The Luminaries

‘I ate it. Same as ever.’

‘Come off it, A

‘I’m not a liar.’

‘You ate a lump of poisoned tar and your eyes are clear as dawn?’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Who’s to say it was poisoned?’

‘Even if it wasn’t—’

‘You know that it was poisoned? You’re sure?’

‘I don’t know a d—ned thing about this d—ned business, and I don’t like your tone,’ Pritchard snapped. ‘I just want a piece of it back so I can look at it, for heaven’s sake!’

She was roused again. ‘And who poisoned it, Jo? Who tried to kill me? What’s your guess?’

Pritchard waved his arm. ‘Ah Sook, maybe.’

‘Accuse the man who’s accusing you?’ She laughed. ‘That’s a guilty man’s game!’

‘I’m trying to help you!’ Pritchard said furiously. ‘I’m trying to help!’

‘There’s nothing to help!’ A

‘Then explain to me why you ended up half-dead in the middle of the Christchurch-road!’

‘I can’t explain it!’

For the first time that day Pritchard saw real emotion on her face: fear, fury.

‘You took a pipe that night—same as usual?’

‘And every day since I made bail.’

‘Today?’

‘No. I ate the last of it last night. I told you.’

‘What time last night?’

‘Late. Midnight, maybe.’

Pritchard wanted to spit. ‘Don’t call me a fool. I’ve seen you when you’re under, and I’ve seen you coming up. Right now you’re sober as a nun.’

Her face crumpled. ‘If you don’t believe me, go away.’

‘I won’t. I won’t go.’

‘D—n you, Jo Pritchard!’

‘D—n you.’

She burst into tears again. Pritchard turned away. Where would she keep it? He strode to the armoire, opened it, and began rifling through the contents. Her empty dresses, hanging from the rail. Her petticoats. Her bloomers, most of them tattered and stained. Handkerchiefs, shawls, stays, stockings; her button boots. There was nothing. He moved to the dresser, where a spirit lamp sat upon a cracked china plate—this would be her opium lamp—and beside it, a wadded pair of gloves, a comb, a pincushion, an opened package of soap, sundry jars of cream and powder. These items he picked up and then replaced, roughly; he meant to turn the whole room over.

‘What are you doing?’ A

‘You’re hiding it—only you won’t tell me why!’

‘Those are my things.’

He laughed. ‘Keepsakes, are they? Precious mementos? Antiques?’

He wrenched the drawer from her dresser, and upended it over the floor. A cascade of trinkets rattled out. Coins, wooden spools of thread, ribbons, covered buttons, a pair of dressmaker’s shears. Three rolling champagne corks. A man’s shaving brush—she must have stolen that from somewhere. Matches, stays. The ticket from her passage to New Zealand. Wads of cloth. A silver-backed looking glass. Pritchard raked the pile. There was A

‘You’re a beast,’ A

He ignored her, and picked up the pipe.

It was of Chinese making, fashioned from bamboo, and about as long as Pritchard’s forearm. The bowl of the pipe sat some three inches away from its end; it protruded like a doorknob, and was fixed to the wood by means of a metal saddle. Pritchard weighed the thing in his hands, holding it as a flautist holds a flute. He sniffed it. There was a dark residue around the rim of the bowl—so someone had partaken of the pipe, and recently.

‘Happy?’ she said.

‘Watch your lip. Where’s the needle?’

‘There.’ She pointed at a square of cloth among the sorry detritus on the floor, through which was pushed a long hatpin, stained black at the tip. Pritchard sniffed this also. He then inserted the hatpin into the aperture of the bowl and rolled the tip about.

‘You’re going to break it.’

‘Be doing you a favour, then.’

(Pritchard deplored A

At last Pritchard tossed the pipe aside—but carelessly, so that the bowl struck the floorboards, and rang out.

‘Beast,’ A

‘I’m a beast, am I?’

He lunged for her, not really intending to hurt her, but merely to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, until she told him the truth. But he was clumsy, and she wrenched away, and for the third time that afternoon, Pritchard’s nostrils were filled with the rich, briny smell of the ocean—and, impossibly, the metallic taste of cold—as if a wind had slapped him in the face, as if a sail had snapped above him, as if a storm was in the air. He faltered.

‘Get back,’ she said. She was holding her hands before her face, her fingers half-curled into fists. ‘I mean it, Joseph. I won’t be called a liar. Get back and get out.’

‘I’ll call you a liar if you d—ned well lie.’

‘Get back.’

‘Tell me where you’ve hidden it.’

‘Get back!’

‘Not until you tell me where it is!’ he shouted. ‘Tell me, you useless bloody whore!’

He lunged for her again, in desperation; he saw her eyes flash, and in the next moment she had reached into her breast and withdrawn a muff pistol, the single-loading kind. It was a slip of a piece, hardly longer than Pritchard’s finger, but from a distance of two paces it could shatter his chest. Instinctively he put up his hands. The piece was facing backward, with the muzzle pointing up towards her chin, and A

The report from the small gun was hollow, even unremarkable—like the cracking of a topsail far above a deck. It seemed an echo of itself, as if the real shot had fired somewhere much further away, and this noise was just a copy. Stupidly Pritchard wheeled about, turning his back on A

For the briefest second, nobody moved … or perhaps no time passed at all. Then Gascoigne roared an oath, started forward, and fell upon the body of the whore. He wrenched her head back and the pistol clattered to the side—but the white of her neck was unscarred—there was no blood—and she was breathing. Her hands flew to her throat.

‘You fool—you fool!’ Gascoigne shouted. There was a sob in his voice. He grabbed her tatted collar with both hands and ripped it open. ‘Blank cartridge, was it? Wax pellet, was it? Thought you’d give us all another scare? What the devil do you think you’re playing at?’

A

Pritchard said, ‘A blank?’ He leaned down and picked up the pistol.

The barrel was hot, and the smell of gunpowder was in the air. But he could see no spent casing, and no hole anywhere. The wall behind A