The Luminaries

burst out of the makeshift belfry and scattered, dark against the sky. Balfour turned his face to the sound, feeling as he did so a sudden ache in his temple. His senses were turning from dull to sharp—the effect of the spirits he had consumed that morning—and the responsibilities of his situation had begun to weigh heavy upon him. He no longer felt inclined to ask questions on Lauderback’s behalf.
    He wrapped his coat around his body, turned on his heel, and began walking towards the Hokitika spit—a place that was, for him, a habitual refuge. It was his pleasure to stand on the sand in foul weather, clutch his coat across his body, and look out past the clustered masts of the ships at anchor, swaying en masse, impelled variously by the river’s rushing current, the surf, and the wind—the howling Tasman wind, that stripped the bark from the trees at the beachfront, and bent the scrub to crippled forms. Balfour enjoyed the fierce indifference of a storm. He liked lonely places, because he never really felt alone.
    As he slithered down the muddy bank to the quay, the wind suddenly dropped. Smiling, Balfour peered into the mist. The rain had stolen all chance of a reflection from the wide mouth of the river, and the water was as grey and opaque as a pewter plate. The bucking masts had slowed their motion when the wind died away; Balfour watched them, calmed by their weighty roll, back and forth, back and forth. He waited until they were almost still before moving on.
    The quay curved around the mouth of the river to meet the spit, a narrow finger of sand that was battered on one side by the white surf of the open ocean, and lapped on the other by the confused wash of the river, its waters mingled now with salt, and stripped of gold. Here, on the calm side of the spit, a short wharf projected from the quay. Balfour stepped down onto it, landing with a flat sole, and the structure shuddered beneath his weight. Two stevedores, quite as sodden as he was, were sitting on the wharf some twenty feet away; they started at the jolt, and turned.
    ‘All right, chaps,’ said Balfour.
    ‘All right, Tom.’
    One was carrying a brass-capped boathook; he had been using it to swipe at the gulls, which were diving for their supper on the rocks below, and now he resumed this idle purpose. The other was keeping score.
    Balfour strolled up behind them, and for a time nobody spoke. They watched the moored vessels pitch back and forth, and squinted out, through the rain.
    ‘You know what the trouble is?’ Balfour said presently. ‘Down here, any man can make himself over. Make himself new. What’s an alias, anyway? What’s in a name? Pick it up as you pick up a nugget. Call this one Wells—this one
Carver
—’
    One of the stevedores glanced around. ‘You got a quarrel with Francis Carver?’
    ‘No, no.’ Balfour shook his head.
    ‘Quarrel with a man called Wells?’
    Balfour sighed. ‘No—there hasn’t been a quarrel,’ he said. ‘I’m wanting to find out a thing or two, that’s all. But quiet—on the sly.’
    The gull returned; the stevedore swiped again, and missed.
    ‘Foul-hooked through his wing, nearly,’ said the second man. ‘That’s five.’
    Balfour saw that they had dropped a square of biscuit on the gravel below.
    The stevedore who had spoken first nodded his head at Balfour and said, ‘Are you wanting to chase up Carver, or chase up the other one?’
    ‘Neither,’ Balfour said. ‘Never mind. Never mind. I’ve got no quarrel with Francis Carver—you remember that.’
    ‘I’ll remember,’ said the stevedore, and then, ‘I say, though: if you’re wanting dirt—and on the sly—you ought to ask the gaoler.’
    Balfour was watching the gull circle closer. ‘The gaoler? Shepard? Why?’
    ‘Why? Because Carver did time under Shepard,’ said the stevedore. ‘On Cockatoo Island, for all of ten years. Carver dug the dry dock there—convict labour—with Shepard looking on. If you’re wanting dirt on Carver, I’d make a bet that Gov. Shepard is the man to dig it up.’
    ‘At Cockatoo?’ Balfour said with interest. ‘I didn’t know Shepard was a sergeant at Cockatoo.’
    ‘He was. And then the very year after Carver gets his leave, Shepard gets a transfer to New Zealand—and follows him! How’s that for bad luck?’
    ‘The worst,’ agreed his fellow.
    ‘How do you know this?’ Balfour said.
    The stevedore was addressing his mate. ‘That’s a face
I’d
never want to see