The Prestige

by Christopher Priest

  ‘I was born in 1856 on the eighth day of the month of May, in the seaside town of Hastings. I was a healthy, vigorous child. My father was a tradesman of that borough, a master wheelwright and cooper. Our house—’

  I briefly imagined the writer of this book settling down to begin his memoir. For no exact reason I visualised him as a tall, dark-haired man, stern-faced and bearded, slightly hunched, wearing narrow reading glasses, working in a pool of light thrown by a solitary lamp placed next to his elbow. I imagined the rest of the household in a deferential silence, leaving the master in peace while he wrote. The reality was no doubt different, but stereotypes of our forebears are difficult to throw off.

  I wondered what relation Alfred Borden was to me. If the line of descent was direct, in other words if he wasn’t a cousin or an uncle, then he would be my great- or great- great-grandfather. If he was born in 1856, he would have been in his middle forties when he wrote the book; it seemed likely he was therefore not my father’s father, but of an earlier generation.

  The Introduction was written in much the same style as the main text, with several long explanations about how the book came into being. The book appeared to be based on Borden’s private notebook, not intended for publication. Colderdale had considerably expanded and clarified the narrative, and added the descriptions of most of the tricks. There was no extra biographical information about Borden, but presumably I would find some if I read the whole book.

  I couldn’t see how the book was going to tell me anything about my brother. He remained my only interest in my natural family.

  At this point my mobile phone beeped. It was Sonja, the secretary of my editor, Len Wickham. I suspected at once that Len had got her to call me, to make sure I was on the train.

  ‘Andy, there’s been a change of plan about the car,’ she said. ‘Eric Lambert had to take it in for a repair to the brakes, so it’s in a garage.’

  She gave me the address. It was the availability of this car in Sheffield, a high-mileage Ford renowned for frequent breakdowns, that prevented me from driving up in my own car. Len wouldn’t authorise the expenses if a company car was on hand.

  ‘Did Uncle say anything else?’ I said.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘This story’s still on?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Has anything else come in from the agencies?’

  ‘We’ve had a faxed confirmation from the State Penitentiary in California. Franklin is still a prisoner.’

  ‘All right.’

  We hung up. While I was still holding the phone I keyed in my parents’ number, and spoke to my father. I told him I was on my way to Sheffield, would be driving from there into the Peak District and if it was OK with them (of course it would be) I could come and stay the night. My father sounded pleased. He and Jillian still lived in Wilmslow, Cheshire, and now I was working in London my trips to see them were infrequent.

  I told him I had received the book.

  ‘Have you any idea why it was sent to you?’ he said.

  ‘Not the faintest.’

  ‘Are you going to read it?’

  ‘It’s not my sort of thing. I’ve already looked through it. Maybe I’ll have another look later.’

  ‘Andy, I noticed it was written by someone called Borden.’

  ‘Yes. Did she say anything about that?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  After we had hung up I put the book in my case and stared through the train window at the passing countryside. The sky was grey, and rain was streaking the glass. I tried to think about the incident I was being sent to investigate. I worked for the Chronicle, specifically as a general features writer, a label which was grander than the reality. The true state of affairs was that Dad was himself a newspaperman, and had formerly worked for the Manchester Evening Post, a sister paper to the Chronicle. It was a matter of pride to him that I had obtained the job, even though I have always suspected him of pulling strings for me. I am not a fluent journalist, and have not done well in the training programme I have been taking. One of my serious long-term worries is that one day I am going to have to explain to my father why I have quit what he considers to be a prestigious job on the greatest British newspaper.

  In the meantime, I struggle unwillingly on. Covering the incident I was travelling to was partly the consequence of another story I had filed several months earlier, about a group of UFO enthusiasts. Since then Len Wickham, my supervising editor, had assigned me to any story that involved witches’ covens, levitation, spontaneous combustion, crop circles, and other fringe subjects. I had already discovered that in most cases, once you went into these things properly, there was not much to say about them, and remarkably few of the stories I filed were ever printed. Even so, Wickham continued to send me to cover them.

  There was an extra twist this time. With some relish, Wickham informed me that someone from the sect had phoned to ask if the Chronicle was planning to cover the story, and if so had asked for me in person. They had seen some of my earlier articles, thought I showed the right degree of honest scepticism, and could therefore be relied on for a forthright article. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, it seemed likely to prove yet another dud.

  A Californian religious sect called the Rapturous Church of Christ Jesus had established a community in a large country house in a Derbyshire village. One of the women members had died of natural causes a few days earlier. Her GP was present, as was her daughter. As she lay paralysed, on the point of death, a man had entered the room. He stood beside the bed and made soothing gestures with his hands. The woman died soon after, and the man immediately left the room without speaking to the other two. He was not seen afterwards. However, he had been recognised by the woman’s daughter, and by two members of the sect who had come into the room while he was there, as the founder of the sect. This was Father Patrick Franklin, and the sect had grown up around him because of his claimed ability to bilocate.

  The incident was newsworthy for two reasons. It was the first of Franklin’s bilocations to have been witnessed by non-members of the sect, one of whom happened to be a professional woman with a local reputation. And the other reason was that Franklin’s whereabouts on the day in question could be firmly established: he was known to be an inmate of the California State Penitentiary, and as Sonja had just confirmed to me on the phone he was still there.

  3

  The community was established on the outskirts of the Peak District village of Caldlow, once a centre of slate mining, now heavily dependent on day trippers. There was a National Trust shop in the centre of the village, a pony trekking club, several gift shops and an hotel. As I drove through, the chill rain was drizzling through the valley, obscuring the rocky heights on each side.

  I stopped in the village for a cup of tea, thinking I might talk to some of the locals about the Rapturous Church, but apart from me the café was empty, and the woman who worked behind the counter said she drove in daily from Chesterfield.

  While I was sitting there, wondering whether to take the opportunity to grab some lunch before going on, my brother unexpectedly made contact with me. The sensation was so distinct, so urgent, that I turned my head in surprise, thinking for a moment that someone in the room had addressed me. I closed my eyes, lowered my face, and listened for more.

  No words. Nothing explicit. Nothing I could answer or write down or even put into words for myself. But it amounted to anticipation, happiness, excitement, pleasure, encouragement.

  I tried to send back: what is this for? Why was I being welcomed? What are you encouraging me to do? Is it something about this religious community?

  I waited, knowing that these experiences never took the form of a dialogue, so that raising questions would not receive any kind of answer, but I was hoping another signal would come from him. I tried to reach out mentally to him, thinking perhaps his contact with me was a way of getting me to communicate with him, but in this sense I could feel nothing of him there. />
  My expression must have revealed something of my churned-up inner feelings, because the woman behind the counter was staring at me curiously. I swallowed the rest of my tea, returned the cup and saucer to the counter, smiled politely, then hurried out to the car. As I sat down and slammed the door, a second message came from my brother. It was the same as the first, a direct urging of me to arrive, to be there with him. It was still impossible to put it into words.

  4

  The entrance to the Rapturous Church was a steep driveway slanting off the main road, but barred by a pair of wrought iron gates and a gatehouse. There was a second gate to one side, also closed, marked Private. The two entrances formed an extra space, so I parked my car there and walked across to the gatehouse. Inside the wooden porch a modern bell push had been attached to the wall, and beneath this was a printed notice:

  RAPTUROUS CHURCH OF CHRIST JESUS WELCOMES YOU NO VISITORS WITHOUT APPOINTMENT FOR APPOINTMENTS RING CALDLOW 393960 TRADESMEN AND OTHERS PRESS BELL TWICE JESUS LOVES YOU

  I pressed the bell twice, without audible effect.

  Some leaflets were standing in a semi-enclosed holder, and beneath them was a padlocked metal box with a coin slot in the top, screwed firmly to the wall. I took one of the leaflets, slipped a fifty-pence piece into the box, then went back to the car and rested my backside against the nearside wing while I read it. The front page was a brief history of the sect, and carried a photograph of Father Franklin. The remaining three pages had a selection of Biblical quotes.

  When I next looked towards the gates I discovered they were opening silently from some remote command, so I climbed back into the car and took it up the sloping, gravelled drive. This curved as it went up the hill, with a lawn rising in a shallow convex on one side. Ornamental trees and shrubs had been planted at intervals, drooping in the veils of misty rain. On the lower side were thick clumps of dark-leafed rhododendron bushes. In the rear-view mirror I noticed the gates closing behind me as I drove out of sight of them. The main house soon came into view: it was a huge and unattractive building of four or five main storeys, with black slate roofs and solid-looking walls of sombre dark-brown brick and stone. The windows were tall and narrow, and blankly reflected the rain-laden sky. The place gave me a cold, grim feeling, yet even as I drove towards the part of the drive made over as a car park I felt my brother’s presence in me once again, urging me on.

  I saw a VISITORS THIS WAY sign, and followed it along a gravel path against the main wall of the house, dodging the drips from the thickly growing ivy. I pushed open a door and went into a narrow hallway, one that smelt of ancient wood and dust, reminding me of the Lower Corridor in the school I had been to. This building had the same institutional feeling, but unlike my school was steeped in silence.

  I saw a door marked Reception, and knocked. When there was no answer I put my head around the door, but the room was empty. There were two old-looking metal desks, on one of which was perched a computer.

  Hearing footsteps I returned to the hallway, and a few moments later a thin middle-aged woman appeared at the turn of the stairs. She was carrying several envelope wallet files. Her feet made a loud sound on the uncarpeted wooden steps, and she looked enquiringly at me when she saw me there.

  ‘I’m looking for Mrs Holloway,’ I said. ‘Are you she?’

  ‘Yes, I am. How may I help you?’

  There was no trace of the American accent I had half-expected.

  ‘My name is Andrew Westley, and I’m from the Chronicle.’ I showed her my press card, but she hardly glanced at it. ‘I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about Father Franklin.’

  ‘Father Franklin is in California at present.’

  ‘So I believe, but there was the incident last week—’

  ‘Which incident do you mean?’ said Mrs Holloway.

  ‘I understand Father Franklin was seen here. At this house.’

  She shook her head slowly. She was standing with her back to the door which led into her office. ‘I think you must be making a mistake, Mr Westley.’

  ‘Did you see Father Franklin when he was here?’ I said.

  ‘I did not. Nor was he here.’ She was starting to stonewall me, which was the last thing I had expected. ‘Have you been in touch with our Press Office?’

  ‘Are they here?’

  ‘We have an office in London. All press interviews are arranged through them.’

  ‘I was told to come here.’

  ‘By our Press Officer?’

  ‘No . . . I understood a request was sent to the Chronicle, after Father Franklin made an appearance. Are you denying that that happened?’

  ‘Do you mean the sending of the request? No one here has been in contact with your newspaper. If you mean am I denying the appearance of Father Franklin, the answer is yes.’

  We stared at each other. I was torn between irritation with her and frustration at myself. Whenever incidents like this did not go smoothly, I blamed my lack of experience and motivation. The other writers on the paper always seemed to know how to handle people like Mrs Holloway.

  ‘Can I see whoever is in charge here?’ I said.

  ‘I am the head of administration. Everyone else is involved with the teaching.’

  I was about to give up, but I said, ‘Does my name mean anything at all to you?’

  ‘Should it?’

  ‘Someone requested me by name.’

  ‘That would have come from the Press Office, not from here.’

  ‘Hold on,’ I said.

  I walked back to the car to collect the notes I had been given by Wickham the day before. I stood for a moment by the door of the car, in the light rain, staring at the puddled ground. Mrs Holloway was still standing by the bottom of the stairs when I returned, but she had put down her bundle of files somewhere.

  I stood beside her while I turned to the page Wickham had been sent. It was a fax message. It said, ‘To Mr L. Wickham, Features Editor, Chronicle. The necessary written details you requested are as follows: Rapturous Church of Christ Jesus, Caldlow, Derbyshire. Half a mile outside Caldlow village, to the north, on A623. Parking at main gate, or in the grounds. Mrs Holloway, administrator, will provide your reporter Mr Andrew Westley with information. K. Angier.’

  ‘This is nothing to do with us,’ Mrs Holloway said when she had read it. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Who is K. Angier?’ I said. ‘Mr? Mrs?’

  ‘She is the resident of the private wing on the east side of this building, and has no connection with the Church. Thank you.’

  She had placed her hand on my elbow and was propelling me politely towards the door. She indicated that the continuation of the gravel path would take me to a gate, where the entrance to the private wing would be found.

  I said, ‘I’m sorry if there’s been a misunderstanding. I don’t know how it happened.’

  ‘If you want any more information about the Church, I’d be grateful if you’d speak to the Press Office. That is its function, you know.’

  ‘Yes, all right.’ It was raining more heavily now, and I had brought no coat. I said, ‘May I ask you just one thing? Is everybody away at present?’

  ‘No, we have full attendance. There are more than two hundred people in training this week.’

  ‘It feels as if the whole place is empty.’

  ‘We are a group whose rapture is silent. I am the only person permitted to speak during the hours of daylight. Good day to you.’

  She retreated into the building.

  5

  I decided to refer back to the office, since it was clear the story I had been sent to cover was no longer live. Standing under the dripping ivy, watching the heavy drizzle drifting across the valley, I rang Len Wickham’s direct line, full of foreboding. He answered after a delay. I told him what had happened.

  ‘Have you seen the informant yet?’ he said. ‘Someone called Angier.’

  ‘I’m right outside their place now,’ I said, and explained what I und
erstood was the setup here. ‘I don’t think it’s a story. I’m thinking it might just be a dispute between neighbours. You know, complaining about something or other.’ But not about the noise, I thought as soon as I had spoken.

  There was a long silence.

  Then Len Wickham said, ‘See the neighbour, and if there’s anything in it, call me back. If not, get back to London for this evening.’

  ‘It’s Friday,’ I said. ‘I thought I’d visit my parents tonight.’

  Wickham replied by cutting the line.

  6

  I was greeted at the main door of the wing by a woman in late middle age, whom I addressed as ‘Mrs Angier’, but she merely took my name, looked intently at my press card, then showed me into a side room and asked me to wait. The stately scale of the room, simply but attractively furnished with Indian carpets, antique chairs and a polished table, made me feel scruffy in my travel-creased and rain-dampened suit. After about five minutes the woman returned.

  ‘Lady Katherine will see you now,’ she said.

  She led me upstairs to a large, pleasant living room that looked out across the valley floor towards a high rocky escarpment, at present only dimly visible.

  A young-looking woman was standing by the open fireplace, where logs blazed and smoked, and she held out her hand to greet me as I went across to her. I had been thrown off guard by the unexpected news that I was calling on Lady Somebody, but her manner was cordial. I was struck, and favourably so, by the way she looked. She was tall, dark-haired and had a broad face with a strong jaw. Her hair was arranged so that it softened the sharper lines of her face. Her eyes were wide. She had a nervous intentness about her face, as if she were worried about what I might say or think.

  She greeted me formally, but the moment the other woman had left the room her manner changed. She introduced herself as Kate, not Katherine, Angier, and told me to disregard the title as she rarely used it herself. She asked me to confirm if I was Andrew Westley. I said that I was.