Jack of Diamonds by Bryce Courtenay Read Free Book Online Page B

on a course, created within me habits of reading and questioning that would serve me well all my life. One of the last things she’d said to me before leaving for Vancouver was, ‘Jack, you don’t need me any longer. Keep reading and asking yourself questions, or anyone else you think may have the answers. That’s all you’ll need until you get a scholarship to a decent high school and then university.’
    When I told my mom, she couldn’t believe her ears. ‘University!’ she squeaked. ‘Isn’t and never was nobody in our family ever could have thought about something like going to university.’
    I owe Miss Mony a great deal and mostly because she got me reading, which wouldn’t have happened otherwise. ‘Curiosity is the greatest habit a human can cultivate and reading is the best way to satisfy it,’ she’d say. Reading made me happy for another reason, too. I loved sharing books with my mom. Late at night, when we’d padlocked ourselves in the bedroom, I’d read just for her. Because she’d had very little education, she was anxious that I didn’t end up the same as her, just another child following in the pretty miserable footsteps of ignorant parents. She’d constantly ask me about school and Miss Mony’s private lessons, and she’d be proud as punch when my report card came in at the end of term with a whole string of straight As. Although you never allowed yourself to appear clever in class, you were allowed to be clever in tests. End of term report cards were regarded with indifference by most kids and never discussed. They were usually bad news, anyhow. The reports probably didn’t get too much attention from parents either. Most, recalling their own time at school, didn’t harbour great expectations for their kids. In those days people really believed you inherited your stupidity: like father like son; like mother like daughter. Working-class women especially were never expected to have brains and were regarded as breeders and factory fodder.
    I remember my mom would give me a hug and a big kiss and shake her head in genuine wonder when she saw my results. ‘I don’t know where your brains could possibly come from, Jack. In my family nobody was good at schooling, yer father’s family neither; hopeless, the lot of us. Miracles will never cease, dumb marries dumber and, lo and behold, out pops Clever Jack!’ Then she’d laugh. ‘You don’t suppose they swapped babies at the hospital by mistake, eh?’ I could see she was surprised that I kept topping my class and it pleased me no end to see her so proud.
    My father would just grunt and say, ‘Yeah, nice,’ in an off-hand manner, barely glancing at my results before adding, ‘It’s all bullshit, son. Remember yer from Cabbagetown, nothin’ here to beat. Only means yer the least stupid of a bunch o’ knuckleheads, so don’t you go thinking you’re God’s gift, eh, boy.’ Without discussing it, we stopped showing him my report card, and he never asked to see it.
    But I had a long time to wait for my mom to come home each night, and sometimes I’d even grow weary of reading. Singing along to the McClymonts’ gramophone upstairs would, of course, help pass the hours occasionally. My mom and I had always sung together – mostly Iroquois tribal songs her grandmother had taught her – and often enough she’d say I had a real nice voice, but you couldn’t take too much notice of her. With only one child, who she loved to bits, she was a bit biased. Not that it mattered, because the one thing a boy never did at school was sing, except for ‘God Save the King’. You were allowed to belt that out because it was an act of loyalty to your king and country. Otherwise, our school was no place for a boy soprano.
    I’d long since memorised the lyrics of the songs I heard drifting through the ceiling, and when the gramophone started upstairs I’d sing at the top of my voice, pausing at the parts where the needle stuck in the worn