Then I saw that the converter was taking its power from a thick insulated cable that ran from a large electrical junction box attached to the rear wall. I dashed over to it. There was an EMERGENCY ON/OFF handle built into it, and without another thought I grabbed hold of it and pulled it down.
The infernal activity of the converter instantly died. Only the acrid blue smoke continued to belch out of its grille, but this was thinning by the second.
Overhead there was a heavy thud, followed by silence.
A second or two passed, while I stared contritely up at the stage floor above me.
I heard footsteps dashing around and Angier’s voice shouting angrily. I could hear the audience too, a more indistinct noise, neither cheering nor applauding. The racket of hurrying feet and raised voices from up there was increasing. Whatever I had done had wreaked havoc on Angier’s illusion.
I had come to this theatre to solve a mystery, not to interrupt the show, but I had failed in the former and inadvertently succeeded in the latter. For the sake of this, what I had learned was that he used a more powerful voltage converter than mine, and that his was a fire risk.
I realised that I would be discovered if I remained where I was, so I stepped away from the rapidly cooling converter and returned the way I had come. My lungs were starting to ache from the smoke I had inhaled and my head was spinning. Overhead, on the stage and in the general backstage area, I could hear many people moving quickly and noisily around, a fact that might work in my favour. Somewhere in the building, not too far away, I heard someone screaming. I should be able to slip away in the confusion.
As I ran up the steps, taking them two at a time, and intending to stop for no one, I saw an amazing sight!
My mind was unhinged by the smoke, or by the excitement of what I had just done, or by the fear of being caught. I could not have been thinking clearly.
Angier himself was standing at the top of the steps, waiting for me, his arms raised in anger. But it seemed to me he had assumed the form of an apparition! I glimpsed lights beyond him, and by some trick they also seemed to glint through him. Immediately, several thoughts flashed through me – this must be a special garment he wears to help him do that trick!
A treated fabric! Something that becomes transparent! Makes him invisible! Is this his secret?
But in the selfsame instant my upward momentum propelled me into him, and we both sprawled on the floor. He tried to grab me, but whatever he had smeared on himself prevented him from getting a good grip on me. I was able to release myself and slither away from him.
‘Borden!’ His voice was hoarse with anger, no more than a terrible whisper. ‘Stop!’
‘It was an accident!’ I shouted. ‘Keep away from me!’
Having gained my feet I ran from him, leaving him lying there on the hard floor. I sprinted down a short corridor, the noise of my shoes echoing from the shinily painted bare bricks, rounded a corner, ran down a short flight of steps, went along another bare corridor, then came across the doorkeeper’s cubicle. He looked up in surprise as I dashed past, but he had no hope of challenging or stopping me.
Moments later I was outside the stage door, and hurrying along the dimly lit alley to the seafront.
Here I paused for a moment, facing out to sea, leaning forward and resting my hands on my knees. I coughed a few times, painfully, trying to clear the remains of the smoke from my lungs. It was a fine dry evening in early summer. The sun had just set, and the coloured lights were coming on along the promenade. The tide was high and the waves were breaking softly against the sea wall.
The audience was straggling out of the Pavilion Theatre, and dispersing into the town. Many of the people wore bemused expressions, presumably because of the sudden way the show had ended. I walked along the promenade with the crowd, then when I reached the main shopping street I turned inland and headed towards the railway station.
Much later, long after midnight, I was back in my London house. My children were asleep in their rooms, Sarah was warm beside me, and I lay there in the darkness wondering what the night had achieved.
37
Then, seven weeks later, Rupert Angier died.
To say I was consumed by feelings of guilt would be an understatement, especially as both of the newspapers which recorded his passing referred to the ‘injuries’ he had sustained while performing his illusion. They did not say that the accident had happened on the date I was in Lowestoft, but I knew that must be the one.
I had already established that Angier cancelled the rest of the week’s performances at the Pavilion, and as far as I knew he had not appeared anywhere else in public afterwards. I had no idea why.
Now it transpired that he had been fatally injured that night.
What was inexplicable to me was that I had run into Angier less than a minute after my accidental intervention. He did not seem fatally injured then, or even hurt to a minor extent. On the contrary he was in strenuous health and determined to confront me. We had scrapped briefly on the floor before I managed to get away from him. The only unusual thing about him was the greasy compound he had smeared on himself or his costume, presumably to perform the illusion, or to help in some way with making himself vanish. That was a genuine puzzle, because after I had recovered from the effects of the smoke inhalation, my memory of those few seconds was exact. It had quite definitely been the case that for a split second I had ‘seen through’ him, as if parts of him were transparent, or if all of him were partly so.
Another minor mystery was that none of the compound had rubbed off on me during our brawl. His hands had definitely gripped my wrists, and I had distinctly felt the slimy sensation, but no trace was left. I even recall sitting on the train returning to London, holding my arm up to the light to discover if I could ‘see through’ myself!
There was enough doubt, though, for feelings of contrition to dominate my reaction to the news. In fact, confronted with the awfulness of what had happened I felt I had to try to make some kind of amends.
Unfortunately, the newspaper obituaries had not been published until several days after Angier had died, when the funeral had already been held. This event would have been an ideal place for me to start the process of belated reconciliation with his family and associates. A wreath, a simple note of condolence, would have paved the way for me, but it was not to be.
After much thought I decided to approach his widow directly, and wrote her a sincere and sympathetic letter.
In it I explained who I was, and how I, when much younger, had to my eternal regret fallen out with her husband. I said that the news of his premature death had shocked and saddened me and that I knew the whole magical community would feel the loss. I paid tribute to his skills as a performer, and as an ingénieur of marvellous illusions.
I then moved on to what was for me the main thrust of the letter, but which I hoped would seem to the widow to be an afterthought. I said that when a magician died it was customary in the world of magic for his colleagues to offer to purchase whatever pieces of apparatus remained, for which the family might no longer have a use. I added that in view of my long and troubled relationship with Rupert during his lifetime I saw it as a duty and a pleasure to make such an offer now that he had died, and that I had considerable means at my disposal.
With the letter sent, and presciently supposing that I could not necessarily count on the widow’s cooperation, I made enquiries through my contacts in the business. This was an approach I also had to judge sensitively, because I had no idea how many other magicians were as interested in getting their hands on Angier’s equipment as I was. I assumed many of them would be. I could not have been the only professional magician to have seen the stunning performance. I therefore let it be known that if any of Angier’s pieces were to come on to the market I would be interested in buying them.
Two weeks after I wrote to Angier’s widow I received a reply, in the form of a letter from a firm of solicitors in Chancery Lane. It said, and I transcr
ibe it exactly:
My Dear Sir,
Estate of Rupert David Angier Esquire, Dec’d
Pursuant to your recent enquiry to our client, I am instructed to advise you that all necessary arrangements for the disposal of the late Rupert David Angier’s major chattels and appurtenances have been made, and that you need not embark on further enquiries as to their destination or enjoyment.
We anticipate instruction from our former client’s estate as to the disposal of various minor pieces of property, and these shall be made available through public auction, whose date and place shall be announced in the usual gazettes.
In this we remain, Sir, yr. obedient servants,
Kendal, Kendal & Owen
(Solicitors & Commissioners for Oaths)
38
I step forward to the footlights, and in the full glare of their light face you directly.
I say, ‘Look at my hands. There is nothing concealed within them.’
I hold them up, raising my palms for you to see, spreading my fingers so as to prove nothing is gripped secretly between them. I now perform my last trick, and produce a bunch of faded paper flowers from the hands you know to be empty.
39
It is 1st September 1903, and I say that to all intents and purposes my own career ended with Angier’s death.
Although I was reasonably wealthy, I was a married man with children and had an expensive and complicated way of life to sustain. I could not walk away from my responsibilities, and so I was obliged to accept bookings so long as they were offered to me. In this way I did not fully retire, but the ambition that had driven me in the early years, the wish to amaze or baffle, the sheer delight of dreaming up the impossible, all these left me. I still had the technical ability to perform magic, my hands remained dexterous, and with Angier gone I was once again the only performer of THE NEW TRANSPORTED MAN, but none of this was enough.
A great loneliness had descended on me, one the Pact yet prevents me from describing in full, except to say that I was the only friend I craved for myself. Yet I, of course, was the only friend I could not meet.
I touch on this as delicately as I can.
My life is full of secrets and contradictions I can never explain.
Whom did Sarah marry? Was it me, or was it me? I have two children, whom I adore. But are they mine to adore, really mine alone . . . or are they actually mine? How will I ever know, except by the cravings of instinct? Come to that, with which of me did Olive fall in love, and with whom did she move into the flat in Hornsey? It was not I who first made love to her, nor was it I who invited her to the flat, yet I took advantage of her presence, knowing that I too was doing the same.
Which of me was it who tried to expose Angier? Which of me first devised THE NEW TRANSPORTED MAN, and which of me was the first to be transported?
I seem, even to myself, to be rambling, but every word here is coherent and precise. It is the essential dilemma of my existence.
Yesterday I was playing at a theatre in Balham, in south-west London. I performed the matinée, then had two hours to wait before the evening show. As I often did at such times I went to my dressing room, pulled the curtains to and dimmed the lights, closed and locked the door, and went to sleep on the couch.
I awoke—
Did I wake at all? Was it a vision? A dream?
I awoke to find the spectral figure of Rupert Angier standing in my dressing room, and he was holding a long-bladed knife in both hands.
Before I could move or call out he leapt at me, landing on the side of the couch and crawling quickly on top of me so that he was astride my chest and stomach. He raised the knife, and held it with the point of the blade resting above my heart.
‘Prepare to die, Borden!’ he said in his harsh and horrid whisper.
In this hellish vision it seemed to me that he barely weighed anything at all, that I could easily flip him away from me, but fear was weakening me. I brought my hands up and gripped his forearms, to try to stop him thrusting the knife fatally into me, but to my amazement I found that he was still wearing the greasy compound that prevented my getting a strong hold on him. The harder I tried, the more quickly my fingers slipped around his disgusting flesh. I was breathing his foul stink, the rank smell of the grave, of the boneyard.
I gasped in horror, because I felt the pointed blade pressing painfully against my breast.
‘Now! Tell me, Borden! Which one of them are you? Which one?’
I could scarcely breathe, such was my fear, such was the terror that at any second the blade would thrust through my ribcage and puncture my heart.
‘Tell me and I spare you!’ The pressure of the knife increased.
‘I don’t know, Angier! I no longer know myself!’
And somehow that ended it, almost as soon as it had begun. His face was inches away from mine, and I saw him snarl with rage. His rancid breath flowed over me. The knife was starting to pierce my skin! Fear galvanised me into valour. I swung at him once, twice, fists across his face, battering him back from me. The deadly pressure on my heart softened. I sensed an advantage, and swung both my arms at his body, clenching my fists together. He yelled, swaying back from me. The knife lifted away. He was still on me, so I hit him again, then thrust up the side of my body to unseat him. To my immense relief he toppled away, releasing the knife as he fell to the floor. The deadly blade clattered against the wall and landed on the floor, as the spectral figure rolled across the floorboards.
He was quickly on his feet, looking chastened and wary, watching me in case I attacked again. I sat up on the couch, braced against another assault. He was the phantasm of ultimate terror: the spectre in death of my worst enemy in life.
I could see the lamp glinting through his semi-transparent body.
‘Leave me alone,’ I croaked. ‘You are dead! You have no business with me!’
‘Nor I with you, Borden. Killing you is no revenge. It should never have happened. Never!’
The ghost of Rupert Angier turned away from me, walked to the locked door, then passed bodily through it. Nothing of him remained, except a persistent trace of his hideous carrion stench.
The haunting had paralysed me with fear, and I was still sitting immobile on the couch when I heard beginners called. A few minutes later my dresser came to the door, and it was his insistent knocking that at last roused me from the couch.
I found Angier’s knife on the floor of the dressing room, and I have it with me now. It is real. It was carried by a ghost.
Nothing makes sense. It hurts to breathe, to move; I still feel that pressing point of the knife against my heart. I am in the Hornsey flat, and I do not know what to do or who I really am.
Every word I have written here is true, and each one describes the reality of my life. My hands are empty, and I fix you with an honest look. This is how I have lived, and yet it reveals nothing.
I will go alone to the end.
PART THREE
Kate Angier
1
I was only five at the time, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it really happened. I know that memory can play tricks, especially at night on a shocked and terrified child, and I know that people patch together memories from what they think happened, or what they wish had happened, or what other people later tell them had happened. All of these went on, and it has taken many years for me to piece together the reality.
It was cruel, violent, unexplained and almost certainly illegal. It wrecked the lives of most of the people involved. It has blighted my own life.
Now I can tell the story as I saw it take place, but tell it as an adult.
2
My father is Lord Colderdale, the sixteenth of that name. Our family name is Angier, and my father’s given names were Victor Edmund; my father is the son of Rupert Angier’s only son Edward. Rupert Angier, the magician known as ‘The Great Danton’, was therefore my great-grandfather, and the 14th Earl of Colderdale.
My mother’s name was Jenni
fer, though at home my father always called her Jenny. They met when my father was working for the Foreign Office, where he had been throughout the Second World War. He was not a career diplomat, but for health reasons he had not been able to enter the military, so he volunteered instead for a civil post. He had read German Literature at university, spent some time in Leipzig during the 1930s, and was seen as possessing a skill useful to the British Government in wartime. Translation of messages intercepted from the German High Command apparently came into it. He and my mother met in 1946 on a train journey from Berlin to London. She was a nurse who had been working with the Occupying Powers in the German capital, and was returning to England at the end of her tour of duty.
They married in 1947, at about the same time my father was released from his post at the Foreign Office. They came to live here in Caldlow, where my sister and I were born. I don’t know much about the years that passed before we came into the world, or why my parents left it so long before having a family. They travelled a great deal, but I believe the driving force behind it was an avoidance of boredom, rather than a positive wish to see different places. Their marriage was never entirely smooth. I know that my mother briefly walked out during the late 1950s, because one day many years later I overheard a conversation between her and her sister, my Auntie Caroline. My sister Rosalie was born in 1962, and I followed in 1965. My father was then nearly fifty, and my mother was in her late thirties.
Like most people, I can’t recall much about my first years of life. I remember that the house always seemed cold, and that no matter how many blankets my mother piled on top of my bed, or how hot was my hot-water bottle, I always felt chilled through to the bone. Probably I am remembering just one winter, or one month or one week in one winter, but even now it seems like always. The house is impossible to heat properly in winter. The wind curls through the valley from October to the middle of April. We have snow coverage for about three months of the year. We always burnt wood from the trees on the estate, and still do, but it isn’t an efficient fuel, like coal or electricity. We lived in the smallest wing of the house, and so as I grew up I really had little idea of the extent of the place.
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