Christopher Priest - The Prestige

I am so taken with the idea that I have been dashing around London all day, trying to find someone who will act as my double. This is the wrong time of year to be looking; all the unemployed actors one can generally count on finding in any public bar in the West End are working in the numerous pantomimes and Christmas shows around the town.

I have just over three weeks in which to prepare. Tomorrow I shall start to build the cabinets!

4th January 1894

Two weeks to go, and at last I have my man! His name is Gerald William Root, an actor, reciter of declamatory verse, monologist… and, by all accounts, regular drunkard and brawler. Mr Root is however desperate for cash, and I have drawn from him a pledge that so long as he works for me he shall only taste liquor after each performance. He is anxious to please, and the cash that even I am able to offer him is so generous, by his usual standards, that I believe I can purchase his reliability.

He is the same height as me, and his general stance and figure are roughly mine. He is a little stouter than I am, but either he will lose those extra folds of flesh, or I shall wear padding. It is of no concern. His coloration is fairer than mine, but again this is a small matter that can be resolved with greasepaint. Although his eyes are an impure blue, while mine are the colour generally described as hazel, the difference is not noticeable, and again we can use theatrical make-up to misdirect attention.

None of the details matters. More potentially serious is the problem of his gait, which is noticeably looser than mine, with longer strides, and his feet turn slightly outwards as he walks. Olivia has taken charge of the problem, and believes she can coach him in time. As any actor knows, you convey more about a character with a walk or a bearing than any number of facial characteristics, accents or gestures. If my double walks differently from me while on the stage he will not be mistaken for me. It is as simple as that.

Root, fully briefed in the deception to which he is privy, says that he understands the problem. He tries to dismiss my worries on this score by regaling me with his professional reputation, but I care for none of it. Provided that on the night he is mistaken for me, he will have earned his money.

A fortnight remains in which to rehearse.

6th January 1894

Root goes through the movements in which I rehearse him, but I cannot help feeling that he does not relish the illusion . Actors play a part, but the audience is in on the deception throughout; they know that behind the appearance of Prince Hamlet is a man who merely speaks the lines. My audiences must leave the theatre foxed by what they have seen! They must both believe and disbelieve the evidence of their eyes!

10th January 1894

I have given Mr Root tomorrow as a day off, so that I might consider. He is not right, not right at all! Olivia too thinks it is all a mistake, and urges me to drop the Borden illusion from my act.

But Root is a disaster.

12th January 1894

Root is a marvel! We both needed the time to think it through. He told me he passed the day with friends, but I suspect from the smell about him that he spent the time with a bottle to his lips.

No matter! His moves are right, his timing is nearly right, and as soon as we have been fitted out in our identical costumes, the deception will be good enough to pass muster.

Tomorrow, I go with Root and Olivia to Streatham, where we will inspect the stage, and make final preparations.

18th January 1894

I am unaccountably nervous about tomorrow's performance, even though Root and I have rehearsed it until we are sick of it. In perfection lies a risk; if tomorrow I perform Borden's illusion, and improve on it, and I shall, word that I have done so will reach him within days.

In these quiet hours around midnight, with Olivia abed, the house silent and my thoughts welling around me, I know there is yet a terrible truth that I have not faced up to. It is that Borden will instantly know the means by which I have brought off the illusion, but I still do not know his.

20th January 1894

It was a triumph! Applause rang out to the very rafters! Today, in its final edition, the Morning Post describes me as "probably Britain's greatest living illusionist". (There are two small qualifications there that I could gladly live without, but it will be enough to rattle Mr Borden's complacency!)

It is sweet. But it also has a sour side I had not anticipated! How could I not have thought of this? At the conclusion of the illusion, at the climax of my act, I am perforce huddled ignominiously in the artfully collapsed panels of my cabinet. While the applause fills the hall, it is the drunkard Root who strides out in the spotlight. It is he who takes the ovation, who holds Olivia's hand in his, who bows and waves and blows kisses, who acknowledges the bandmaster, who salutes the gentry in the loges, who doffs his hat and bows again and again—

And I can only wait for the darkness of the stage when the curtain descends, before I make my escape.

This will have to change. We must arrange it that I am the one who emerges from the unexpected cabinet, so the switch with Root must be made before the illusion begins. I shall have to think of a way.

21st January 1894

Yesterday's notice in the Post has made its impact, and already today my agent has taken several enquiries about and three firm bookings for my act. My miraculous illusory switch is demanded each time.

I have rewarded Root with a small cash bonus.

30th June 1895

Already the events of two years ago seem like a fading nightmare. I return to this journal at the half-year merely to record that I am once again on an even keel. Olivia and I co-exist harmoniously, and although she can never be the driving stimulus that Julia once was, her quiet support has become the bulwark on which I build my life and career.

I intend another discussion with Root, since the last one had little effect. In spite of the excellence of his performance he is a trouble to me, and another reason for returning to this diary is to record the fact that he and I will at last be having words.

7th July 1895

There is a cardinal rule in the world of magic (and if there is not one, let me formulate it) that you do not antagonize your assistants. This is because they know many of your secrets, and they therefore have a particular power over you.

If I fire Root I shall be at his mercy.

The problem he presents is partly his alcoholic addiction, and partly his arrogance.

He has often been inebriated during my performance, a fact he does not deny. He claims he can handle it. The trouble is that there is no controlling the behaviour of a heavy drinker, and I am terrified that one evening he will be too drunk to take part. A magician should never leave any aspect of his act to chance, yet here am I, dicing with it every time I perform the switch with him.

His arrogance is, if anything, a worse problem. He is convinced that I am unable to function effectively without him, and whenever he is around me, be it in rehearsal, backstage at the theatres, or even in my own workshop, I have to suffer a constant stream of advice based on his years of experience as a thespian.

Last night we had our long-planned "discussion", although in the event he did most of the talking. I have to report that much of what he said was nasty and threatening indeed. He said the words I most feared to hear, that he could expose my secrets and ruin my career.

And worse. He has somehow found out about my relationship with Sheila Macpherson, a matter which I had thought was strictly under the wraps. I am being blackmailed, of course. I need him, and he knows it. He has power over me, and I know it.