Page 18 of The Cut
‘Only because they were leaving.’ Both of them were now in fits of giggles.
Later that night, after dinner was cleared and the house had settled down for the evening, Ben, having suddenly cultivated an intense interest in Nate’s trajectory to stardom, had encouraged71Dani to go up to his room and help him win the role. They were both pleased he’d found something he wanted to get involved in. It was better than him being stuck upstairs alone in that bedroom all the time. Dani also believed in her own talent as a manager, or ‘momager’. Yes, she could totally see herself picking up Instagram collabs and walking down red carpets.
Now she was standing at the side of Nathan’s camera, with the list of questions in her hand. ‘All right, love, you do your thing. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.’
‘Thanks.’ Nathan waited for the door to close. The footsteps on the stairs faded away and he was alone. Just him and the camera.
In life, this boy’s face wouldn’t be one you’d notice; he was just a regular, awkward kid. But on screen in high definition, this face was a landscape of hope and promise. Deep-set lids and intense dramatic brows, his irises were a kaleidoscope of soft brown hues, with flashes of gold. Long neck, pale skin, freckled and sensitive, wild wavy auburn hair. In close-up, the camera did something to Nathan Knot. He’d need to change that name, of course, but he was a star in the making.
Nathan exhaled and looked down to his hands before he began to speak.
It was as if the floodgates of his memory had been swung open. Now that he was alone, the story flowed out of him.
This was no ordinary audition. This was no stage school kid. Nathan Knot had something special and the most compelling thing of all was that he didn’t know it.
None of them knew.72
73
13
NOVEMBER 1993
‘Five may keep a secret if four of them are dead.’
Ben’s ghostly face, drained of blood, leans forward into the flickering candlelight. The gathered fellowship sits inside a ‘pentagram of power’, chalked on to the stone floor in charcoal.
‘Is that how it goes? I thought—’ Ben raises a finger to silence Annie. She bites her lip.
‘Sshh.’
On the upturned beer crate in the centre of the cavernous ruin is a broken saucer containing tea lights, and plastic cups into which Dave Patel carefully pours full measures of Diamond White. As he hands one to Annie, his fingers accidentally brush hers and he smiles with embarrassment before picking up his camera. She gags on the sweet, fizzy cider as Ben’s voice echoes off the damp stone walls of Blackstone Mill.
‘Listen! (Listen!) (Listen!)’
Ancient rusty hinges creak and the candles gutter as a gust of cold air rushes in through the crack between the two huge, rotting oak doors braced with iron struts. Dave’s video camera slowly finds each frightened face, brushed with slivers of candlelight in the blackness: Chris, Ben and then Annie. Dave tilts the lens down to capture frantic hands finding each other in the dark.
Ben’s voice trembles with excitement. ‘By the power vested in me, I decree that Blackstone Mill belongs to us.’
The camera scans the vast hall, searching for something that might be hiding back there in the gloom. Shadows on the wall,74cast from the candlelight, point towards a dank pool in the flagstone floor that seems to be sucking in the light, pulling everything into an abyss. Outside, the rusty barbed-wire fence and the ‘keep out’ sign that has been ripped off its nails shiver and creak as the shadow of two long bony fingers reaches around the door, penetrating the crack.
‘Who’s there?’ Ben blows out the candles and the circle closes. The shadow slowly stretches across the floor, like a hand clawing for its prey. A metallic rasp shatters the silence.
‘No.STOP.Pleasedon’t!’ Patel’s camera whips up to find Annie on her feet, back against the wall, hands over her eyes.
Ben stands and squeezes her hand, laughing. ‘It’s OK, it’s only Lynette with the gear, look.’
‘It’s me, you nutters. Give me a bloody hand, this thing weighs a ton.’ The top of a ladder pokes through the door, and is swiftly followed by Lynette Davis, overloaded with bags and equipment. ‘Tell you what, why don’t you lot just sit there on your fat arses and I’ll break my back over here?’ She slings a huge rucksack down on to the stone floor.
‘All right, Fatima Whitbread, chill out.’ Her brother, not lifting a finger, ducks into a corner, unzipping his fly and taking a leak.
‘Outside, you filthy animal!’ Ben boots Chris in the backside, and Chris turns and sprays over Dave.
‘Oi, watch it, that’s bloody disgusting!’ Patel dives out of the way as a drunk Chris stumbles past Lynette.
Annie leans into Ben, whispering through the darkness, ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’
‘Trust me, this is going to be the icing on the cake. We’re finally going up there.’ Ben picks up Lynette’s rucksack and opens it. ‘Or, at least, one of us is.’75
