The Transition

by Luke Kennard

Genevieve laughed.

  ‘“Is this true?”’ she said. ‘Yes, baby. I want to try it. I’ve not been happy with teaching for years, you know that.’

  ‘I didn’t … know that,’ said Karl.

  ‘We should let you two talk,’ said Janna. ‘Come on, Stu.’

  ‘It’s a brave decision,’ Stu called back over his shoulder as Janna ushered him through the door.

  ‘Genevieve, what the hell are you doing?’

  ‘I did what you said,’ said Genevieve. ‘I thought about it and I thought: Yes.’

  ‘Since when have you been unhappy with your job?’

  ‘Do you have any idea how miserable I feel every Sunday? Or like the whole last week of a holiday? I can’t enjoy a single day, a single hour, because I’m dreading it starting again.’

  ‘That’s why they pay you.’

  ‘I handed in my notice and it was like a pain I didn’t even realise I had, just –’ she spread her fingers – ‘Paf. I don’t even need to work out my notice; The Transition pays them off and brings in a temp. It’s like changing a phone contract.’

  ‘You love working with children.’

  ‘Have I ever said I love working with children?’

  Karl looked at his shoes. The twilight of the living room meant that the glow-in-the-dark stripe had started to intensify. He got up and turned on the standard lamp.

  ‘I thought you said you did,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I don’t dislike children,’ said Genevieve. ‘Karl, this is a shock for you, isn’t it? You’re more shocked by it than I thought you’d be. I’m sorry for announcing it like that.’

  ‘It’s not that.’

  ‘It isn’t such a big deal. It’s a new job. Doesn’t change anything.’

  ‘Are you really sure this is sensible?’ said Karl. ‘I mean, really? You seem kind of wired.’

  ‘Don’t start on me. I’m excited, that’s all. I’m happy.’ She scowled at the floor.

  ‘I didn’t mean to assume … Look, this is fine,’ said Karl. ‘I’m shocked, but I’m kind of impressed too. You took something in your life you weren’t happy with and you changed it. Very few people …’

  She leapt to her feet and put her arms around him.

  ‘I love you.’ She rested her head on his shoulder. ‘You don’t think I’m crazy?’

  He held her tight.

  ‘Karl?’ Her voice was muffled.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you making a frightened face over my shoulder like they do on TV?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m smiling beatifically.’

  27

  ‘ALL RIGHT, KARL?’ said Stu. ‘Can’t sleep?’ His Mohican was still up, but wilting slightly in the steam of the kettle.

  ‘It doesn’t take much,’ said Karl.

  ‘I’m making some valerian tea,’ said Stu. ‘Want some?’

  ‘Nothing works,’ said Karl. ‘When I was a student we studied feminist literary theory and I didn’t sleep for a week because I was worried I might be a misogynist.’ He picked himself up and shuffled onto the breakfast bar, the black granite cold through his pyjamas.

  ‘Are you a misogynist?’ said Stu.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Karl. ‘But for a whole week I just lay there at night thinking what if I am and I don’t even know it?’

  ‘Well, if you’re that worried about it …’ said Stu.

  ‘I’m not any more,’ said Karl. ‘But I don’t think worrying about it proves anything.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ said Stu. ‘Worrying doesn’t solve anything.’

  ‘That’s not … I’m concerned about Genevieve,’ said Karl. ‘Sometimes she makes big, drastic decisions when she’s feeling a certain way, then regrets them when it passes.’

  ‘She’s a woman,’ said Stu.

  ‘That’s not it,’ said Karl.

  ‘There’s a danger, isn’t there,’ said Stu, ‘that once someone has a certain label you just ascribe all of their faults and qualities to that one label?’

  ‘Well,’ said Karl, ‘hypothetically, I suppose, yes.’

  ‘He reacted that way because he’s depressed, she did that because she’s diabetic.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Karl. ‘That’s not what I’m doing.’

  ‘Sometimes I think men are rather afraid of women,’ said Stu. ‘Maybe it’s not that you’re a misogynist, maybe you just fear the passion, the spontaneity, the strength, if you like, of women.’

  ‘I don’t really worry that I’m a misogynist any more,’ said Karl.

  ‘What I think,’ said Stu, ‘and by all means tell me to piss off, but what I think is you need to let go a little. You’re so watchful. It’s like you try to edit what she says. Maybe this is a mistake, but you need to let Genevieve find that out for herself.’

  SITTING UP UNCOMFORTABLY against the headboard, Karl took a sip of his tea, but it tasted like a wicker chair. He watched Genevieve sleep. Then he turned on the television. Classic Cinema had a film noir season. He thought about their wedding anniversary last year. Genevieve was tired from work and they decided to make it low-key. They cooked and then went to a pop-up cinema in an old warehouse which was screening Double Indemnity, which Karl raved about and told her was the best film noir ever, the characters are life-insurance salesmen for goodness’ sake – it’s amazing. But something felt flat that evening – Karl overcooked the pasta, the wine didn’t taste right, Genevieve was restless throughout the film, wriggling in her uncomfortable chair, and Karl felt bad for recommending it. And then came the final scene where Barton Keyes finds Walter Neff on the office floor and they have a heart-to-heart. Neff asks his boss why he never married and Barton reminisces about a woman he was engaged to years ago. He loved her. She loved him. He was so happy. But then he started investigating her – he couldn’t help himself. Neff acts like this is an occupational hazard, something they’ve all been tempted to do. What did he find? It was bad, Barton says to Neff. He’s discovered that his fiancée dyes her hair, and that she has a manic depressive in the family. On her mother’s side.

  Oh my God, on her mother’s side, thought Karl, feeling the room go swimmy, a manic depressive on her mother’s side, not even in her immediate family. What to do? Stand up, take her hand and walk out in protest, climbing through the rest of the audience? Would that make things worse, or would it be a romantic gesture? Was it better to pretend he hadn’t noticed? Too long had passed by then anyway.

  Genevieve didn’t say anything, and neither did he. You didn’t call it manic depression any more, of course. You were supposed to believe that mental health was destigmatised, but it seemed to Karl that privately most people sided with Barton: a fear, dread and shame which no amount of social-media campaigning could ameliorate. So frightened of the shadow of a rumour of a condition that Genevieve directly suffered from. When the film was over they watched the credits in silence. What he wanted to say was that the point of the speech was really that Barton had ruined, or drastically reduced, his life by his … The point was that the joke was on Barton, that he’d become obsessed with the techniques and suspicions of his profession, techniques which were never supposed to be used in your personal life, that … But Karl wasn’t even convincing himself – he felt heavy and sad. He’d had no recollection of the scene at all, so clearly it didn’t matter to him when he first saw Double Indemnity, but now it felt as if he’d directly insulted Genevieve. God knows what she was thinking right then, sitting with her legs crossed on the tin seat, nursing the last mouthful of wine in her plastic cup. Maybe it didn’t even bother her.

  Of course it bothered her. Because it was a reminder. Because it didn’t matter that you weren’t supposed to think that any more. Because a little gesture of tolerance felt insignificant when compared to centuries of asylums and straitjackets and write-offs, a vast heap of discarded human beings.

  At 3:36 Karl still couldn’t sleep so he collated a few more Henry James quote
s. The trouble was, illustrating elliptical technique seemed to involve quite a lot of explaining what was going on around the ellipsis, which was time-consuming and dull. He felt hungry. Fridge light was his second-favourite light after sunsets. Their old flat had never quite felt like home because the shared kitchen had a fridge with a broken light. Karl even researched the make online – a now liquidated company – and ordered a new bulb from a Korean electrical overstock for £22, but when he changed it, it still didn’t work and he swore so loudly the neighbours’ dog started barking.

  Janna and Stu’s fridge was lit with artful sensitivity; a museum curiosity cabinet, an independent bookshop. He liked it particularly, as now, when the rest of the kitchen was dark. He put three pieces of cold tortellini and two cherry tomatoes on top of a big slice of ham, rolled it into a tube and was about to take a bite.

  ‘It’s late,’ said Janna.

  Karl banged his head on the egg rack. He put his snack on the third shelf and withdrew from the fridge, brushing imaginary crumbs from his top.

  ‘Don’t let me stop you.’ She was wearing one of Stu’s shirts.

  ‘No, I, uh,’ said Karl. ‘You surprised me.’

  ‘Sorry. I like familiar rooms in the dark. Do you remember being a child and how you could feel so afraid in your own house?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Karl.

  ‘Sometimes I think that’s the only thing you can still access, of childhood – that fear. The rest is gone.’

  ‘Are you still working?’ said Karl.

  ‘Always. Tea?’

  ‘No. I just wanted some water.’

  He turned the tap and let it run cold.

  ‘I know you’re worried. I know you probably think it’s a bad idea,’ said Janna.

  ‘I want you to tell me you’ll look after her,’ said Karl.

  ‘Oh, Karl,’ said Janna. ‘Of course I will.’

  Karl took a sip of water.

  Janna gave him a hug, but then tugged his hair in mock exasperation. He was surprised and spilled some of his glass of water on their bare feet.

  ‘Don’t stand in her way,’ she whispered into his ear, then held him at arm’s length. She was smiling, broadly. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Karl.

  ‘And for God’s sake go to bed – it’s nearly four.’

  28

  KARL WAS LOOKING for the Mentor’s Edition, but it seemed that Janna or Stu had moved it. It wasn’t by the hob or in the little lacquer cupboard in the dining room, and it wasn’t in Janna or Stu’s bedroom or in the medicine cabinet. When he stepped into the living room he noticed that the light between the black floorboards was on again. He got down on his knees and tried to look through, but only dazzled his right eye. He stood up and stamped his foot. The light between the floorboards flickered and went off. Then it pulsed three times. Then, before he could stamp again, the light between the floorboards intensified, peaked, and slowly faded out, like a very short avant-garde play.

  ‘Hello there?’ said Karl.

  He went to the back door and opened it in time to see a man in a hi-vis jacket ascending a small concrete staircase, which Karl had never noticed before, to the side of the garden wall.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, morning,’ said the man. ‘Mr Carson?’

  ‘I’m his tenant,’ said Karl.

  ‘Oh, okay. Well, tell him it’s all sorted.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Fixed-wire testing,’ said the man, flashing a grubby laminated card. ‘And the new sockets. Quite a job, actually. But it’s all centrally connected now, so he can control it from the hub.’

  ‘I’ll let him know.’

  ‘Cheers, then.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Karl. ‘Can I ask you what’s down there?’

  ‘Beg your pardon?’

  ‘Is it some kind of … chapel or something?’ said Karl.

  The electrician regarded Karl with such amusement that he imagined him relating the unremarkable story to a friend later.

  ‘A chapel?’ he said.

  ‘Just out of interest,’ said Karl.

  ‘Not sure, mate. You’d have to ask your landlord.’

  In the en suite he ran the tap until it went hot and then turned it the other way to splash cold water in his eyes. He opened the medicine cabinet. It contained razor heads, ibuprofen, three tubes of ointment curled up like metal leaves. There was no sign of Genevieve’s pills, which came in gold and silver blister packs which looked like buttons on a movie spaceship’s console. He found the look of them comforting. He looked in her bedside cabinet, under some photos of her lying in a field with her girlfriends, which he looked at and sighed, a compact copy of Vogue and some hair slides. He looked in her shoulder bag, which was decorated with a pixelated flower design, as if photographed too closely. In the side compartment he found a squashed cardboard box containing four sheets of metallic blister packs, all completely intact.

  THE NEXT MORNING Karl sat up on the bed with his tablet propped on his knees, worrying about Genevieve. He hadn’t managed to talk to her about finding her pills; it was one of the better-marked minefields in their marriage. He should have been writing his journal, but instead he was playing a short film which had arrived as an attachment from Keston.

  – More former protégé stuff.

  There was a photograph of Sebastian Francis outside an antiquarian bookshop and a video clip which resolved into a three-piece band playing in a cramped basement venue. Over the chatty audience they were playing a slow, rhythmic instrumental on three notes, the bass guitar so loud it rattled and buzzed. He recognised the bassist as Alice Jonke, who had told him there was no band.

  – Shit, isn’t it?

  Keston added.

  He could hear a tap running hard in the bathroom. He had already shouted Genevieve? Is that you? and felt relieved by her cheerful Yes.

  ‘Post,’ called Janna, slapping The Guardian, The Telegraph and an envelope addressed to Karl on their floor. The envelope was square, blue, the address handwritten in an elegant cursive. A large first-class stamp depicted a steam train.

  ‘It’s not your birthday, is it?’

  Karl took it back to the bed to tear it open. Inside, the birthday card depicted a stripy number 1 and a friendly elephant balancing on a ball. Karl opened it up and found a black credit card, thin but un-bendable, plain but for a white H in the centre. When he looked closer, he saw at the top right of the H a tiny white T in a circle, like a mysterious chemical symbol. The same hand had written in the card ‘52 Pritchatts Road – New Tour Dates Added Tonight Only! 8pm! Side door. Alice x’

  ‘Karl?’

  Something ominous in how Genevieve said his name, like she’d been building up to it. Her hair was wet and she was wearing blue eyeshadow.

  ‘Hi, babe.’

  She sat on the corner of the bed and started rubbing the palm of her left hand with the thumb of her right.

  ‘I want to talk to you about something.’

  Karl’s breathing shortened.

  ‘What’s up?’

  She opened her bedside cabinet and took out a book, which she handed to him. Slim, matte finish, like a volume of poetry. It had a green glowing outline of a brain on the cover surrounded by a circular chart divided into degrees and a second circle with notches in it. The title Calibration: A New Perspective on Mental Difference was embossed over the top.

  Karl breathed air through his nose.

  ‘I know you don’t like talking about this, Karl,’ said Genevieve. ‘It’s a holistic approach – dietary, lifestyle, circadian. It’s about negative oscillations of thought.’

  ‘It sounds like The Transition,’ said Karl.

  ‘It’s even about what you read and what you watch. It’s about what you let in. To your body and your mind. It’s about identifying and eliminating stressors. And it’s about accepting a certain level of up and down. But being in a safe enough space to allow that. That’s why it’s called Calibration. It’s about
recalibrating.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘And it involves coming off all medication. No interference.’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Karl. ‘Why are you listening to them? Why trust them? We don’t know them.’

  ‘You immediately assume it’s them.’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Why do you go straight to thinking someone must have put the idea in my head? It was my idea, Karl! Silly, ditzy Genevieve, manipulated into rash decisions because she doesn’t know any better. I talked to them. I told them I want to explore an alternative to medication and they told me about Calibration. You’re scowling.’

  ‘It’s called non-verbal communication.’

  ‘You think I’m the only person who doesn’t get a say in what’s best for me. And no one’s ever made you take anything stronger than a paracetamol, Karl. Can you imagine what it feels like? Having to take a pill that messes with your thoughts, with your senses? With your whole sense of self?’

  ‘I can imagine. I do imagine.’

  ‘Oh, you sound so bored. The trouble, Karl, is that you believe anyone over me. The CPN who’s never met either of us before, the GP who’s being paid by a drug company to trial a new antipsychotic. Someone who’d sell your soul for a free fountain pen. Why?’

  ‘I just thought this was something we’d been through before. You need the medication. We need the medication. Things go badly wrong without it.’

  ‘You don’t love me.’ Genevieve was close to tears.

  ‘See, you already sound emotional.’

  ‘Of course I’m fucking emotional! I’m sick of being drugged. I’m sick of feeling like my head’s wrapped in a duvet. Of not really being interested in anything. I desperately want to try something new and if it doesn’t work, well, fine, I’ll go back on. Look, I didn’t want to … I’m really sorry about this … The thing is, I’m fine so far, Karl. I haven’t been taking anything for over a week now and I’m fine.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, trying to sound surprised. ‘That’s good, I guess.’

  ‘I wanted to tell you.’

  ‘No, I … Hey.’