The Prestige (41 page)

My brother's voice was speaking ceaselessly to me: I am here, don't leave, stay with me,
all your life, not far from you, come.

I was trying to sleep, turning to and fro in the large, cold and much too soft bed,
cursing myself for not having left the house before the snowstorm set in, when even now I
would have been in my own bed in my parents’ house. But every time I thought of this the
voice insisted: stay here, don't go, come at last to me.

I had to get out of bed. I pulled my suit jacket across my shoulders and went for a pee in
the bathroom across the galleried landing. The house was dark, silent and cold. My breath
fumed white as I stood shivering over the bowl. After I had flushed the toilet I had to
cross the landing again, naked but for the jacket, and when I looked down the large
stairwell I noticed a gleam of light from the floor below. One door had a crack of light
showing beneath it.

I returned to the miserable bedroom, but could not bring myself to get back into the
chilly bed. I remembered the easy chair beside the log fire in the dining-room, so I put
on my clothes quickly, grabbed my stuff and went downstairs. I looked at my watch. It was
after 2.00 a.m.

My brother said: all right, now.

Kate was still in the dining room, sitting awake in her chair next to the fire. She was
listening to a portable radio balanced on the fire surround beside her. She seemed
unsurprised to see me.

“I was cold,” I said. “I couldn't get to sleep. Anyway, I've got to go and find him.”

“It's much colder out there.” She indicated the blackness beyond the windows. “You'll need
all this.”

On the chair opposite her she had placed several items of warm clothing, including a
chunky wool sweater, a thick overcoat, scarf, gloves, a pair of rubber boots. And two
large torches.

My brother spoke again. I could not ignore him.

I said to Kate, “You knew I was going to do this.”

“Yes. I've been thinking.”

“Do you know what's happening to me?”

“I believe so. You'll have to go and find him.”

“Will you come with me?”

She shook her head vehemently. “No way on earth.”

“So you know where he is?”

“I think I've known all my life, but it's always been easier to put it out of my mind. The
difficult thing about meeting you has been realizing that what traumatized me as a child
is still down there.”

#############

It had stopped snowing, but the wind was an insistent rush of freezing air, penetrating
everything. The snow had piled deep around the edges of the large garden, but in the
centre it was shallow enough to allow me to walk through, stumbling on the uneven ground.
I slipped several times, without falling.

Kate had switched on the intruder alarm, which flooded the area with brilliant light. It
helped me see my way, but when I looked back I could see nothing but the glare.

My brother said: I'm cold, waiting.

I kept going. On the far side of what I supposed must be a lawn, where the ground rose up
suddenly and dark trees blocked the view ahead, the light from the torch picked out the
brick-built archway where Kate had said it would be. Snow was piled up against the base of
it.

The door was not locked, and it moved easily when I pulled at the handle. The door opened
outwards, against the drifted snow, but it was made of solid oak and once I got a good
hold on it I was able to push the snow far enough out of the way for me to squeeze through.

Kate had given me two large torches, saying I would need as much light as possible. (“Come
back to the house for more, if you need them,” she had said. “Why won't you come with me
and hold one of the torches?” I had asked her. But she shook her head emphatically.) When
I had the door open, I peered inside, letting the beam of the bigger of the two torches
play ahead of me. There was nothing much to see: a rocky roof slanting down, some
rough-hewn steps, and at the bottom a second door.

The word Yes formed, inside my head.

The second door had no lock or hasp, and opened smoothly at my touch. The beams of my
torches swung around; one in my hand searched all about, the other tucked under my arm
followed my direction of sight.

Then my foot collided with something hard that jutted up from the floor and I stumbled.
The torch under my arm broke as I banged against the rocky wall. Crouching on the ground,
resting on a knee, I used one torch to examine the other.

There's a light, said my brother.

I swung the single torch beam around again, and this time, close to the inner door, I
noticed an insulated electricity cable, neatly tacked to the wooden frame. At shoulder
height was an ordinary light switch. I flicked it on. At first nothing happened.

Then, further down in the cavern, deep inside the hill, I heard the sound of an engine. As
the generator picked up speed, lights came on for the full length of the cavern. They were
only low-power light bulbs, roughly attached to the rocky ceiling, and protected by wire
visors, but there was now enough light to see without the torch.

The cavern appeared to be a natural fissure in the rock, with extra tunnelling and
hollowing carried out latterly. There were several natural shelves created by jutting rock
strata, but these had been supplemented with cavities hollowed out in the tunnel walls.
There had also been an attempt to smooth the floor, as it was laid with numerous small
chips and chunks of rock. Close to the inner doorway a spring trickled water down the
wall, leaving a huge yellow calciferous deposit in its course. Where the water reached the
floor, a crude but effective drain had been put together with modern pipes, which
conducted the water into a rubble-filled soakaway hole.

The air was surprisingly sweet, and noticeably warmer than outside.

I went several paces down the cavern, balancing myself with my hands against the rocky
walls on each side. The floor was uneven and broken, and the light bulbs were weak and
widely spaced, so in places it was difficult to find a safe foothold. After a distance of
about fifty yards, the floor dropped steeply and turned to the right, while to the left of
the main tunnel I noticed a large cavity which to judge by the roundness of the entrance
had been hollowed out artificially. The ceiling was about seven feet high, giving plenty
of headroom. The opening was not electrically lit, so I shone my remaining torch inside.

I immediately wished I had not. It was full of ancient coffins. Most were stacked
horizontally in heaps, although about a dozen were leaning upright against the walls. They
were all sizes, but the greater number of these, depressingly, were small ones obviously
designed for children. All the coffins were in varying degrees of decay. The horizontal
ones were the most decrepit: the wood dark, curled and fractured with age. In many cases
the lids had fallen in on the contents, and several of the ones placed on the tops of the
piles had sides which had fallen away.

At the base of most of the heaps were piles of brown, broken fragments, presumably of
bone. The lids of the vertically stacked coffins were all loose, and standing propped
against the box.

I stepped back quickly into the main tunnel and glanced up towards the door by which I had
entered. There had been a slight curve, and my way out was now invisible to me. Somewhere
deep inside the cavern, the generator continued to run.

I was trembling. I could not help but think; that distant engine, this torch I held, only
these lay between me a sudden plunge into darkness.

I could not go back. My brother was here.

Determined to resolve this quickly, I followed the path down and to the right, curving
away more steeply from the exit. Another flight of steps followed, and here the lights had
been placed closer together because these steps were uneven in height and angled to the
side. Supporting myself with my hand on the wall I went down them. The tunnel immediately
opened out into a wider cavern.

It was full of modern metal racks, brown-painted, held together with chromium-plated nuts
and bolts. Each rack had three broad shelves, one on top of the other, like bunks. A
narrow gangway ran next to each rack, and a central aisle ran the whole length of the
hall. A light was positioned above every gangway between the shelves, illuminating what
they held.

Human bodies lay uncovered on every shelf of the racks. Each one was male, and fully
clothed. They all wore evening dress: a close fitting jacket with tails, a white shirt
with black bow tie, a modestly patterned waistcoat, narrow trousers with a satin strip
along the hems, white socks and patent-leather shoes. The hands wore white cotton gloves.

Each body was identical to all the others. The man had a pale face, an aquiline nose and a
thin moustache. His lips were pale. He had a narrow brow and receding hair which was
brilliantined back. Some of the faces were staring up at the rack above them, or at the
rocky ceiling. Others had their necks turned, so they faced to one side or the other.

All the corpses had their eyes open.

Most of them were smiling, showing their teeth. The left upper molar in each mouth had a
chip missing from the corner.

The corpses all lay in different positions. Some were straight, others were twisted or
bent over. None of the bodies was arranged as if lying down; most of them had one foot
placed in front of the other, so that in being laid on the rack this leg was now raised
above the other.

Every corpse had one foot in the air.

The arms too were in varying positions. Some were raised above the head, some were
stretched forward like those of a sleepwalker, others lay straight beside the body.

There was no sign of decay in any of the corpses. It was as if each one had been frozen in
life, made inert without being made dead.

There was no dust on them, no smell from them.

#############

A piece of white card had been attached to the front edge of each shelf. It was
handwritten, and mounted in a plastic holder that was clipped ingeniously to the underside
of the shelf. The first one I looked at said this:

Dominion Theatre, Kidderminster

14/4/01

3.15p.m. [M]

2359/23

25g

On the shelf above it, the card was almost identical:

Dominion Theatre, Kidderminster

14/4/01

8.30p.m. [E]

2360/23

25g

Above that, the third corpse was labelled:

Dominion Theatre, Kidderminster

15/4/01

3.15 p.m. [M]

2361/23

25g

On the next rack there were three more corpses, all labelled and dated similarly. They
were laid out in date order. By the following week, there was a change of theatre: the
Fortune, in Northampton. Six performances there. Then there was a break of about two
weeks, followed by a series of single appearances, about three days apart, in a number of
provincial theatres. Twelve corpses were thus labelled, in sequence. A season at the
Palace Pier Theatre, Brighton, occupied half of May (six racks, eighteen corpses).

I moved on, squeezing down the narrow central aisle to the far end of the cavern. Here, on
the top shelf of the final rack, I came across the body of a little boy.

#############

He had died in a frenzy of struggling. His head was tilted back, and turned to the right.
His mouth was open, with the corners of his lips turned down. His eyes were wide open, and
looking up. His hair was flying. All his limbs were tensed, as if he had been fighting to
be free. He was wearing a maroon sweatshirt with characters from
The Magic Roundabout
, a small pair of blue jeans with the bottoms turned up, and blue canvas shoes.

His label was also handwritten, and it said:

Caldlow House

17/12/70

7.45 p.m.

0000/23

0g

On the top was the boy's name: Nicholas Julius Borden.

I took the label and shoved it into my pocket, then reached forward and pulled him towards
me. I scooped him up and held him in my arms. At the moment I touched him, the constant
background presence of my brother faded away and died.

I was aware of his
absence
for the first time ever.

Looking down at him in my arms, I tried to shape him into a more comfortable position for
carrying. His limbs, neck and torso were stiffly pliant, as if made of strong rubber. I
could change their position, but the moment I released them they swung back into the shape
in which I had found him.

When I tried to smooth his hair, that too moved intransigently back to its former position.

I held him tightly against me. He was neither cold nor warm. One of his outstretched
hands, clenched in fear, was touching the side of my face. The relief of finding him at
last overwhelmed everything — everything except the fear of this place. I wanted to turn
around so that I could head back towards the exit, but to do so involved moving backwards
out of the gangway. I held my past life in my arms, but I no longer knew what might be
standing behind me.

Something was, though.