the club. You will have to come here every day. I’m hoping your piano teacher will come here for the two afternoons you have lessons. As you grow older it will be considerably more.’

‘Do I have to practise on the weekend, too, Miss?’

‘Yes, of course. Why do you ask, Jack?’

My heart started to pound. ‘Miss, I can’t on the weekend. It’s when me and my mom go out together.’

I think she must have heard the panic in my voice and seen the look on my face. ‘Let’s just get the information down first, Jack. Once we’ve got a schedule, we can adjust it.’ I was to learn that schedules were very important to Miss Frostbite. ‘Now, when does school come out?’

‘Four o’clock, Miss.’

‘So you could get here when? Half-past four?’

‘No, Miss Frostbite, that’s when I have my dinner.’

‘A bit early, isn’t it?’

I explained my mother’s work hours and how she had to leave at half-past four for her office-cleaning job and didn’t get back until ten at night. ‘Oh, well, what about half-past five? That should give you lots of time and you can sit in with the band for half an hour.’

‘I can’t do Thursday, Miss.’

‘Oh, dear. Why not, Jack?’

‘I have to go to the library, Miss.’

‘Oh, I see. Four days, that’s only four hours a week. Hmm, that’s hardly enough and, besides, you should be practising every day. You couldn’t come after you’ve been to the library?’

I explained about the hour walk each way.

‘And if you take the streetcar?’

‘Fourteen minutes.’ I knew precisely because of Miss Mony.

‘Well, then, you shall have money for the streetcar. Could you be here by, say, six?’

‘Easy, Miss. Half-past five, if you like. But I can pay for it out of the dollar you gave me, because you gave me too much and I have to give you some back.’

‘You shall do no such thing, Jack. Buy yourself a small treat.’

Small treat! Even with the library I’d have money over. My mom and I could spend it on the weekend – tea and buns in the café near the rotunda. ‘Thank you
very
much, Miss Frostbite.’

‘Now, about the weekends.’ I was to learn that Miss Frostbite seldom took ‘no’ for an answer. ‘Could you get here at, say, eight o’clock on Saturday and Sunday mornings? Or do you go to church on Sunday?’

‘No, Miss, I think that will be all right.’ It was five cents each way for the streetcar fare for two extra days.
There goes another twenty cents of my dollar, just when I thought I was rolling in money.

‘Jack, you shall have a dollar for your travel expenses each week.’ She paused. ‘Now, if you’re going to sit in with the band until seven, why don’t you have your dinner with them? You could be home just after eight.’

‘I’ll have to ask my mom, Miss Frostbite.’

‘Now that you are a budding musician and a growing boy, your food is very important. We like to feed the band properly – they’re mostly single men and so don’t look after themselves. Besides, musicians don’t play their best on an empty stomach.’ She held up one hand and ticked the meals off on her fingers: ‘Let me see, Monday is beef stew; Tuesday, macaroni cheese; Wednesday, shepherd’s pie; Thursday, lamb casserole; and Friday, roast beef and roast potatoes. And you tell your mom there’s always vegetables.’ She smiled. ‘Dessert every night, stewed fruit with custard, rice pudding with raisins, bread pudding with dates . . . all you can eat, Jack.’

I now definitely knew my mom would say yes when I told her about the food. I’d never had food that good, not ever. You couldn’t turn down an offer like that, could you. ‘I think the extra half hour will be okay, Miss Frostbite.’

‘I’d like you to start as soon as possible, Jack. I have yet to finalise my agreement with Miss Mona Bates, your teacher. I’m hoping she will take you on. She’s very famous but also a friend. Last year I played on two occasions in her ten-piano ensemble for a charity and they turned out to be very successful events. My hope is that by the time you’re twelve they’ll allow you to sit for the fifth or sixth grade examination at the Toronto Conservatory of Music.’

‘What’s a conservatory, Miss Frostbite?’

‘Oh, it’s a place where they teach music to talented students when they’ve graduated from high school. They also oversee all music examinations – a school for future musicians where every instrument is taught, as well as singing.’

‘Do they teach the harmonica?’

‘Well, now, that’s a good question, Jack. I really don’t know the answer to that. But if I can get Mona Bates to take you privately for piano lessons twice a week, and if you make good progress, then her recommendation will help enormously to allow you to take the entrance examinations when you finish school. But she’s very fussy about the students she accepts. She will need to hear you play and you’ll also have to sing for her. I promise you she won’t take my word on it. I expect we’ll have to go to her Jarvis Street studio for an initial test. Shall we meet again the same time tomorrow when you’ve discussed the things we’ve talked about with your mother?’ She looked at her wristwatch. ‘Now, go and see Uncle Joe and sit in on the jam for a bit. See you the same time tomorrow. You may eat with the band tonight, if you wish.’

I stayed and had a second dinner in a room leading from the kitchen. We had spaghetti with meatballs and it was hard to eat with all the long strings, until Uncle Joe showed me how to use a spoon to help twirl it around my fork into a neat bundle. It sounds easy but it isn’t. I didn’t eat as much as I wanted because it was going to take a lot of practice to get right. Real life seems to be all about practising things.

I asked my mom about eating at the Jazz Warehouse and practising for an extra half hour after dinner, then I told her about the spaghetti and recited the other good things I was going to eat, and she laughed. ‘That one knows the way to a boy’s heart is through his stomach.’ But I knew she was glad I was going to eat so well and when I told her about the dollar every week for the streetcar, including the fare to the library, she was very happy, especially when she thought about the winter. But then she said, ‘Jack, you must tell her about my cleaning for her. We can’t just keep taking like this. I could easily do two hours in the morning three days a week. Tell her I don’t mind scrubbing floors and cleaning greasy ovens, doing the dirty kitchen work.’ She looked at me sternly. ‘You be sure to tell her,’ she insisted.

For a boy accustomed to having lots of time on his hands, I was suddenly going to find my life filled to bursting, with only a bit of time left over in the evenings to do my reading before my mom arrived home. My only hope was that piano would be as much fun as the harmonica. I was going from the smallest musical instrument to the biggest in one giant jump.

The following day I returned to see Miss Frostbite, as we’d arranged. She was wearing a brown dress with matching high heels and handbag, brown gloves, and a little chocolate-brown hat with two long feathers sticking out the side, which I immediately recognised from our visit to the zoo as pheasant feathers. It was a lot of brown but she wore her pearls and looked very nice, like a rich person. ‘Good boy, Jack, you’re right on time. Joe’s gone to fetch a taxi. Should be here any moment.’

Taxi! I’d never been in a taxi, although I’d seen plenty, sometimes with only one person riding in the back, who must have been pretty rich. Ours, when it came, was a black Model A Ford with bright orange tyre spokes. The driver jumped out and opened the back door for Miss Frostbite. ‘Would the lad like to sit in front, madam?’ he asked.

Miss Frostbite looked at me and I said quickly, ‘Yes, please.’ It was grand driving down Dundas Street, and I hoped somebody would see us, but I couldn’t think who that might be; a kid from school, maybe. But I didn’t see anyone I knew and we were soon at the address in Jarvis Street. On the way Miss Frostbite said, ‘Jack, perhaps it might not be a good idea to tell Miss Bates you live in Cabbagetown. People can be very strange and form wrong impressions about such matters.’

Even before we entered, you could hear someone playing the piano. It didn’t stop when we rang the doorbell, but soon enough a lady a bit older than Miss Frostbite answered the door. ‘Oh, Mona, it’s you. I expected the maid!’ Miss Frostbite exclaimed.

‘Damnable nuisance. She sprained an ankle falling off a chair while dusting the picture frames. Come in, Floss,’ Mona Bates said with a jerk of her head. You’d never know she was a friend of Miss Frostbite; she didn’t seem all that welcoming.

We were taken into a small reception room that had lots of framed photos on the wall showing Miss Bates sitting at the piano, or standing up holding a bunch of flowers with musicians seated behind her dressed in suits like Uncle Joe’s, only black. ‘I shan’t be long,’ she said, then, turning on her heel, was gone. Miss Frostbite didn’t have time to introduce me and Miss Bates didn’t even look at me once. Miss Frostbite sat on the leather chesterfield while I examined the photos.

‘She’s terribly famous, Jack,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But she gave up her career at forty to teach. Goodness knows why. She was at the height of her powers as a concert pianist. She claims she was tired of living out of a suitcase, the long voyages to Europe . . . If she agrees to accept you as one of her pupils, we should consider ourselves very fortunate indeed.’

We heard Miss Bates’s footsteps approaching and Miss Frostbite put a warning finger to her lips. I stood with my hands behind my back, remembering to look up directly into her eyes if she should speak to me. ‘It’s the one small power a child has,’ Miss Mony had once told me.

‘Let’s get started, Floss,’ Miss Bates said crisply, adding, ‘I have a very busy day ahead of me.’

‘Yes, of course. Thank you, Mona,’ Miss Frostbite replied, smiling. But I’m not sure it was a real thank-you smile.

‘You do understand that I can’t do you any special favours regarding the boy, Floss? Even with the Depression, I have more gifted young musicians applying than I can possibly accommodate.’ She glanced at me for the first time. ‘Come with me, boy,’ she commanded.

‘His name is Jack, Mona,’ Miss Frostbite said.

‘No point in getting personal unless he passes, Floss,’ Miss Bates called, not looking back.

I followed her, leaving Miss Frostbite to wait. Miss Bates led me into a large room that contained three pianos and sat at one of them. ‘Come and stand here,’ she commanded.

I went over and stood at attention beside her. The long row of black and white piano keys intimidated me; the piano wasn’t a bit like a harmonica and I wondered how, with my big clumsy hands, I would ever get the hang of it. ‘Miss Byatt tells me you play the harmonica,’ she sniffed, ‘and that you have a very good ear. They all say that, but in my experience very few have. I shall be surprised if, when we give you an aural test, we find Miss Byatt’s assessment is correct, and I wonder about your choice of instrument.’

It didn’t seem to be a question but I said, ‘Yes, Miss,’ anyway.

‘Miss Bates, if you please,’ she replied crisply.

I would have liked to say, ‘No point in getting personal unless I pass,’ but of course I couldn’t.

‘Now, I’m going to play some notes on the piano and I want to see if you can replicate them.’

‘Does that mean sing them, Miss Bates?’

‘Yes, are you ready?’

‘Yes, Miss Bates.’

She played four single notes and I sang them for her. Then we did it all again, and again. Then she played a melody and I sang that as well. Of course, at the time I had no idea why she was asking me to sing all these notes, I just did as I was told. ‘Now I want you to sing for me unaccompanied. Do you have a song?’

‘Yes, Miss Bates, “A Bicycle Built for Two”.’

She sighed heavily. ‘Oh, dear. Well, I suppose that will have to do.’

‘I’ll only sing the second verse, if you like,’ I offered, knowing this was the best one for my high voice.

She gave me an impatient glance. ‘As you wish.’ I didn’t think my test was going very well.

I sang Daisy’s part in the song.

Miss Bates sighed once more. ‘Now you will play the harmonica. What have you chosen to play?’

‘“Basin Street Blues”, Miss Bates.’

‘Oh?’ she said, but unlike her response to ‘Daisy’, I didn’t know if that was a good ‘Oh?’ or a bad one. But I played it through and then did my signature
Whap-whap-whap-woo-whaaaa!

She looked at me and smiled for the first time. ‘Well done, Jack. That was all very good. How old are you?’

‘Ten, Miss Bates.’

‘Oh, dear, you should be well into third or fourth grade by now. But never mind, I think you may be able to catch up by doing two grades a year.’ She rose from the piano and I followed her back to the reception room. Miss Frostbite looked up anxiously as we entered but didn’t say anything as Miss Bates sat down next to her on the chesterfield.

‘Well, Floss, you were right, Jack has an excellent ear. But I want him coming here for his lessons. It’s not that far from Dundas Street and I’ll give him the extra time, the half hour it would take me to travel there and back to you. He should be well into third grade at his age and so initially he’s going to need the extra tuition. Six or seven years to take him to eighth grade is sufficient and I’d be surprised if we couldn’t take him a bit further. How many hours have you set aside for him to practise, apart from his lessons?’