Rosie Thomas - The Illusionists

‘In my costume as whoever you please, Pharaoh perhaps, or the Medusa, or Milor’ the Frenchie Duke – it don’t matter – I will stand, so,’ said the dwarf, taking up his position in what might be the centre of the stage. ‘For whatever reason it is, you will cut off my head. It will drop into a basket, most like, and my body will fall to the ground.’

‘Good,’ Devil replied. ‘Is that all?’

Carlo glared. ‘ Wait , can’t you? My headless torso remains. Onstage with us we’ll have the cabinet, ornate as you like, on four legs.’

‘Or on what appears to be four sturdy legs?’

‘Yes, yes. You know what the mirrors are for.’

‘And what I paid for them,’ Devil added.

‘Don’t you ever shut up? You will cross the stage to open the cabinet and within it will appear …’

‘Your severed head. Floating in mid-air, I assume?’

‘Aye. So we talk. There’ll likely be some pact, and your end of the bargain will be to put my head back.’

‘So I close the cabinet doors.’

‘You do. There’s the mumbo jumbo and the lights flash. In an eye-blink there is my living, speaking head secure on my neck again.’

‘I hold the basket up, empty except for the horrible bloodstains.’

The dwarf yawned. Devil tapped his teeth with his thumbnail.

‘No, wait … I’ve got it. A river of gold pours out of the basket. It’s alchemy, that’s what the trick is. It’s all about the philosopher’s secret.’

‘Theatricals are your department,’ Carlo shrugged.

The two men eyed each other. Devil had been optimistic in his first definition of their relationship. In fact their mutual mistrust was not much diminished by the two days and a night they had been obliged to spend together, nor even by the strange liking that crept up between them. Neither would have cared to admit to this last. Carlo stuck his jaw out while Devil pondered the mechanics.

‘It’s not a new illusion. Monsieur Robin has something similar.’

‘It’s still a sweet trick, and it can be as new as tomorrow if we choose to make it that way.’

This was true. Devil well knew that apart from endless practice it was audacity, force of personality and the glamour of the stage itself that created magic out of mere mechanics. His thoughts ran ahead.

‘As it happens, I know a wax modeller who is employed by the Baker Street Bazaar.’ He strode across to their cache of materials and held up two short ends of deal planking. ‘Show me,’ he ordered.

Carlo returned to a squatting position on the coffin maker’s bench and indicated that Devil was to hold the boards up to his neck. The little man’s head protruded between them as he settled on his muscular haunches. Then he folded his limbs. His knees splayed to the sides and his ankles crossed as he brought his feet towards his chin. His short spine telescoped further, his shoulders rose towards his ears as his arms wrapped round his torso. Devil had to lower the boards, and lower them again as Carlo shrank into a ball of muscle.

‘That’s good. That’s really very good,’ he said. He was impressed. The dwarf had compressed his body into a space that seemed hardly more than a foot square.

‘Watch me,’ Carlo snapped. He breathed in deeply, exhaled, and reduced himself by another inch in all directions.

‘Stop,’ Devil laughed. ‘I am afraid that you will vanish altogether. Can you still speak and move your head?’

‘Of course.’

The dwarf’s head, which was not undersized, rotated freely above the boards. There was no sign of physical strain in his face and his voice was as smooth as cream.

The ribbon of gold in Devil’s head looped and tied itself off into a giant bow.

He put the boards aside and silently admired the way that Carlo unfolded his limbs before stretching his little body upright again.

‘There is just one detail.’

Carlo tipped his head. ‘What’s that?’

‘Your size.’

‘What? My size is our money.’

‘It will provide a significant contribution to our funds, I agree. I acknowledge that. My skills as an actor, as the master magician who will conjure your smallness, will be another invaluable element. I am also our financial negotiator, as you know.’

‘Hah,’ sniffed Carlo.

‘And all my experience dictates that your stature should be our stage secret.’

‘What do you mean by that? I am not ashamed. I want the world to know who I am, Carlo Boldoni, straight from performing before the crowned heads of …’

‘Quite,’ Devil said. ‘I am only suggesting that to reveal your stature to the public would be to take away some of the intrigue of the illusion.’

There was a silence. Carlo’s personal vanity and ambition strained visibly.

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘For this trick, to appear onstage as a full-sized man. Is there perhaps a way you can do that?’

‘Hah,’ Carlo sniffed again. He made a return to his baggage and this time brought out a pair of wooden struts with shaped foot-pieces at either end. Devil watched with interest as he sank to fit these stilts to his boots, then used Devil’s long leg as a prop to haul himself upright again. Their eyes met almost on a level.

‘Walk,’ Devil ordered.

The stilt-walk was well practised, tinged with swagger, like everything Carlo did.

‘That’s good. Very good,’ Devil said again. ‘You could use those to step out in the world like a normal man, couldn’t you?’

Carlo’s face went dark. ‘I am a normal man. My body is the same as yours, bar its length. My feelings are the same as yours and all, except I’m too mannerly to tell you that you’re an ignorant numpty. Until you force me to do so, that is.’

Devil kept a straight face. ‘I am very sorry, and you are quite right. I was rude and tactless. Will you forgive me?’

He held out his hand and after only a moment’s hesitation the dwarf extended his own and they shook. This was a significant moment and they both chose to ignore it.

‘So I get a costume?’ Carlo persisted.

‘Allow me time to work out the details of our drama, and we will have the finest costume in London sewn for you.’

Then Devil unbuttoned his waistcoat and put it aside before rolling up his shirtsleeves. From the heap of timbers he selected and held up one pair of cheap chair legs, roughly turned and bristling with splinters. He was no master carpenter, but he had built plenty of stage devices in the past. This one would have to be the best of them.

‘Let’s get to work,’ he said.

The lantern light threw up their shadows, large and small, against the dirty wall. For the rest of the night the coffin maker’s workshop was as loud with the sounds of sawing and hammering as during the daylight hours.

Dawn was breaking when the two men finally emerged into the street. Carlo was grey with fatigue, rubbing his face and stretching to ease his aching body. Devil looked as alert and handsome as he had done before their night’s work started.

‘I will need a coffin myself if I don’t get some rest,’ Carlo grumbled. ‘I’m going back to your place for a sleep.’

‘I shall see you later,’ Devil replied.

He walked through the tiny alleys and the crowded courts of the area that housed timber merchants, furniture makers, metalworkers, printers and block makers, and emerged into Clerkenwell Road. The sky lightened from grey to pearl and the cobbles underfoot glistened with damp. Birdsong rose from the eaves of the houses and the trees in St John’s Square, competing with the rumble of carters’ wheels. Devil walked slowly, savouring the bite of the chill air and the smell of frying kidneys that drifted from an open window. In Farringdon Road the omnibuses were already crowded and a steady stream of black-coated clerks flowed out of the railway station. Devil was washed along in the tide of men, passing under the florid ironwork of the new viaduct and on down to Ludgate Circus. When he glanced up Ludgate Hill he saw that the dome of St Paul’s was rinsed in the glowing light of the rising sun. He stopped to admire the view. It didn’t often occur to him that the city was beautiful. In general he thought it was the opposite but today, with the satisfaction of a good night’s work completed and the gold ribbon decorating his dreams, he saw its richness and promise reflected in all the domes and roofs and sun-gilded windows.