Jack of Diamonds Read online

  But, as it happened, snow was responsible for the second disastrous incident involving my father, my mom and myself. It was to change my life forever.

  It happened on the day of my eighth birthday, the 13th of August 1931, but the seeds of the disaster were sown two days earlier, when my dad returned from the tavern in his usual state. For some reason, my mom and I hadn’t yet escaped into our bedroom, and she mentioned to him that it was my birthday in two days’ time, adding that she would bake a cake and hoped he might come home sober to share it with his son.

  ‘Birthday? What’s this? It’s the fucking Depression. We don’t have money for fancy cakes, woman,’ he’d replied.

  ‘And whose fault is that?’ my mom couldn’t resist muttering, but then she added quickly, ‘I’ve saved a bit, it’ll be nothing fancy, just a small cake. Try to come home sober, Harry.’

  ‘Don’t! Don’t do it, woman!’ he’d roared, then stomped off to bed.

  But my little mom could be stubborn and knew how excited I’d been when she’d first mentioned the birthday cake. While I now insisted I didn’t need a cake, she nevertheless baked what she referred to as a ‘plain cake’ and iced it with chocolate icing, saving a bit of white icing to write ‘Happy 8th Birthday Jack’. Then she decorated it with eight red, white and blue candles. I got to lick the bowl.

  I must say, it looked splendid sitting in the centre of the kitchen table, with a small white doily placed under it. I’d never had a cake for my birthday before and was pretty excited. I’d entirely forgotten my father’s drunken warning two days previously.

  We waited anxiously on the big birthday night. Neither of us said anything as it drew close to closing time at the tavern. But, of course, he arrived in his usual state. He entered the kitchen and glared, his red-rimmed eyes bulging more than ever at the cake resting resplendent on the table with a box of matches beside it.

  Lighting the small candles, we’d previously decided, would be his special task. Mom had done the baking, icing and decorating. Dad would perform the candle-lighting ceremony, and I the blowing out and making a wish. (I’d already practised blowing out the unlit candles in a single breath.) Then, wearing her special white lace apron from her grandmother, Mom would cut the cake.

  ‘What’s this?’ he barked, pointing at the cake. ‘I thought I told you, woman!’ His anger flared in the familiar way and, if possible, his eyes popped even more. Then he took a step towards the table and drove his fist down hard into the centre of the cake, and kept hammering the broken pieces until the kitchen table was covered in bits of yellow cake, chocolate icing and smashed red, white and blue candles. He even crushed the matchbox, which burst and scattered matches all over the place. ‘Jesus Christ, woman! Don’t ya ever listen?’ he roared, ignoring the birthday boy, who stood in front of his silent mom, frightened enough to piss his pants but attempting to protect her.

  I was aware of the backhand that might at any moment drop her to the floor but, even when drunk, he was reluctant to hit me in the face, so if I stood in front of her, I might save her. A wife-beater was one thing; a child-beater was a much lower creature. While, like many other fathers, he qualified on both counts, he’d sometimes be just sufficiently aware to leave me alone. Now, swaying and cussing, he turned towards us, and I stiffened and closed my eyes, expecting his vicious knuckles to crack into my face. But he hesitated, turned again and rinsed his hands under the kitchen tap, then grabbed me by the shoulders. ‘Git!’ he snarled, hurling me across the tiny kitchen to crash into the wall. Next he dried his big red-knuckled hands on my mom’s white lace apron, his ugly, pugnacious face inches from her own. ‘Yer don’t fuckin’ listen, do yer, yah stupid bitch!’ he growled, before staggering off to bed, thankfully without his signature goodnight backhander. Never mind the cake, this would turn out to be the best birthday I’d ever had.

  Two weeks later, my dad returned from the tavern, reached into his trouser pocket and held out a harmonica, its polished silver shape resting on his huge calloused hand. ‘Here, Jack, thought I’d forgotten, eh? Yer birthday present.’ Then, seeing my surprise, he added, ‘Now, don’t get too excited, son. I won it in a card game.’ He gave me a sardonic grin. ‘Put it to your gob. It’ll stop you talking shit. You can blow crap instead.’ His great belly heaved as he chortled over his own wit.

  I thanked him profusely, though more out of obsequious fear than from delight at the unexpected gift, taking the silver instrument gingerly from his palm. It was obviously not new – one of its silver cover plates bore a small dent and the words ‘Johnny’s Revenge’ was scratched crudely into the chrome – but it still had a metal button that extended from one side that you apparently pressed, though why, I couldn’t be sure. But I would later learn it was a genuine German Hohner and a fairly decent one, with an excellent tone.

  I guess there are moments in all our lives we later recognise as turning points. This was mine. The moment I brought the harmonica to my mouth and felt the square wooden holes against my lips, I knew something in me had changed forever.

  CHAPTER TWO

  NIGHTS AT HOME BY myself were lonely, and would have been unbearable without books. I was no longer reading baby books, but had moved on to bigger ones, such as Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island and King Solomon’s Mines. At the library I’d been promoted to a new teenage section, and while it was exciting to have access to all those new titles, you were only allowed to take out one per visit and keep it for no more than a week. I needed at least two books at a time, one to read by myself and another to read in bed at night to my mom.

  It always took longer than a week to finish a book with my mom, because we only had twenty minutes or so for reading each night and a bit more time at the weekends. This meant I had to bring the book back even if we hadn’t finished it, then re-borrow it, sometimes for three or four weeks. But because of the rule about only taking one book out at a time, you couldn’t renew a second book on the same day. I found out that some older kids hadn’t been bringing back their books on time and that when they were overdue, they couldn’t pay the fine. This was a particular problem in bad weather, and meant that the most popular titles were sometimes missing. So Mrs Hodgson, the librarian, had made this awful new rule that forced me to make two trips to the library each week.

  As winter settled over the city, I decided to summon up the courage to ask Mrs Hodgson to let me break the rules and take out and return two books at a time. I’d prepared my argument beforehand, trying it out on my mom and going over and over it in my head during the long walk there, but once I arrived I realised that thinking up a good argument and delivering it to someone as fierce as Mrs Hodgson were entirely different things.

  Miss Yolande White, the junior librarian, smiled at me. ‘Well, what’s your choice this week, Jack?’ she asked.

  I handed over The Last of the Mohicans and tried to gather my courage. ‘Please, Miss White, may I see Mrs Hodgson?’ I asked.

  She looked surprised, then frowned. ‘I don’t know, Jack. She doesn’t like to be disturbed. What’s it all about?’

  ‘It’s a private matter,’ I said, trying to sound as grown-up as I could.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ she exclaimed. ‘Wait there and I’ll ask her.’

  So far so good, I thought. She returned a few moments later and said, ‘You’re in luck, Jack. She must be in a good mood. Go ahead.’

  I knocked tentatively on Mrs Hodgson’s office door and gazed at the sign:

  Mrs Jess Hodgson

  Chief Librarian

  ‘Come in, Master Spayd,’ she called.

  I entered, closed the door behind me, and went to stand in front of her desk with my hands behind my back. I was suddenly very scared.

  She hadn’t looked up from something she was writing, and I noticed she had a proper fountain pen. ‘Yes?’ she asked at last. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s about books, Missus . . .’

  ‘Mrs Hodgson, if you please. “Missus” means something quite different. It�
��s servile.’ She looked up over the top of her glasses.

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Hodgson.’

  She removed the cap from the top of the pen and slotted it over the gold nib. ‘Do you know what servile means?’

  ‘No, Mrs Hodgson.’

  ‘You will look it up in the dictionary before you leave, young man! Now, what is it you want?’ Her spectacles had black rims and made her look even fiercer.

  ‘It’s about borrowing.’

  ‘That’s what we do in a library.’

  I was floundering, my carefully prepared script forgotten. ‘Can I take out two on the same day?’ I blurted. ‘Please,’ I added belatedly.

  ‘The answer is probably going to be no you can’t, but you have the right to state your case. Go ahead.’

  I was panicking. ‘Snowdrifts.’

  ‘Snowdrifts? I don’t understand.’

  At last I had the opportunity to give my prepared speech. ‘It’s almost winter and soon the snow will come and I have to walk a long way in the biting cold to get here and I could easily fall into a snowdrift and break my leg.’

  One eyebrow shot up. ‘Oh? Pray tell.’

  ‘Then I have to walk back again in the dark when you can’t see the snow and it’s even more dangerous.’

  ‘More snowdrifts?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t mind the cold because I love to read, but my mom worries about me. You see, she works nights and she’s afraid I’ll fall into a snowdrift, and nobody would know if something awful happened, like I broke my leg, and then I’d freeze to death.’ I really laid it on thick, looking brave, then sad, then pathetic. I admit I got a bit carried away.

  I almost told Mrs Hodgson about what a loss I’d be to my mom if I couldn’t get home in time to prepare her chilblain treatment but at the last moment thought better of it. People who suffer from chilblains, and maybe she was one of them, are always interested to know someone else’s method of treating them and I thought she might ask me what I put in my concoction.

  She removed her spectacles, bowed her head, pressed her eyes with her forefinger and thumb and sighed. Then she looked at me again. ‘Now, Jack, rules should not be broken. What if I let every child take out two books at a time?’

  ‘It’d be good, Mrs Hodgson. You’d have less work . . . and more time to read,’ I said quickly.

  Mrs Hodgson looked stern but I could tell she was now smiling on the inside a bit. ‘I’ll think about it and let you know if we can make an exception in your case, Master Jack Spayd.’ Then she gave me a hard look. ‘You certainly know how to mount an argument, but the bit about trudging through snowdrifts and breaking your leg was sloppy thinking. Except for an occasional blizzard, it only snows about half-a-dozen times a month in winter, and, as you would well know, a single snowfall is seldom more than four inches deep. The likelihood of any of these factors causing a healthy young boy to break his leg and freeze to death is remote. Do you know what a specious argument is, Jack?’

  ‘No, Mrs Hodgson.’

  ‘Then the word “specious” is the second you will look up before you leave.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Hodgson, thank you for seeing me.’ I knew it was all over; my dramatic account hadn’t fooled Mrs Hodgson for one moment. I’d imagined fierce winters and dangerous snowdrifts when I’d read White Fang, the book I’d just finished. That’s the one problem with books. Facts and fiction get mixed up with your real life.

  I turned to leave.

  ‘Wait a minute, Jack Spayd. I haven’t finished with your . . . prognostication yet. If I were you, I should be more careful with facts in the future, my boy. Facts remain facts, no matter how you deck them out in fancy dress.’ She reached for the fountain pen and tapped its end on the top of her desk three times.

  ‘I shall make an exception in your case, Jack. You’re the only child who comes all the way from Cabbagetown, and it’s a long walk now that Miss Mony has left and you have no streetcar fare.’ She paused and looked at me sternly. ‘You are to tell no one that you have been granted this special privilege.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss — Mrs Hodgson.’

  ‘You may take out and return two books to the library on the same day.’ She smiled and replaced her glasses and reached for her fountain pen again. ‘Go on, hop to it!’

  I quietly thanked her again and turned towards the door. I didn’t want to overdo it. As I reached the door, she said, ‘Don’t forget the dictionary! And look up prognostication while you’re at it.’

  My mom was getting to love books as much as I did, and unknowingly we were educating ourselves – I was educating myself forwards and she was educating herself backwards because, as I said, she didn’t have books in her childhood. Not all of what we learned came from books, either. In winter, she’d cut sandwiches and fill the thermos with black tea, and we’d go to the museum for the day. It would take Mom all week to save the streetcar fare, but the museum was free. Sometimes we’d listen to experts lecturing on all kinds of interesting stuff.

  We went to the Riverdale Zoo once, for a special treat. I liked the elephant, the lions and the bear, even the hippopotamus, and especially the monkeys. But they looked sad behind bars, cooped up in their tiny cages. I had hoped to see birds but they didn’t have any, except for sixteen pheasants and a young crane. When I thought about it later, I was pretty glad they didn’t. Wild birds in tiny cages would be horrible. Can you imagine an eagle or a buzzard in a cage?

  Toronto has lots of lake birds – too many to mention. We’d been to Lake Ontario once on a school outing and I’d seen lots and lots: ducks, geese, swans, herons, ring-billed gulls, herring gulls and two Caspian terns. There were supposed to be bald eagles and ospreys, but we didn’t see any that day.

  I liked birds a lot, not that there were many around Cabbagetown: some starlings, sparrows and doves, and occasionally you’d see a chimney swift. Once I saw a screech owl perched on a lamppost after a snowstorm. It just looked at me for ages, all hunched up, the feathers on its back disarranged. I didn’t know if it was cold or injured, but then after a while it let out an eerie cry and flew away. I was glad it was okay. Owls eat mice and there were plenty of those around, I can assure you.

  On our weekend walks we’d sometimes wander along the banks of the Don River, which wasn’t all that far from our cottage, passing all the shut-down factories and industrial sites with their silent cranes and rusting metal. It looked like the world had come to an end. Once we heard this weird sound, like a wooden ratchet, but coming from a maple tree. We stopped and I looked up and saw a belted kingfisher, the only one I ever saw in Toronto. It was so strange; I don’t think there could have been many fish in such murky, polluted river water.

  My mom talked fondly about how ‘the Don’ used to be, with all the factory women sharing stories about themselves and their kids and laughing a lot, and how, when the factory knock-off horns sounded along the riverbank, they’d all stream out like schoolgirls and she’d meet girlfriends working in other factories, and they’d find a spot beside the river to sit for a good old chinwag.

  Mom and I had lots of good fun times together on the weekends. We’d usually leave the cottage as early as we could. In the summer we’d go to the parks in search of musicians and bands – we both loved music. There were often brass bands in the rotundas, and sometimes musicians playing other instruments. I knew what a fiddle looked like, but the first time I saw a cello I thought it was a violin that was just too big to lift. Massed bands would occasionally play in a park or as part of a veterans parade, and I’d get terribly excited and march on the spot to the beat of the drums. Violins could make me cry, but they were soft tears – not because I felt sad or anything, just because the sounds were so beautiful. For days afterwards I’d hear the music in my head as clear as anything. I’d learned to whistle when I was small, and could easily pick up a tune and whistle it, sometimes weeks later. My mom would say, ‘Jack, you have the gift.’

  ‘What’s the gift?’ I’d asked the first time she said this.


  ‘Your ear, you have a musical ear.’

  ‘Which one?’

  She’d laughed. ‘It’s just that you can remember music right off, every bit of it.’

  ‘Can’t everyone?’

  ‘It’s very rare, I think.’

  It was nice having a gift that was very rare, but all I knew was that I loved music and could recall and whistle it weeks or months after I’d first heard it.

  My mom once mentioned it to my dad. ‘Must come from my side of the family,’ he’d grunted. ‘My Uncle Joe could play the banjo real great . . . killed in the war, poor bastard.’ He showed no further interest in my gift; I guess it was not what he wanted in a boy.

  Once, when I’d shown him the aggie Mac had given me, he said it was a good one, then asked, ‘You any good at marbles?’

  I told him I was seldom beaten.

  ‘That’s good,’ he replied. His praise was sweeter even than my mom’s praise for my whistling. She praised me through thick and thin, but he never did. Funny how when you receive too much approbation you cease to believe in it. My mom saw lots of praiseworthy things in me that I don’t suppose were so unusual in a child.

  To avoid Dad we’d stay out of the house as much as we could manage at weekends. I confess I never thought that he might be lonely or feel neglected. In winter he’d spend Saturdays at the football or ice hockey and Sundays recovering from his bender. In summer the sport changed to lacrosse or baseball but the bender was the same. Luckily for us, he slept in on Saturday mornings, recovering from a whole week of hangovers and early starts, then again on Sunday mornings as a result of his binge at the game and afterwards at the tavern. I guess the Sunday-morning hangover must have been really bad. My mom said she’d often hear him throwing up during the night.