Authors: Christopher Priest
At least the orphans will see a marvellous entertainment!
14th December 1893
Bookings have been made for January and February. Not major appearances, but our spirits
have nevertheless risen.
20th December 1893
More bookings for January, one of them, I do declare, left vacant by a certain Professeur
de la Magie! I am happy to take his guineas.
23rd December 1893
A Happy Christmas! I have been visited with an amusing idea, one I hasten to record before
I change my mind. (Once committed to pen and paper, my actions will be set!) Unwin has
sent me the contract for my appearance on 19th January at the Princess Royal Theatre in
Streatham. This happens to be the booking left free by Borden. I was glancing through the
contract (contracts have lately been so few and far between that I should likely have
signed anything!) when my gaze fell on one of the clauses toward the end. It contained a
common enough provision found when one act is booked in place of another; that my
performance should be to the same general standard of excellence as the act that was being
replaced.
My first reaction was a sardonic snort. The idea that I should live up to Borden's
standards was ironic indeed. Then I thought again. If I was to replace Borden, why should
I not produce a replica of the act they were no longer going to see? In short, why shall I
not at last perform Borden's illusion for him?
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.
I was forced even to offer him a raise in his performance fees, and this, of course, he
promptly accepted.
19th August 1895
This evening I returned early from my workshop because there was something (I forget what)
I had left at home. Calling in first on Olivia, I was surprised, to say the very least, to
discover Root with her in her parlour.
I should explain that after I bought my house at 45 Idmiston Villas I left it in its
former configuration of two self-contained flats. During our marriage Julia and I moved
freely between the two, but since Olivia has been with me we have lived apart under the
same roof. This is partly to preserve the proprieties, but it also reflects the more
casual nature of our association. While maintaining separate households, Olivia and I call
without ceremony on each other whenever it pleases us.
I heard laughter while I climbed the stair. When I opened the door to her flat, which
opens directly into her parlour, Olivia and Root were still merrily laughing away. The
sound quickly died when they saw me standing there. Olivia looked angry. Root attempted to
stand up, but swayed unsteadily and sat down again. I noticed, to my intense aggravation,
that a half-empty bottle of gin stood on the table to the side, and that another,
completely empty, was beside it. Both Olivia and Root were holding glasses containing the
liquor.
“What is the meaning of this?” I demanded of them.
“I was calling in to see you, Mr Angier,” replied Root.
“You knew I was rehearsing in my workshop this evening,” I riposted. “Why did you not seek
me there?”
“Honey, Gerry just called round for a drink,” said Olivia.
“Then it is time he left!”
I held the door open with my arm, indicating he should depart, and this he did, promptly
in spite of his inebriation, but staggeringly because of it. His gin-soaked breath curled
briefly around me as he passed.
A tense conversation ensued between Olivia and I, which I shall not report here in detail.
We left it at that, and I retired to pen this account. I have many feelings I have not
described here.
24th August 1895
I learnt today that Borden is taking his magical show on a tour of Europe and the Levant,
and that he will be out of England until the end of the year. Curiously, he will not be
performing his own version of the two-cabinets illusion.
Hesketh Unwin informed me of this when I saw him earlier today. I made the pleasantry that
I hoped that by the time he reached Paris Borden's spoken French would be better than when
I last heard him at it!
25th August 1895
It took me twenty-four hours to work it out, but Borden has just done me a favour! I
finally realized that with Borden out of the country I have no need to keep performing the
switch illusion, and so without delay or scruple I have given Root the sack!
By the time Borden returns from his tour abroad, either I shall have replaced Mr Root or I
shall no longer be performing the illusion at all.
14th November 1895
Olivia and I worked on the stage together for the last time tonight, at a performance at
the Phoenix Theatre in Charing Cross Road. Afterwards, we drove home together, holding
hands contentedly in the back of the cab. Since Mr Root departed, we have been perceptibly
more contented. (I have been seeing less and less of Miss Macpherson.)
Next week, when I open for a short season at the Royal County Theatre in Reading, my
assistant will be a young lady I have been training for the last two weeks. Her name is
Gertrude, she is blessed with a supple and beautiful body, she has both the prettiness and
the mental ability of a china ornament, and is the fiancée of my other new employee, a
carpenter and apparatus technician named Adam Wilson. I am paying them both well, and am
satisfied with their contributions so far to my act.
Adam, I must record, is an almost exact double for me in terms of physique, and although I
have not yet broached it to him I shall keep him in mind as Root's replacement.
12th February 1896
I have tonight learned the meaning of the phrase one's blood runs cold.
I was engaged in one of my customary tricks with playing cards in the first half of my
show. In this, I ask a member of the audience to select a card and then to write his name
upon it in full view of the audience. When this is done I take the card from him and tear
it up before his eyes, tossing aside the pieces. Moments later, I show a live canary in a
metal cage. When my volunteer takes the cage from me it unaccountably collapses in his
hand (the bird vanishes from sight), and leaves him holding what appears to be the remains
of the cage in which can be seen a single playing card. When he removes it, he discovers
that it is the very one on which his name is inscribed. The trick ends, and the volunteer
returns to his seat.