Free Jack of Diamonds by Bryce Courtenay Page B

feeling increasingly guilty. It was going to be a pretty hairy four minutes and then I’d have to face her questions afterwards.
    The music seemed to come out okay, in fact real good, even if I say so myself. I ended it with a long ‘bluesy’ wail from the harmonica. She’d had this smile on her face while I played, but when I stopped it was replaced by a quizzical look. ‘It’s jazz?’
    ‘Yes. How did you know?’ I asked, surprised.
    ‘I’ve heard something like it. In 1924, I think it was. I remember it was played at the Canadian National Exhibition by an American orchestra and was called “Dixieland”. But where on earth . . . ?’
    ‘Were there black people – Negroes – playing?’ I asked quickly, thinking that she could have known about the Jazz Warehouse all this time and it would probably have been all right.
    ‘No, I don’t think so, I’d have remembered if there had been. I remember being very excited.’
    ‘Jazz is American black people’s music,’ I announced.
    ‘I liked it a lot, Jack,’ she said, ignoring this last remark.
    ‘Are you sure , Mom?’
    ‘Of course I like it! Why shouldn’t I? Where on earth did you hear it? Was it during the Christmas break? Why didn’t you tell me before?’
    ‘I wanted to surprise you,’ I said, not telling the entire truth.
    ‘Well, you certainly have. From the sounds of it, you’ve been practising a lot. Did you hear it all in one go? And where exactly?’ she demanded, perhaps smelling a rat. She gave me another quizzical look. ‘Jack, we’ve never kept anything from each other, have we?’
    ‘Well, it was, you know, Dad finding out and all . . .’ Saying it out loud, it sounded pretty lame. ‘I was a bit scared, like I said . . . he hates black people, and it’s their music . . .’
    ‘So? Black, yellow, piebald – so what? Since when does music have skin colour! And when have we ever shared anything we do together with your father?’
    Her questions were raining down on me like hailstones and I felt ashamed, as though I’d betrayed her.
    I confessed the whole thing, about Mac and the Jazz Warehouse, and even about the cutaway burlap on the pipes under the stairs, so as to reassure her that I was always nice and warm.
    To my surprise, the first thing she asked was, ‘Has Mac ever touched you, Jack?’
    ‘Touched me, how?’ I asked, puzzled.
    ‘You know, somewhere private . . . on your body.’
    ‘No!’ I cried indignantly. ‘We shake hands when we meet and say goodbye, just like grown-ups do.’ I couldn’t understand why she’d ask me such a thing. Mac wasn’t a stranger and if he’d been to jail, everyone would have known about it. You couldn’t hide your past in Cabbagetown. Someone would have seen him in prison. If he’d gone in for sexually molesting a child, he wouldn’t have been coming back to Cabbagetown. And now with the Depression, and homeless men all over the place, kids had been warned to be extra careful.
    Of course, looking back, sexual molestation must have been common enough, with drunken fathers sexually abusing their children. But wives and kids were too ashamed or too frightened to talk about such matters. My mom had been right to ask the question. Mac could have been abusing the twins, although I couldn’t imagine it. If he had been, Dolly wouldn’t be like those other moms who hid the truth. I reckon she’d have simply beaten him to death. Fortunately, as it turned out, Mac was as good as he seemed.
    ‘And Mac takes you when you go to this warehouse and then brings you back?’ she asked, still somewhat suspicious.
    ‘Most times we go together or he meets me there and we walk home after. But not always,’ I admitted. ‘Some days he gets a job and works overtime.’ I told her about us parting as we reached the beginning of Cabbagetown, in case someone saw us and told Dolly McClymont.
    ‘Yes, I agree that’s sensible. If that nasty piece of work upstairs knew about you and him