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home around half-past seven, a good hour before Mac said Dolly and the twins got back from quilting. When I asked him about quilting, he said he’d saved scraps of material from his upholstery for years before the Depression when he used to have lots of work. Dolly made quilts, which she’d then sell. But now, with the Depression, people seldom, if ever, bought one. Still, she was teaching the twins and other women from St Enoch’s Presbyterian Church how to make them. I admit I was surprised she’d do a kind thing like that for other people. I’d have liked to sleep under a nice warm quilt.
    ‘So, what do you think, Jack? Did you enjoy that?’ Mac asked, smiling. I think he already knew the answer.
    I grinned. ‘You can say that again, Brother Mac!’ Then we shook hands.
    ‘I did too! It was a real nice night, eh?’ He hesitated. ‘Like to do it another time?’
    ‘You bet,’ I replied.
    Tomorrow?’
    ‘I can’t, I have to go to the library.’
    ‘Friday? I can do Friday.’
    ‘Yes, thanks, Mac.’
    ‘Bring your instrument.’
    I’d taken it with me that afternoon but there hadn’t been any point. ‘Why?’ I now asked.
    ‘Don’t you want to play jazz on that harmonica?’
    I stared at him in amazement.
    ‘Jack, I know you have a good ear. I’ve heard you picking up tunes from the gramophone in no time.’
    ‘Do you think I could? I mean really, really?’
    ‘Well, naturally not at first, not until you work out the chords and what have you. But if you practise on the spot, I do believe you could, Jack.’
    ‘What about you?’
    ‘What about me?’
    ‘Well, I’d be practising and messing things up and it would spoil the jam session for you.’
    Mac laughed. ‘If it does, I’ll go stand with the brothers and sisters. There’s a group I stand with in the summer.’ He paused. ‘Mind, I wouldn’t be there always. I get an occasional upholstery job and sometimes a day’s work from the labour line, and that always involves overtime. The foreman only picks a handful and you often have to work an extra two hours without pay, sometimes more.’
    ‘That’s not fair. My dad says, “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay”.’
    ‘Ah, yes, but he has a regular job,’ Mac said without malice. Then he added, ‘But, hey, you can’t complain, it’s work, a day’s pay.’ He glanced up automatically. ‘They’ll be home soon. Better be going, get the spuds on.’
    ‘Thanks again, Mac.’
    ‘Goodnight, Jack.’ We shook hands once more, like proper grown-ups.
    Inside I took off my boots and climbed into bed with my coat still on. I had two-and-a-half hours to go before my mom got home. Now I found myself in a real quandary. I got out my harmonica, but I didn’t want to play any of the old music, not even ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’, and I didn’t know how to play this new stuff that had made my heart pound and my feet tap involuntarily. It was music that got into your ear so you couldn’t think about anything other than jazz rhythm. I tried to sound some of the notes I’d heard, just a bar or two, and I finally managed a sustained wail from the harmonica, but it was pretty pathetic.
    Thinking it might help to stop the sounds reverberating in my head, I grabbed my book, The Last of the Mohicans , but I was near the end and half an hour later I’d finished it. Almost immediately, the music returned once more. The jam session had somehow got stuck in my head, and I was trying to pick it apart and bring some sense of order to it without any understanding of the underlying principles. I’d never heard of anyone making up music on the spot. Instruments came in solo, played a few bars and then faded out with only the drummer continuing to beat the time, then the others merged back in and all of it made perfect musical sense.
    However, one thing I knew for certain was that now Mac had suggested I take my harmonica, I’d be going back to the Jazz Warehouse as often as I could, even if it