The Luminaries

‘Where’s the pistol?’

‘Check in his waistband.’

There were hands on his body, patting and punching. Somebody aimed a kick at his ribs and he gasped.

‘Stashed it, most likely.’

‘What’s that you’ve got? Coolie papers?’

His indenture was wrenched from his hand, scanned briefly, and tossed aside.

‘Now what?’

‘Now what have you got to say for yourself, Johnny Sook?’

‘Ah Quee,’ said Ah Quee, managing to speak at last.

‘Got a tongue in his head, does he?’

‘You’ll speak in English if you speak at all.’

Another kick in the ribs. Ah Quee gave a grunt of pain and doubled up.

‘He’s not the right one,’ said one of his attackers.

‘What’s the difference?’ responded the other. ‘He’s still a Chinaman. He still stinks.’

‘He doesn’t have a pistol,’ the first man pointed out.

‘He’ll give us Sook. They’re all in thick.’

Ah Quee was kicked again, in the buttocks this time; the toe of the man’s boot caught his tailbone and shot a jolt of pain up his spine to his jaw.

‘You know Johnny Sook?’

‘You know Johnny Sook?’

‘You seen him?’

‘We want to talk to Johnny Sook.’

Ah Quee grunted. He attempted to raise himself up onto his hands, and fell back.

‘He’s not going to spill,’ observed the first man.

‘Here. Move away a bit—’

The second man danced away on light feet and then ran at Ah Quee like a kicker hoping to make a conversion. Ah Quee felt him coming at the last moment, and rolled fast towards him, to cushion the blow. The pain in his ribs was excruciating. He could only breathe with the topmost part of his lung. The men were laughing now. Their voices had receded into a throbbing haze of sound.

Then a voice thundered out over the street:

‘You’ve got the wrong man, my friends.’

The attackers turned. Standing in the open doorway of the Weld-street coffee house, his arms folded across his chest, was the magnate Dick Mannering. His bulk quite filled the doorway: he made for an imposing presence, despite the fact that he was unarmed, and at the sight of him the two men shrank away from Quee Long at once.

‘We’re under instructions to apprehend a Chinaman with the name of Johnny Sook,’ said the first man, sticking his hands into his pockets, like a boy.

‘That man’s name is Johnny Quee,’ said Mannering.

‘We didn’t know that, did we?’ said the second man, his hands stealing into his pockets also.

‘Instructions from the gaoler,’ said the first man.

‘The chink called Johnny Sook is on the loose,’ said the second.

‘He’s got a pistol.’

‘Armed and dangerous.’

‘Well, you’ve got the wrong man,’ said Mannering, descending the stairs to the street. ‘You know that because I’m telling you, and I’m telling you for the last time. This man’s name is Johnny Quee.’

Mannering seemed rather more menacing for the fact that he was advancing upon them, and at his approach the men finally balked.

‘Didn’t mean any trouble,’ the first man muttered. ‘Had to make

‘Yellow-lover,’ muttered the other, but quietly, so that Mannering didn’t hear.

Mannering waited until they had departed, and then looked down at Ah Quee, who rolled onto his side, checked his ribs for breakage, and clambered laboriously to his feet, picking up his trampled certificate of indenture as he did so, and brushing it clean of dust. His throat was very tight.

‘Thank you,’ he said, when he could breathe at last.

Mannering seemed annoyed by this expression of gratitude. He frowned, looking Ah Quee up and down, and said, ‘What’s this about Johnny Sook and a pistol?’

‘Don’t know,’ said Ah Quee.

‘Where is he?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Have you seen him? Anywhere at all?’

Ah Quee had not seen Ah Sook since the night of the widow’s seance, one month prior: late that night he had returned from the Wayfarer’s Fortune to find Ah Sook packing his few belongings and vanishing, with a grim efficiency, into the rustle of the night. ‘No,’ he said.

Mannering sighed. ‘I suppose you’ve been reassigned, now that Aurora’s gone back to the bank,’ he said after a moment. ‘Let’s have a look at your paper, then. Let’s see where they’ve placed you. Hand it over.’

He held out his hand for the certificate. The document was brief, and had been written without consultation with Ah Quee: it provided his ‘apparent age’ instead of his actual age; the origin of the ship he had arrived on, rather than his actual birthplace in Canton; and a brief list of his attributes as a worker. It was heralded with the numeral five, indicating that the length of his indenture was five years, and had been stamped with the Company seal. Mannering cast his eye down the document. In the box marked ‘present site of employment’ the word Aurora had been recently scratched out, and replaced with the words Dream of England.

‘Can’t get a bit of luck, can you?’ Mannering said. ‘That claim belongs to me! One of mine. Belongs to me.’ He tapped himself on the chest. ‘You’re working for me again, Johnny Quee. Just like the good old days. Back when you were running rings around me with your bloody crucible, and bleeding Anna Magdalena for dust.’

‘You,’ said Ah Quee, massaging his ribs.

‘Together again,’ said Mannering grimly. ‘Dream of England, my eye. English Nightmare, more like.’

‘Unlucky,’ said Ah Quee.

‘Unlucky for you or unlucky for me?’

Ah Quee did not reply to this, having not understood the question, and all of a sudden Mannering laughed and shook his head. ‘It’s the nature of indenture, I’m afraid, that you sign away your luck. Every chance to get lucky, you sign away. It’s the nature of any contract. A contract’s got to be fulfilled, you see: it’s got to come around on itself, sooner or later. A lucky man, I’ve always said, is a man who was lucky once, and after that, he learned a thing or two about investment. Luck only happens once and it’s always an accident when it does. It’s contracts that come back around. It’s investments and obligations; it’s paperwork; it’s business. I’ll tell you another thing I like to say. If a man wants any shot at making his fortune then he’ll never sign his name to any piece of paper that he didn’t write himself. I’ve done that, Johnny Quee. I’ve never signed my name to any contract that I didn’t write myself.’

‘Very good,’ said Ah Quee.

Mannering glared at him. ‘I don’t suppose you’d be so stupid as to try and run something funny past me again. That’s twice now that you’ve tried to bet against me: once on the Aurora, and once on Anna. I’m a man who knows how to count.’

‘Very good,’ said Ah Quee again.

Mannering passed the indenture back to him. ‘Well, you’ll be pleased to turn your back upon Aurora, I don’t doubt—and you needn’t worry about Dream of England. She’s as sound as a drum.’

‘Not a duffer?’ said Ah Quee, slyly.

‘Not this one,’ said Mannering. ‘I’ll give you my word on that. You’ll do all right on Dream of England. She’s been raked for nuggets, of course, but there’s plenty of dust in the tailings. Perfect for a man like you. Someone with two eyes in his head. You won’t make a fortune on her, Johnny Quee, but who among you ever does?’