If it is a failure, I shall materialize inside my prestige's poor, cancer-ridden body, dead for two days, stiff with
But I believe there is a chance of another outcome, one that acknowledges my desperation to live. This materialization might not succeed in killing me!
I am certain, almost certain, that my arrival in the body of my prestige will return life to it. It will be a reunion, a final joining. What remains of me will fuse with what remains of him, and we will become whole once more. I have the spirit that he never had. I will reanimate his body with my spirit. I have the will to live that was taken from him; I will restore it to him. I have the vital spark that now he lacks. I will heal his lesions and sores and tumours with my purity of health, will pump blood once more through his arteries and veins, will soften the rigid muscles and joints, give bloom to his pale skin, and he and I will join once again to make wholeness of my own body.
Is it madness to think such a thing might be possible?
If madness it be, then I am content to be mad because I shall live.
I am mad enough, while I yet plan, to believe there is hope. That hope allows me to press ahead.
The mad reanimated body of my prestige will rise from its open casket, and be quickly gone from this house. Everything that has become forbidden to me will be left behind. I have loved this life, and have loved others while in it, but because my only remaining hope of life is an act that every sane person would find reprehensible, I must become an outcast, leave behind all those I have loved, go out into the world, make what I can of what I find.
Now I shall do it!
I will go alone to the end.
PART FIVE
The Prestiges
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.'
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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,
