Christopher Priest - The Prestige

Two hours or more went quickly by while we discussed her idea, and began to lay our plans. We emptied the bottle of gin, while Olivia kept saying, "I'll get the secret for you, Robbie. That's what you want me to do, isn't it?" And I said yes, but that I did not want to lose her.

The spectre of Borden's ruthlessness loomed over us. I was torn between the euphoria of making a definitive strike against him, and the prospect of him taking some even greater revenge should he realize Olivia was mine. I voiced these fears. She replied, "I'll come back to you Robbie, and I'll bring you Borden's secret—" We were soon both of us inebriated, both of us frolicsome and affectionate, and I did not return to my own apartment until after breakfast this morning!

At the moment she is in her own apartment, drafting a letter of application to Alfred Borden. I must go to forge one or two testimonials for her. We are using the address of her maid for poste restante ; as a further subterfuge she is taking her mother's maiden name.

7th August 1898

It is a week since Olivia applied to Borden for a job, and there has been no reply. In some ways this is almost an irrelevance, as since the idea came into being Olivia and I have been as tender and loving to each other as we were during those heady weeks of my American tour. She looks more comely than she has for many months, and she has entirely given up her gin.

14th August 1898

Borden has replied (at least, an assistant called T. Elbourne replied on his behalf), suggesting an interview early next week.

I am suddenly dead against it, having in the last few days found a renewal of happiness with Olivia, and more unwilling than ever to see her fall into Borden's clutches even if it should be for a ruse of our own invention.

Olivia still wants to go through with it. I argue against her. I minimize the importance of his trick, shrug off the earnestness of the feud, try to laugh the whole thing off.

I fear that in the past I gave Olivia too many months and years to think alone, however.

18th August 1898

Olivia has been to the interview and returned from it, and she says the job is hers.

While she was gone I was in a torment of fears and regrets. Such is my suspicion of Borden that the moment she had left me I imagined that he had placed the advertisement in an attempt to snare her, and I had to restrain myself from dashing out after her. I went around to my workshop and tried to distract myself with mirror practice, but at last I came home and paced around my room again.

Olivia was gone far longer than either of us had expected, and I was seriously wondering what I should do when suddenly she arrived back. She was safe and sound, elated and excited.

Yes, the job is hers. Yes, Borden read the references I had written, and he accepted them as genuine. No, there was no apparent suspicion of me, and no, he appeared not to suspect there was any link between us.

She told me about some of the apparatus she had seen in his workshop, but it was all disappointingly ordinary.

"Did he say anything at all about the switch illusion?" I queried her.

"Not a word. But he told me there were several tricks he did alone, and for which he did not need a stage assistant."

Later, saying she was tired, she went to her flat to sleep, and here I am once more, alone. I must try to understand; it is tiring going through an audition, no matter what the circumstances.

19th August 1898

It transpires that Olivia has started work with Borden immediately. When I went to the door of her flat this morning the maid told me Olivia had risen early, and would not be home until this afternoon.

20th August 1898

Olivia came in at 5.00 p.m. yesterday, and although she went straight to her flat she did admit me when I went to her door. She looked tired again. I was eager for news, but all she would say was that Borden had spent the day showing her the illusions in which she would be needed, and she had been rehearsing them intensively.

Later we had dinner together, but she was plainly exhausted and went again to sleep alone in her flat. This morning she departed at an early hour.

21st August 1898

A Sunday, and even Borden does not work. At home with me all day Olivia is being tight lipped about what she is seeing and doing in his workshop, and it puzzles me. I asked her if she felt constrained by professional ethics, that she perhaps felt she must not reveal to me the workings of his magic, but she denied it. For a few seconds I glimpsed Olivia in the mood of two weeks ago. She laughed and said that of course she realized where her loyalties lay.

I know I can trust her, however difficult it is proving, and so I have let the subject rest all day. As a consequence, we have together enjoyed an innocent, ordinary day today, while we went for a long walk in the warm sunshine on Hampstead Heath.

27th August 1898

The end of another week, and still Olivia has no information for me. She seems unwilling to talk to me about it.

Tonight she gave me a free pass to Borden's next series of performances. Billed as an "extravaganza", his show will occupy the Leicester Square Theatre for a two-week run. Olivia will be on stage with him at every performance.

3rd September 1898

Olivia has not returned home at all this evening. I am mystified, alarmed, and full of forebodings.

4th September 1898

I sent a boy to Borden's workshop with a message for her, but he returned to say the place was bolted up with no one apparently inside.

6th September 1898

Abandoning subterfuge I went in search of Olivia. First to Borden's workshop, which was empty as described, then to his house in St Johns Wood, and propitiously discovered a coffee shop from where I could observe the front of the building. I sat there as long as I was able, but without being rewarded with a single glimpse of any significant matter. I did however see Borden himself, leaving his house with a woman I took to be his wife. A carriage drew up outside the house at 2.00 p.m., and after a short pause Borden and the woman appeared, then climbed into the carriage. Shortly afterwards it drove off in the direction of the West End.

Having waited for a full ten minutes to be certain he was away from the house, I walked nervously across to the door and rang the bell. A male servant answered.

I said directly, "Is Miss Olivia Svenson here?"

The man looked surprised.

"I think you must be calling in error, sir," he said. "We have no one here of that name."

"I'm sorry," I said, remembering just in time that we had used her mother's maiden name. "I meant to ask for Miss Wenscombe. Would she be here?"

Again the man shook his head, politely and correctly.

"There is no Miss Wenscombe here, sir. Maybe you should enquire at the Post Office in the High Street."

"Yes, indeed I shall," I replied, and, no longer wanting to draw attention to myself, I beat a retreat.

I went back to my vigil in the coffee shop and waited there for another hour, by the end of which Borden and his wife returned to the house.

12th September 1898

With no further sign of Olivia returning home, I took the pass she had given me and went to the box office of the Leicester Square Theatre. Here I claimed a ticket for Borden's show. I deliberately selected a seat near the rear of the stalls, so that my presence might not be noticed from the stage.

After his customary opening with Chinese Linking Rings, Borden quickly and efficiently produced his assistant from a cabinet. It was of course my Olivia, resplendent in a sequinned gown that glittered and flashed in the electrically powered lights. She strode elegantly into the wings, whence she emerged a few moments later, now clad in a fetching costume of the leotard type. The blatant voluptuousness of her appearance quickened my pulse, even in spite of my intense and despairing feelings of loss.