The Luminaries

of her unconsciousness . Soon after that she heard that an enormous fortune, the origins of which had yet to be determined, had been discovered hidden on Crosbie Wells’s estate, which had since been purchased by the hotelier, Edgar Clinch—acting proprietor of the Gridiron Hotel, which was owned by Emery Staines, and the current residence of Anna herself.
    Gascoigne had not spoken with Anna directly about any of these events, for she refused to be drawn on the subject of Emery Staines, and had nothing at all to say about Crosbie Wells, save that she had never known him. Gascoigne sensed that she was grieving Staines’s disappearance, but he could not gauge whether she believed him to be alive or dead. In deference to her feelings Gascoigne dropped the subject altogether; when they spoke, they spoke of other things. From her high window on the upper floor of the Gridiron Hotel Anna watched the diggers struggle up and down Revell-street, through the rain. She kept to her room, and wore Agathe Gascoigne’s black dress every day. No man inquired about Anna’s change of costume; no man made any kind of intimation to suggest that he knew about the gold that had been hidden in her corset, now safely stowed under Gascoigne’s bed. The responsible party was reluctant, for whatever reason, to come forward and show his hand.
    On the day after Crosbie Wells’s burial, Anna was tried for attempted suicide at the petty court, as Gascoigne had predicted she would be. She refused to plead, and in the end was fined a sumof five pounds for her attempted felony—and then scolded roundly, for having wasted the Magistrate’s time.

    All this was running through Gascoigne’s mind as he stood in the Gridiron Hotel with Anna Wetherell clasped against his chest, tracing the eyelets of her corset, up her back. He had held Agathe in this way—exactly in this way, exactly so, with one hand splayed beneath her shoulder blade, the other cupping the ball of her shoulder, Agathe with her forearms against his chest, always—having raised her arms to shield herself at the moment of enclosure. How strange that he recalled her, now. One could know a thousand women, Gascoigne thought; one could take a different girl every night for years and years—but sooner or later, the new lovers would do little more than call to mind the old, and one would be forced to wander, lost, in that reflective maze of endless comparison, forever disappointed, forever turning back.
    Anna was still trembling from the shock of the misfire. Gascoigne waited until her breathing was steady—some three or four minutes after Pritchard’s tread retreated down the stairs—and then at last, when he felt her body regain some of its strength, he murmured, ‘What on earth got into you?’
    But Anna only shook her head, burrowing against him.
    ‘Was it a blank? A false cartridge?’
    She shook her head again.
    ‘Perhaps you and the chemist—perhaps you devised something together.’
    That roused her; she pushed away from him with the heels of her hands, and said, in a voice full of disgust, ‘With
Pritchard
?’
    It pleased Gascoigne to see her brighten, even in anger. ‘Well, then: what was he wanting you for?’ he said.
    Anna almost told him the truth—but felt a sudden shame. Gascoigne had been so kind to her, this past fortnight, and she could not bear to tell him where the opium had gone. Just yesterday he had expressed happiness that she had ended her enslavement to the pipe: he had marvelled at her strength, andpraised the clearness of her eyes, and admired her. She had not had the heart to disabuse him then, and she did not now.
    ‘Old Jo Pritchard,’ she said, looking away. ‘He was lonely, that was all.’
    Gascoigne pulled out his cigarette case, and found that he was trembling too. ‘Have you any brandy left?’ he said. ‘I would like to sit a moment, if you don’t mind. I need to gather myself.’
    He laid the spent pistol carefully on the whatnot beside Anna’s bed.
    ‘Things keep
happening
to you,’ he said. ‘Things you can’t explain. Things nobody seems to be able to explain. I’m not sure …’
    But he trailed off. Anna went to the armoire to fetch the brandy, and Gascoigne sat down upon the bed to light his cigarette—and just for a moment they were fixed in a tableau, the kind rendered on a plate, and sold at a fair as an historical impression: he with his wrists on his knees, his head bowed, his cigarette dangling from his