Eleanor Catton - The Luminaries

‘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, watery eyes; 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 ? There is a warrant out for your arrest—did you know that? George has taken out a warrant!’

‘May I come in?’ said Ah Sook. He was holding the pistol against his hip, with his body half-turned to shield it: she had not seen it yet.

A gust of wind blew through the open door as he spoke, causing the interior walls of the cottage to shudder and thrum. The wind moved visibly over the stretched calico.

‘Quickly,’ she said. ‘Quickly, now.’

She hustled him into the cottage, and shut the door.

‘Why have you come?’ she whispered.

‘You are very kind woman, Margaret.’

Her face crumpled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No.’

Ah Sook nodded. ‘You are very kind.’

‘It’s a terrible position you’re putting me in,’ she whispered. ‘What’s to say I won’t send word to George? I ought to! There’s a warrant out—and I had no idea, Mr. Sook. I had no idea you were even here , before this morning. Why have you come?’

Ah Sook, moving slowly, brought out the pistol from behind his back.

She brought her hand up to her mouth.

‘You will hide me,’ he said.

‘I can’t,’ said Mrs. Shepard, still with her hand over her mouth. She stared at the revolver. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking, Mr. Sook.’

‘You will hide me, until dark,’ Ah Sook said. ‘Please.’

She worked her mouth a little, as though gnawing on her palm, and then snatched her hand away, and said, ‘Where will you go when it gets dark?’

‘Take Carver’s life,’ said Ah Sook.

‘ Carver —’

She groaned and moved on quick feet away from him, flapping her hand, as though motioning him to put the gun away, out of sight.

Ah Sook did not move. ‘Please, Margaret.’

‘I never dreamed I’d see you again,’ she said. ‘I never dreamed —’

She was interrupted. There came a smart rap on the door: the front door, this time, on the far side of the cottage.

Margaret Shepard’s breath caught in her throat; for an instant, Ah Sook feared that she was going to vomit. Then she flew at him, pushing his chest with both hands. ‘Go,’ she whispered, frantic. ‘Into the bedroom. Get under the bed. Get out of sight. Go. Go. Go .’

She pushed him into the bedroom that she shared with the gaoler. It was very tidily kept, with two chests of drawers, an ironframed bed, and a single embroidered tract, stapled to the framing above the headboard. Ah Sook did not have time to look around him. He fell to his knees and slithered under the bed, still with the pistol in his hand. The door closed; the room darkened. Ah Sook heard steps in the passage, and then the sound of the latch being lifted. He turned to the side. Through the calico wall beside him a square of lightness widened, and a patch of blackness stepped forward into it, clouding the centre. Ah Sook felt the sudden chill of the wind.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs. Shepard. I’m looking for your husband. Is he at home?’

Ah Sook stiffened. He knew that voice.

Margaret Shepard must have shaken her head, for Francis Carver said, ‘Care to tell me where he might be found?’

‘Up at the construction site, sir.’ She spoke barely above a whisper.

‘Up at Seaview, is he?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Ah Sook cradled the Kerr Patent in both hands. There would be nothing easier than to slither out from beneath the bed, and stand, and press the muzzle to the wall. The cartridge would rip through the calico walls like nothing. But how could he be sure not to injure Mrs. Shepard? He looked at the patch of darkness, trying to see where Carver’s shadow ended, and Mrs. Shepard’s began.

‘The alert’s gone up,’ Carver was saying. ‘Shepard’s just put in for a warrant. Our old friend Sook’s in town. Armed and on the loose.’

The gaoler’s wife said nothing. In the bedroom, Ah Sook began to ease himself out from under the bed.

‘It’s me he’s after,’ Carver said.

No answer: perhaps she only nodded.

‘Well, your husband’s done me a good turn, in sounding the warning,’ Carver went on. ‘You let him know that I appreciate it.’

‘I will.’

Carver seemed to linger. ‘Rumour has it that he’s been in Hokitika since late last year,’ he said. ‘Our mutual friend. You must have seen him.’

‘No,’ she whispered.

‘You never saw him? Or you never knew?’

‘I never knew,’ she said. ‘Not until—not until this morning.’

In the bedroom, still with the pistol trained on the calico shadow, Ah Sook got to his knees, and then to his feet. He began to move towards the wall. If he angled the pistol sideways—if he shot obliquely, rather than head-on—

‘Well, George did,’ Carver was saying. ‘He’s known for a while now. Been keeping a watch upon the man. He didn’t tell you?’

‘No,’ whispered Mrs. George.

Another pause.

‘I suppose that figures,’ Carver said.

Ah Sook had reached the timber frame of the bedroom doorway. He was perhaps six feet away from the square of lightness that was the front door; the doubled sheet of calico was all that stood between him and Francis Carver. Was Carver armed? There was no way to tell, short of opening the door and confronting him face to face—but if he did so he would lose precious seconds, and he would lose the advantage of surprise. And yet he still did not dare shoot, for fear of hurting Mrs. Shepard. He peered at the shapes on the fabric, trying to see where the woman was standing. Did the door open to the left, or to the right?

The blackness of the calico shadow seemed to thicken slightly.

‘You’ve spent your lifetime paying for it,’ Carver said. ‘Haven’t you?’

Silence.

‘And it’s never enough.’

Silence.

‘He doesn’t want your penance,’ Carver said. ‘Mark my words, Mrs. Shepard. Your penance is not what he wants. He wants something that he can take for his very own. George Shepard wants revenge.’

Mrs. Shepard spoke at last. ‘George abhors the notion of revenge,’ she said. ‘He calls it brutish. He says revenge is an act of jealousy, not of justice.’

‘He’s right,’ Carver said. ‘But everyone’s jealous of something.’

The patch of blackness in the doorway faded and dissolved, and Ah Sook heard Carver’s footsteps retreating. The cottage door closed, and there came a rattling sound as Mrs. Shepard drew the bolt and chain. Then lighter footsteps, approaching, and the bedroom door opened. Mrs. Shepard looked at Ah Sook, startled, and then at the pistol in his hand.