The Luminaries

grieves me to think of my father using them—I feel a kind of repugnance about it, out of loyalty to my mother, I suppose. But I like the telling fortunes part. It was rather a thrill, to use another man’sname. It made me feel invisible, somehow. Or doubled—as though I had split myself in two.’
    Carver glanced at him, and then, after a moment, put out his hand. ‘Francis Carver’s my name.’
    ‘Emery Staines,’ said the boy.

MERCURY SETS
    In which a stranger arrives upon the beach at Hokitika; the bonanza is apportioned; and Walter Moody quits the Crown Hotel at last.
    Even in his best suit, with his hair combed and oiled, his boots blackened , and his handkerchief scented, Mr. Adrian Moody was a great deal less handsome than his younger son. His countenance bore the symptoms of a lifetime’s dependence upon hard drink—his eyes were pouched, his nose swollen, and his complexion permanently flushed—and when he moved, it was without grace or fluidity. He walked in a stiff-hipped, lumbering fashion; his gaze was restless and wary; his hands, stained yellow with tobacco smoke, were always stealing into his pockets, or picking in an anxious way at his lapels.
    Upon clambering out of the skiff that had conveyed him from the steamer to the beach, Moody senior took a moment to stretch his back, shake out his aches and cramps, and pat his body down. He directed his luggage to a hotel on Camp-street, shook hands with the customs officer, who was standing by, thanked the oarsmen gruffly for their service, and finally set off down Revell-street with his hands locked behind his back. He walked the length of the street, up one side, and down the other, frowning into each window box he passed, scanning the faces in the street very closely, and smiling at no one. By now the crowd that had gathered outside the Courthouse had dispersed, and the armoured carriage containing Francis Carver’s body had returned to Seaview; the double doorswere shut and locked. Moody senior barely glanced at the building as he passed.
    At length he mounted the steps to the Hokitika Post Office, where, inside the building, he joined the queue to the postmaster’s window. As he waited, he retrieved a piece of paper from his wallet, and unfolded it, one-handed, against his breast.
    ‘I want this to find a Mr. Walter Moody,’ he said, when he reached the front of the queue.
    ‘Certainly,’ said the postmaster. ‘Know where he’s staying?’
    As he spoke the bells in the Wesleyan chapel rang out five o’clock.
    ‘All I know is that he’s been in Hokitika these months past,’ said Moody senior.
    ‘In town? Or in the gorge?’
    ‘In town.’
    ‘At a hotel? Or is he tenting?’
    ‘I’d guess a hotel, but I couldn’t tell you. Walter Moody is the name.’
    ‘Mate of yours, is he?’
    ‘He’s my son.’
    ‘I’ll have a boy look into it, and charge you collect once we find him,’ said the postmaster, making a note of the name. ‘You’ll have to put a shilling down as surety, but if we find him to-morrow we’ll likely reimburse you sixpence.’
    ‘That’s fine.’
    ‘Would you prefer an envelope, or a seal?’
    ‘An envelope,’ said the other, ‘but hang a moment: I want to read it through one more time.’
    ‘Step aside, then, and come back when you’re ready. I’m shutting the window in half an hour.’
    Adrian Moody did as he was bid. He smoothed the letter flat on the countertop, and then pushed it, with his finger, closer to the light.
    Hokitika. 27.Apr.66
    Walter—I beg you to read this letter to its very end, and to reserve your judgment upon me until you have done so. From my postmark you will
have perceived that I am in Hokitika, as you are. I am to take my lodging at the TEMPERANCE HOTEL on Camp-street, an address which will no doubt cause you some surprise. You have long known that I have the Epicurean temperament. Now I am also of a Stoical cast. I have sworn that I will never take another drop of liquor in this life, and since this oath was made it has not been broken. It is in the spirit of repentance that I set down a brief account of those true intentions that my enslavement to the drink has occluded, even perverted, in recent years.
    I left the British Isles on account of debt, and debt alone. Frederick your brother had an acquaintance upon the field at Lawrence in Otago, and by his report the prospects there seemed very good; Frederick had determined to join him. You were in Rome, and meant to