The House of the Glass Harp

Joanna travels back in time to investigate Sean's disappearance.

Chapter Four

The House of the Glass Harp

 

The restaurant sat in the centre of Wolfe Island's only village, Marysville, at the junction of highways ninety-five and ninety-six.  It drew life from the stream of trucks and cars flowing past to board the ferry for Kingston or disembarking, going south to Cape Vincent and the American border. Now, in October, that stream had dried to a trickle.   Shirley sat beside the cash register in an empty dining room.  Chewing a wad of Bubblicious, she stared at the National Enquirer. Her eyes focussed on a picture of Princess Di in a skimpy bikini frolicking on a West Indian beach.  The door opened. She looked up to see a tall, tanned woman in a yellow slicker.

"Good morning," said the woman.

Shirley flicked her eyelashes. F*****g Brit. She glanced at a bicycle leaning against the window. Shirley frowned. She knew the type, a money-scrimping tourist that preferred off-season rates. She had no hope of a tip from the likes of her.

The woman slid her knapsack off and placed it on the floor beside a round Formica table. She sat in the chair and unzipped the bag. When Shirley came over with her pad the woman smiled and gave her order.

"A pot of tea and some buttered toast." As a daughter of the agency Joanna remembered accounting. "Could I have a receipt please?"

Shirley nodded, rolling her eyes as she slumped back to the counter.  The woman lost herself in a street map of Kingston.  She did not look up when Shirley brought her order.  Shirley paused her chewing long enough to tell her that it would be three dollars and fifty cents including G.S.T. Paid, she granted the woman a perfunctory smile and sank back into her tabloid. Snob, she grumbled, as she picked up the paper.

Joanna tasted her tea. The blandness repelled her.  The agency might have its faults.   Bad taste in food was not one of them.  However the tea did help to warm her.  Pitcairn had its chilly nights but nothing like this.  The fifteen-minute walk out of the field where she had landed and the pedal down the road had left her chilled. She pressed her hands against the warm sides of the mug.

"What time does the ferry leave," she asked.

"In about twenty minutes."

Joanna studied her map. On it she had marked two places. The first was the Hotel Dieu at Brock Street. Two of the doctors on staff were David and Janice Foley, parents of the future Doctor Matthew Foley. Six blocks away from the hospital she had marked the second place. The Glass Harp was a combination of used bookstore and bed and breakfast. Sean had been staying there when he had disappeared.  Once the ferry arrived she would unlock her bicycle and pedal towards the boat. She liked the bicycle. A five-speed Raleigh, it required a minimum of maintenance all of which she could do by herself. No special skill had been required to master it. Best of all, no ownership or registration papers were required. For a city the size of Kingston, it should serve her well.

                She had chosen the bicycle for one other reason. Sean had used one. With it Joanna could recreate Sean's route, from the same field where he had landed to the same boarding house.  She would mimic his actions in the hope that she would notice something or someone that would help her to understand the cause of Sean's disappearance.  To keep the same thing from happening to her Sam had wanted to post an agent at the Howard Johnson, the hotel closest to the Glass Harp. Two agents however, posted attention would draw attention. Best to let her proceed alone.

                As Joanna finished her toast she thought of the child sealed behind plexiglass in the isolation ward of Adamstown hospital.   Doctors would probe him for infectious microbes.   They would also protect him from anything in the air of Pitcairn that might prove harmful. The tests completed she would take her new son to live in Jane's house in the Flatlands.  One week of Kingston time and she would be back in Pitcairn. Twenty minutes would have passed there. She would have debriefings followed by lunch with Sam and Susan. After that she would go and see her new son.  Jane would serve her supper and then she would fall into bed.  Sometime in the night she would turn and reach out to find an empty space.  Where are you, Sean?  She refilled her teacup.

Best now to relax.  She would have to find out the child's name.  That could prove awkward not knowing his name.  A goddess should know such things.  How long would it take for the boy to realise that she was very far from being divine?

Joanna pedalled down to the dock.  She could see the white outline of the ferry pushing aside the scraps of morning fog.  With a soft chug the engines stopped and the boat lowered a black ramp.  A yellow school bus rumbled onto the road. Joanna trailed behind, the buses' exhaust wrapping her in a grey mist.   Young faces peered down at her from the window, faces lined with age when she was born.

She walked on board, pushing her bike, remembering the boy's fingers clinging to her.  Shahat. He had screamed it again and again. What had it meant?  Had it been his name for her?  She had placed a hand upon his forehead. He had quieted and had slipped into a deep sleep.  As she leaned her biker against the wall of the passenger cabin she could not keep from thinking that somehow she had betrayed him.

She pulled upon a heavy grey door and stepped into the cabin. She glanced at the empty wooden benches and past them at a red arrow painted upon the wall. It pointed up towards the upper deck. Joanna climbed the narrow stairs until she emerged on the upper deck.  She leaned over the railing and watched the ferry slide into the channel.

A cold wind blew from the west.  As Joanna looked out over the ruffled waters she thought of Pitcairn.  Once again she stood upon the island's cliffs, the wind brushing past her.  There the wind had helped to hold her to the island. Here it seemed to push her towards a new land. Had that same wind drawn Sean away?

She shook her head. It would not have been here.  If he had wanted to slip away unnoticed, this would be the wrong era.  This was an age that had demanded documentation. How could he hope to find employment without school records?  He would need some proof of a past life.  Fabrication of such proof would have aroused the agency's suspicions.  If Sean had wanted to disappear he would have chosen late twentieth-century North America. So where was he?  She looked down at the dark-green water.  A small ledge ran along the side of the ship's hull. On it lay dozens of coins. People in this era often tossed small coins away when they made a wish. She smiled, reached into a pocket and dropped a penny.

***

As she pedalled up King Street, Joanna considered Mrs. Bascombe.  The owner of the Glass Harp would be the starting point in her search for Sean. Even the agency admitted that any involvement by Mrs. Bascombe in Sean's disappearance seemed at best a feeble possibility.  The woman's life mirrored that of millions of others of her time.  Born Eileen Forbes in Cheltenham England in the nineteen-twenties she had met and had married Mister Bascombe during the war.  An officer in the Canadian army,  Mister Bascombe had also been an avid bibliophile.  Until he died of a brain tumour in 1985 the couple seemed to have lived a happy life. Never having had any children their bookstore had become their life. In Ninety- ninety-six Mrs. Bascombe would die from pneumonia. Decent ordinary people the Bascombes had lived decent ordinary lives.

                The house stood separated from the street by a large plot of grass and a black iron fence. A Victorian Gothic monstrosity it snubbed the present age of computers, plastic and plate glass.  Gold Leaf letters glittered on the window that faced the street.  The Glass Harp: Rare Books Bought and Sold. Underneath in small letters of sombre black. Bed and Breakfast.  Pedestrians and cars hustled past ignoring both signs.

Three ancient leather-bound volumes had been mounted behind the window.  The Book of the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres by Nicolas Copernicus held the centre.  To its right stood the Mort D’Artur by Mallory and to Copernicus’s left In Praise of Folly by Erasmus.  Historical works Joanna thought but not titles designed to lure late twentieth century customers especially considering that all three had been printed in Latin.  She could see no brightly-coloured paperbacks, no cook books, nothing related to entertainment or sport.  The display would do more to drive away customers than to attract the. She wondered, was that its purpose to drive away people?

A heavy door of sombre black opened unto a small lobby. The lobby divided into two passageways.  One led up a steep flight of narrow stairs. The other led into the store.  A small bell tinkled as she stepped across the doorway. No browsing in this store, Joanna thought. A high counter ran the entire length of the room dividing the customers from the books. In front of the counter stood an elderly gentleman.A blue toque covered his head. He looked through the volume with the assistance of an elderly woman that Joanna surmised was Mrs. Bascombe. Her absorption with her customer left Joanna feeling somewhat embarrassed,. Reluctant to intrude she stood off to one side.  Above the counter she noticed a photograph of a serious bespectacled young man in a military uniform

The old man tucked the volume he had been examining under his arm and left.  He bowed at Joanna as she left giving her a paternal smile. Joanna had not noticed any money being exchanged between the man and the woman. Perhaps the man had paid for the volume when he had ordered it.

“May I help you,” Mrs. Bascombe asked.

“I’m looking for a room.”

The old woman nodded. Plump, white-haired and wearing a faded dress she seemed as antiquated as her store.

“You have a nice shop here,” Joanna murmured, hoping that she did not sound too insincere.

Instead of replying with the customary thank you; she peered up at Joanna from behind her gold-framed spectacles. “Do I? I would have thought that you found it all very dull. Most young people do. Would you care to see the room Miss . . .”

 “Edwards, Judith Edwards.”

Mrs. Bascombe led her up the narrow stairs, describing the rent as she went.  "Thirty dollars a night including breakfast.  There's a bath at the end of the hall, Miss Edwards. In the summer I keep a small dining room for the guests but as there's only yourself you'll have to eat out.  I allow no cooking in the rooms."

"You have no other lodgers?"

"Not just now. I had an Irish gentleman last week; a very nice man.  I don't get very many guests this time of year."

"He stayed in this room?"

"Yes."

Mrs. Bascombe opened the door of room one.  Joanna stepped inside.  The room seemed comfortable.  A thick green floor mat lay beside a large brass bed.  The nightstand boasted a modern touch tone phone.  Flowered curtains covered the window.  A cheap print of Constable's The Hay Wain hung on the wall behind the bed.  The ways had been painted a lilac green.  Beside the window was a large easy hair. Joanna saw neither radio nor television.  Parting the curtains she could look down into Mrs. Bascombe's garden.   As she studied the oak tree Mrs. Bascombe recited the house rules.

"No visitors after twelve. No laundry.  No pets. No long distance calls. I serve breakfast no later than nine."

Sean had stayed in Room One. "It seems very nice," said Joanna. She sat on the edge of the bed. "Could I have it for a week?"

"You'll have to pay in advance."

"Of course." Joanna opened up her purse and drew out three fifties. The money was quite genuine dating to this period.

"I'll bring you up a receipt," said Mrs. Bascombe pocketing the money. "You'll probably want to wash up. There are clean towels in the bath. Is there anything else that you need?"

"Could you bring me yesterday's newspaper, please?"

“Of course.” Mrs. Bascombe hesitated afraid that she ran the risk of being impolite. "You're not English, are you?"

"New Zealander."

"You're a long way from home, Miss Edwards."

"Yes."

"I'll bring you the paper. Would you care to join me for a cup of cocoa after your bath?"

"That would be very kind. Thank you."

Joanna lay in the tub allowing the hot water to seep into her skin. As the chill of the morning oozed out of her she 

leaned her head back against the end of the tub. As she tapped the faucet with her toes Joanna thought about what 

she would do for the rest of the day.  She would reread Sean's notes. She would then visit the city library.  Later in the 

afternoon she would make a pilgrimage to the parental home of Doctor Foley.  From the floor below she could hear the 

strains of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro played upon traditional instruments. Joanna closed her eyes and allowed the music 

to lead her towards sleep.

Naked, Joanna sat on the bed, her laptop in front of her.  As she dried her hair she read her notes. Her notebook resembled a twentieth-century lap top computer but contained certain features lacking in models of this era.  Joanna's favourite was the three-dimensional holographic viewer. During the day however she used only the screen. If Mrs. Bascombe should peep in she would see nothing out of the ordinary.

A rotating holographic image of an island swam in front of her. Pigeon Island, owned by the Foley family, it lay off the south-western tip of Wolfe Island just inside Canadian waters. On Pigeon Island Doctor Foley and his niece had died.  Sam had mentioned Sean's intention to take pictures of the island. The Foleys had used the island as a summer home. For the rest of the year the island was left to the deer, rabbits and the birds. Sean might have wanted to unearth a little-known part of the doctor's childhood.

Joanna had locked her bicycle to the fence in front of the Glass Harp. She slipped a small brass key into the lock.  As she walked it down the sidewalk, a man in a blue sweater with a large white Maple Leaf on it and a Blue Jays baseball cap passed her.  The man stopped at the corner.  As he had a green light Joanna glanced at him wondering why he had stopped. Perhaps he was lost.  As she pedalled by him, the man, still eyeing the green light, threw her a good morning. This she would not have considered odd except that the words had been spoken in classical Sumerian.  

She looked back at him as a result of which she came close to colliding with the curb. Braking her bike she waited for him to catch up.  She peered at the man, struggling to identify him as he pedalled towards her.

"Excuse me sir? Do I know you?"

"Daniel."

"Daniel?"

"From Kish."

"Oh my god. Daniel Bishop."

The man made a rueful smile. "Do I look that bad?"

In Sumeria she had known Daniel as a twenty-eight year old. A mainlander Daniel had retired to a teaching position in his native Toronto. She had been two years younger than he had been.

"No. Of course not. What are you doing here?"

"Let's get a cup of coffee."

Bemused Joanna allowed the man to take the lead following him down the street. He stopped into front of a square yellowish building.

Joanna looked up at the sign. "Tim Horton?"

Daniel smiled. "A quintessential Canadian experience. Doughnuts and ice hockey,"

Daniel ordered two black coffees and two crullers.  Having paid he pocketed his receipt. “Make certain you get a receipt for everything” he told Joanna. “The agency’s become a lot stricter since the new cutbacks.”  Once he had received his order he led Joanna to a table.  He chose a table in the rear of the room as far from the window as possible.

"So you've settled in alright?" he asked once they were seated. He pulled off his cap to reveal a scalp barren of all but a few white wisps of hair.

"What are you doing here?" Joanna asked ignoring the coffee.

"Been helping to research Foley’s life.  Sam thought that you might need a friend."

"You were with Sean?”

Daniel smiled. "Time is a very relative concept, don't you think?" He reached out and touched her hand. "You look so young."

  Joanna pulled her hand away.

Daniel stirred his coffee. “Seventeen years there. Sixteen years on this timeline. It adds up. Still, no regrets. “

     "You're not answering my question."

Daniel finished stirring his coffee and tasted it. “Yes.  I was with Sean. “

”Sam didn’t mention you.”

“No. He wouldn’t have. Sam is not the most truthful of men. Not his fault. It’s just that in his position truth, like time, becomes highly relative. Tell me, do you like Mrs. Bascombe?”

“She seems very old-fashioned.”

“Well, everyone here is.”

“What I mean is, compared to others here . . . “

”Yes. I know what you mean.  Have you considered why Sean would have chosen to stay there?”

“It’s clean, close to downtown, cheap. Why shouldn’t he have chosen to stay there?”

“He didn’t choose it. Sam chose it for him.”

“Sam ordered him to stay there?”

“Yes.”

“But Sam would have . . . “

”Told you? Everything is on a strictly need to know basis with Sam.  Let me show you something.”

Daniel took a clear plastic Bic pen from out of a coat pocket. With it he drew some circles

 on a napkin. Finished, he pushed the napkin towards Joanna. “So tell me, which is the true circle?”

Puzzled, Joanna frowned. “They’re all the same.”

“Exactly. Drink your coffee.”

Puzzled Joanna sipped from the styrofoam cup.  Daniel had become somewhat odd. It happened if an agent spent too much time in the past.

Daniel pulled out a large piece of paper and placed it in front of Joanna. “I photocopied this from the registry office. Place looks like a damn morgue. It’s taken from a register, concerns the ownership of an island, Pigeon Island.”

“Sean was planning to go there. The Foleys summer home.”

“Look at the date of transfer of ownership.”

“Thirty-first of March, 1985.  So?”

“Transferred for the consideration of one dollar to Doctor David Foley from . . .”

Daniel placed a finger below a highlighted name.  Joanna read it.

“Thomas Bascombe. Major Bascombe?”

“Interesting, don’t you think? It gets even more interesting.” Daniel placed his finger on another group of highlighted words, an inch above David Foley.  “The major received the island in 1946, for consideration of one dollar, from a Miss Eloise Miller, spinster.” He moved his finger up. “Miss Miller received the island from a Mister Jeremiah MacAllister in 1903, again for consideration of one dollar.

I’ve followed this trail all the way back to a Nathaniel Benton.   He received the island from the crown for

 ten shillings in 1788. One of the conditions of ownership was that he and his descendants would maintain a lighthouse.”

“That’s interesting but how does that concern Doctor Foley and Sean?’

“I don’t really know,” admitted Daniel taking a bite out of his cruller. “I do know that Sean thought that it was important. It does prove that a relationship existed between the Bascombes and the Foleys.  It also means one other thing.”

“What?”

“Tomorrow morning at eight we’ll be taking a helicopter over there. Somewhat primitive compared to your copters but you should find it interesting.”

Joanna thought of the cost. “Accounting won’t like that.”

Daniel smiled. “All in the line of duty.”

Joanna spent the early afternoon with Daniel. As they finished their coffee he had gone over what he had learn about the Foley family, about the Bascombes, and about Kingston.  They pedalled up Johnson Street to the Foley home at Dicken’s Lane. Located in the west end of the city, Dicken’s lane, a short, residential street was considered one of the finest locations in the city. With the children at school and the Foleys at work, only a Guatemalan maid occupied the large two-story brick house.  The agents stood outside taking pictures and discussed the neighbourhood.  They biked down the street to the public school where the Foley children were enrolled.  There they took more pictures.

“We’re thinking of doing a holo based upon Susan’s life,” Daniel told Joanna. “A tragic tale of a young genius blighted and destroyed by the memory of a family tragedy. We sell that to the networks, it should cover the expenses.  Now, off to the library.  Research time.”

The pedal back down Brock Street left Joanna feeling drained. Time travellers were just as prone to jet lag as were temporal ones. Daniel advised her to sleep.  He would meet her at six for supper at the Ramada Inn.

Joanna dreamed of Sean. They flew together somewhere over an ocean. As the copter sped towards an unbroken horizon, Sean and she lay on the rear seat making love. She murmured to him guiding him into her. The buzzer on her watch shook her awake.

Daniel tried to be charming.  Perhaps he was. Joanna admitted to herself that she never noticed. Her thoughts remained with Sean. As she picked at her ice cream Joanna decided that she should ask Daniel what might have happened to Sean. Once, years before during the Sargon years, Joanna had invited Daniel into her bed. Daniel had never quite given up hoping that Joanna would ask him again.  The urgency in her voice convinced him that she never would not so long as she believed that Sean might be alive somewhere.

He patted her hand. "We think, at least Sam and I think, that Sean found out something about Foley's life that the others want to keep us from knowing."

"Others?"

Daniel drew his hand allowing it to fall onto his lap. "It's always been understood by the agency and by most knowledgeable outsiders that sometime in the future someone would want to interfere with the timeline.  The Sargon anomaly proved that."

"Did it?"

"As far as the agency is concerned it did."

Joanna thought for a moment.  "Sam used the word "defect". You don't seriously believe that Sean.

... ?"

Daniel patted her hand. "We, at least Sam and I think that Sean found out something about Foley's life something that the others want us to keep from finding."

                "Others?"

                "Time is a sea that stretches on forever. We are just splashing about in the shallows. A hundred years from now, a thousand, ten thousand who knows what we will be capable of. Anyway, for want of a better word we called these projected travellers futurists. The agency believes that the Bascombes may be two of them."

                "That's ridiculous. Major Bascombe died two years ago from a brain tumour, a disease treatable in our own time. Don't you think these futurists could do just as well? Did Sean believe this?"

                "He believed that the Bascombes, the Foleys and the island were all bound together. There's little question that the island was important to Foley. He spent the last decade of his life there. He died there.  To understand him we have to understand the island." He handed her a diskette.  “That's all the information that we've assembled on the island.  Study it tonight. I'll pick you up at seven. We'll splurge on a cab.”

                “Where are we going?”

                “To the island. Do you remember the circles?”

                “The circles?" She remembered the napkin in her pocket. “Yes.”

                “They're all the same.”

                      ***

                The island hovered a few centimetres above the bed. Joanna looked down at it. She studied its oval shape, its flat surface, its trees. Most of all she studied the buildings at the centre of the island. Using her pointer she drew a red square around the buildings.

                "Magnify." The structures swelled. She rotated the image. Built before the First World War upon the site of an older house of an older house, the Foley summer home resembled any other Ontario brick farmhouse.  Behind it stood a wooden barn darkened by the years. A wooden shed could be seen just behind the house. Apart from a boathouse and an automatic lighthouse, there were no other buildings on the island.

                Nothing about the buildings seemed out of the ordinary except for their location. To have all these materials brought by boat must have cost Eloise a great deal. Who was Eloise? Why did any of this matter? Sean thought that it mattered. He must have had a reason.

                A tapping at her door caused Joanna to flick off the image.  "Yes?"

                "Would you care to join me in the kitchen, dear, for some cocoa?"

                Joanna thought of refusing but she did not wish to offend. Besides, if what Daniel said was true, she might learn something about the Bascombes relationship with the Foleys. "Yes, thank you. Just let me get decent."

                The kitchen, built in the nineteenth century, was much larger than those of the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries. Instead of as a mere adjunct it served as the centre of the Bascombes home. Its spaciousness reminded Joanna of Jane's kitchen.  Mrs. Bascombe sat at a round, dark cherry table.  A brown cat played at her feet.

                Mrs. Bascombe poured the cocoa. "Having company is very pleasant don't you find it so, Miss Edwards? Do have some shortbread. I know that you young people worry about things being fattening but it doesn't hurt to splurge once in a while, does it?"

                "No it doesn't."  Joanna nibbled at the biscuit.  This dumpy, white-haired, spectacled woman sitting in front of her teapot was a subversive dedicated to the overthrowing of the space-time continuum. At least the agency thought so. As Mrs. Bascombe lifted the teakettle off her stove, Joanna considered Daniel's warnings.  She found it inconceivable to find such a threat in a kitchen decorated with collector plates of Norman Rockwell paintings.

                From the holovideos that she had seen and the books that she had read Joanna assumed that Mrs. Bascombe, if a futurist, would be anxious to conceal her past. Far from showing reluctance the woman dragged out her photo albums. As the evening darkened into night, she rambled on about how she and Dennis had loved Florida and had gone to Disney World four times. Whatever the agency might think Joanna concluded that Mrs. Bascombe was a lonely old woman longing for a sympathetic ear. Yes there may have been some connection between the Bascombes and the Foleys but no one had suggested that the Foleys had travelled from the future.  Joanna kept expecting the woman to sound her out about her past.  Mrs. Bascombe put all of her attention into describing the photos.

When asked by Joanna in as casual tone as possible how Mister Bascombe and she had met, Margaret Bascombe opened her oldest album. On the front page was a young moustachioed man in a military uniform.  Dennis, she told Joanna, had been so handsome in his uniform. He had impressed her that first time that she had seen him at a tea held for allied servicemen by the Cheltenham Ladies Auxiliary. Her parents had taken to the young man at once.

"He had no family of his own, you see, so he found one with mine."  As the wall clock struck ten, Mrs. Bascombe apologised for keeping her so long over "these silly pictures." As she put the albums away Joanna offered to help clean up. Mrs. Bascombe shooed her away.  Climbing the stairs to her room Joanna could hear her humming Verdi's La Donna e Mobile. 

Joanna fell asleep just after lying down. She turned in her sleep as she had often done in the past, reaching out for Sean.  She felt his warmth and his strength. As he kissed her breasts she uttered a soft moan pressing closer to him. 

She woke to the sound of birds and to the rhythmic soothing of waves washing against a shore.  Joanna sat up to find herself naked beneath a light coverlet.  Beneath her lay a thin mattress spread over a dark wooden floor.  A pillow lay next to her and in front of it, pressed into the mat the impression of a human body.

She looked up to see, not a white- plastered ceiling, but a roof made of palm leaves.  Palm leaves and the trunks of coconut trees made up the walls of the tiny hit.

 Puzzled she rose, wrapping the coverlet around her.   She stepped out into the bright tropical sun. The scent of hibiscus reminded her of Pitcairn but the beach was unlike any on that rocky island.  She saw no cliffs, just a gentle slope of white coral fringed by a blue sea.

Sean, tapa cloth wrapped around his waist, sat in an outrigger. A few metres offshore, he was fishing.  When he saw her standing on the beach he waved. Joanna waved back. Sean seemed different, younger, as the years spent in the past had been washed away by this strange sea.   She looked around.  Hills covered with green trees rose beyond the beach but something else held her eye. Behind the hut was a large black object familiar to her since her childhood, the eighteen-foot long stern anchor of the Bounty.

It should not be there.  Its place was in front of the old parliament of Adamstown. Instead it lay on the beach its flukes pointing towards a trail leading off into the palm-covered hills. Joanna knew where she was. She was home. The coverlet unravellld and fell around her ankles. Joanna kicked it aside. She waded into the water and swam out to Sean.

Author's Note

Canadian English