The Luminaries

collarless shirt.
    ‘You’re not allowed to squat here, you know,’ the youth said, frowning. ‘This is private land. It belongs to Mr. Chesney. You can’t just hole up where you please.’
    Another voice, from the warehouse: ‘Who’s that you’re talking to, Ed?’
    ‘There’s a chink—just sitting here. Beside the outhouse.’
    ‘A what?’
    ‘A Chinaman.’
    ‘He’s using the outhouse?’
    ‘No,’ called the youth. ‘He’s just sitting beside it.’
    ‘Well, tell him to get a move on.’
    ‘Get on with you,’ said the youth, giving Ah Sook a gentle nudge with the toe of his boot. ‘Get on with you. You can’t stay here.’
    The voice from the warehouse called again. ‘What did you say he was doing there, Ed?’
    ‘Nothing,’ the youth called back. ‘Just sitting. He’s got a pistol.’
    ‘A what?’
    ‘He’s got a pistol, I said.’
    ‘What’s he doing with it?’
    ‘Nothing. He’s not making any trouble, as far as I can see.’
    A pause. Then, ‘Is he gone?’
    ‘Get on with you,’ Ed said again to Ah Sook, motioning. ‘Go
on
.’
    Roused to motion at last, Ah Sook slipped out from beneath the corrugated iron, and hurried away—feeling the puzzled eyes of the youth on his back, as he did so. He ducked behind a laundry line, and into the oaty-smelling stables at the rear of the Hotel Imperial, keeping his head down and his pistol clasped tight to his chest. Above the whickering and stamping of the horses he could hear that the two men were still calling back and forth, discussing him. He knew that before long he would be pursued; he needed to hide himself, and quickly, before someone sounded the alarm. Ah Sook ran to the end of the stalls and peered over the half-door. He looked along the row of allotments, at the lean-to kitchens beyondthem, the baize doors for the tradesmen, the privies, the pits for waste. Where would he be safest? His gaze came to rest upon the small cluster of buildings that formed the Police Camp, and among them, the wooden cottage in which George Shepard lived. His heart gave a sudden lurch.
Well, why not?
he thought, suddenly bold.
It is the last place in Hokitika that anyone would think to find me
.
    He crossed the small track between the stables and the Police Camp fence, walked up to George Shepard’s kitchen door, and rapped smartly upon it. While he was waiting for a response he looked furtively about him, but the alley was quite empty, and there was nobody in the yards on either side of where he stood. Unless someone was watching from inside one of the hotels—which was very possible, the cockled glass shielding all view of the interior—then nobody could see him, standing in the shadow of George Shepard’s lean-to, pistol in hand.
    ‘Who is it?’ came a woman’s voice, through the door. ‘Who is it?’
    ‘For Margaret,’ said Sook Yongsheng, leaning his mouth close to the wood.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘For Margaret Shepard.’
    ‘But who is it? Who’s calling?’
    It seemed to him that her mouth was very close to the wood also; perhaps she was leaning close, on the other side.
    ‘Sook Yongsheng,’ he said. And then, into the ensuing silence, ‘Please.’
    The door opened, and there she was.
    ‘Margaret,’ said Ah Sook, full of feeling. He bowed.
    Only when he rose from the bow did he allow himself to appraise her. Like Lydia Wells, she too seemed virtually unaltered since the scene of their last encounter, at the courthouse in Sydney, when she stepped forward with the testimony—the false testimony !—that had saved his life. Her hair now showed a strip of silver down the central part, and it had turned brittle, such that the few wisps that had escaped her hairnet formed a haze about her head. Apart from this small token of her advancing age, her features seemed more or less the same: the same frightened, wateryeyes; the same buck teeth; the same broken nose, broad across the bridge; the same blurred lips; the same look of fearful shock and apprehension. How well the memory is stirred by the sight of a familiar face! All in a rush Ah Sook could see her sitting down in the witness chair, folding her gloved hands neatly in her lap, blinking at the prosecutor, coughing twice into a scrap of lawn, tucking it into the cuff of her dress, folding her hands again. Telling a lie to save his life.
    She was staring at him. Then she hissed, ‘What on
earth
—’ and gave a laugh that was almost a hiccup. ‘Mr. Sook—what—what on
earth
?