by Luke Kennard
The Transition’s quadrant of towers were displaying ancient grey stonework – the turrets of a castle. Then the stones melted into smooth, uninterrupted chrome, then back again.
‘Look, there’s your painting,’ said Genevieve. Karl looked at the floor-to-ceiling pinball table. The mezzanine was bustling with young couples, just as it had been a month ago, but this time there were groups chatting and enjoying their free coffees and pastries. Few stood apart.
‘Oh, hey,’ a shaven-headed man said to Genevieve. He was wearing a shirt decorated with multicoloured dots which, on closer inspection, turned out to be skulls. His accent was somewhere between Irish and American. ‘Nick. I remember you guys from the first meeting.’
‘Hi Nick.’
‘Hey,’ said Karl.
‘I was the small-batch bespoke pot dealer.’
‘Oh yeah!’ said Genevieve, delighted. ‘My husband was a credit-card skimmer. How’s it going?’
‘How’s The Transition? I’m still trying to get my head around it. We’re living in this goddamn mansion with a couple of art-dealer queens. Even their waste-disposal unit is beautiful. They have a horse. A horse! We’ve been learning to ride.’ He rolled up his sleeve and showed them a long, zipper-like graze on his forearm. ‘And still my partner wants out. I keep telling him it’s only five more months.’
‘That’s actually kind of a relief to hear,’ said Genevieve.
‘I keep telling him to shut up and ride the fucking horse.’ He laughed. ‘Some people, you know? If it’s not their horse …’
‘We’ve been through a few ups and downs,’ said Genevieve.
The lights dimmed and the group took their seats. Stu appeared at the lectern. ‘We’ve given you a longer morning session to share your experiences so far,’ he said. ‘There’ll be time to do that over lunch as well – make sure you talk to as many people as possible. Try to find at least one couple who’ve had a harder time than you, okay?’
Laughter. The winners of the stock-trading contest were announced: Jinal and Ollie, who had made £644. They announced that they were donating it to a nursing home and received the promise of an extra floor on their first home. Genevieve didn’t react. Karl felt sick.
The day’s four lectures and breakaway circles had a focus on social enterprise, on using your skills for the public good. ‘Remember the mirror,’ said Stu. ‘Reach out to the world, it reaches back to you.’
Karl couldn’t concentrate on the talks, the street-gang infiltrations, the recording studios and food banks. Even the scheme closest to his own nature, a voluntary novel- and poetry-reading service for the infirm or bedbound, failed to spark his attention. He was so hungover that it only made him feel ashamed of the cold certainty that he would never actually get involved in it.
‘I’m just going to the bathroom,’ he said.
‘Oh, let me know what the Gents is like,’ said Genevieve. ‘The Ladies is like a luxury yacht.’
Karl walked down the corridor towards what looked like a glass balcony then he doubled back on himself, took a left and approached the lift. The door opened automatically on the seamless black interior. The woman with the earpiece and the pixie cut stood in the centre smiling like a newsreader.
‘Oh, hey,’ she said. ‘I think we’ve still got another couple of hours to go – did you need anything? We can send someone.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Karl. ‘I took a wrong turn.’
He walked back towards the balcony. Over the edge he could see all the way down to the ground floor, which was dominated by a pool of clear water filled with red and gold koi carp. Then the image faded out and the ground floor appeared to be a giant net over a starscape.
‘Karl?’
‘Karl Temperley?’
Karl looked up to see a young couple he recognised immediately as old acquaintances … University … A slight woman and a burly short-haired man. The names didn’t come to him right away so he grinned at them.
‘Look,’ said the man. ‘He doesn’t remember us.’
‘Pavel and Sumita,’ said Karl, triumphantly.
‘Yay! What on earth are you doing here?’ said Sumita.
‘I haven’t seen you in …’ Karl tried to count, ‘years.’
‘The last time we saw you,’ said Pavel, ‘you’d just jumped backwards into a hedge and broken two of your ribs.’
‘Oh yeah,’ said Karl.
‘I’m a GP now,’ said Sumita. ‘Pavel’s in data.’
‘Really? Same here,’ said Karl.
‘Is that right?’ said Pavel. ‘Who are you with?’
‘Freelance,’ said Karl.
‘Oh,’ said Pavel, frowning. ‘And what brought you here?’
‘To The Transition?’ said Sumita.
‘I messed up my taxes,’ said Karl. He paused. ‘You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to.’
‘Oh, I tell everyone,’ said Sumita. ‘As much as I’m able to, anyway. I was falsely accused of malpractice – I can’t tell you the details but it was effectively an insurance scam orchestrated by a hyper-litigious patient.’
‘Who’s lucky I haven’t been able to track him down,’ said Pavel.
‘Sweetie, don’t even joke, don’t even say things like that,’ said Sumita. ‘After a while you get tired of fighting, you realise it’s just making you sick, making you less of a person, fighting it. And it was pretty clear from the outset that the case wasn’t going to go my way. So a suspension and enrolment on The Transition …’
‘Where we end up with somewhere to live,’ said Pavel.
‘Seemed like the best course of action. Also The Transition has some really advanced private medical facilities, and our mentor said there could be a job there. So who are you staying with? Who are your mentors?’
‘Stu, actually,’ said Karl. ‘The guy who’s been running the talks.’
‘God, that’s amazing. Ours are book dealers,’ said Sumita. ‘Their house is like some kind of library in a horror film.’
‘She spends all her time looking for a secret door,’ said Pavel.
‘No, it’s great,’ said Sumita. ‘They’ve got all these messed-up occult and religious books, weird hoaxes and shit. I mean I guess that’s what people are interested in, right? You’ve heard the rumours about The Trapeze?’
‘I’ve … heard of the book,’ said Karl.
‘See?’ said Pavel. ‘They’re toying with us.’
‘He thinks they’re toying with us,’ said Sumita.
‘Everything is a test,’ said Pavel. ‘Every conversation you have is a test. You think it’s a coincidence people are spreading rumours about a forbidden book? It’s a test.’
Sumita went through her bag and brought out a small red leather-bound book. She handed it to Karl. THE TRAPEZE was embossed in gold on the front and spine. It looked as old and weathered as a prayer book.
‘This is supposed to be the novel The Transition is based on,’ said Sumita. ‘I don’t think I was supposed to find it; it was with a bunch of old concordances. There’s a story about the basic principles of The Transition all being in there. But we’ve both read it and I don’t think I understood a word.’
‘It’s just a novel,’ said Pavel. ‘I couldn’t see any relevance.’
‘You were always reading,’ said Sumita. ‘Why don’t you keep it and tell me what it means next month?’
‘I … Okay,’ said Karl. ‘Thanks.’
‘Where have you been?’ said Genevieve. The floor was sparsely populated and Genevieve was sitting alone with a cardboard cup of coffee, doing something on her tablet. ‘I feel like the last girl to be picked up after school.’
‘Sorry,’ said Karl. ‘Do you remember Pavel and Sumita?’
‘Who?’
‘They were in our halls.’
‘Can we just go?’ said Genevieve.
31
KARL ACCEPTED ANOTHER Alka-Seltzer from Janna and excused himself before dinner. He got to his room as quickly as possible, f
ell back onto his bed and then took out Sumita’s small hardback copy of The Trapeze. The first ten pages were blank, and Karl began to get cross, but then The Trapeze began without title or heading. ‘Bilyana Cvetkova could feel the cobbles through the worn soles of her …’ Karl dropped the book on his face and woke with a start. He took a deep breath and tried to pick up where he’d left off, but he was on page 47 and couldn’t remember anything from the past 46. He leafed back to page 1. ‘Bilyana Cvetkova could feel the …’ He felt as if he was breathing out a part of himself, as if a part of his soul could leave through his nose and gather in a corner of the room, looking down on his sleeping form, his wife next to him, turning over.
‘Hey,’ said Genevieve. ‘Hey, you’re snoring.’
Karl’s eyes felt as heavy and oversized as 8-balls.
‘What time is it? Where are we?’
‘Ha ha,’ said Genevieve. ‘It is the year 2448 and science fiction has been made illegal. The end.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘You’re in bed with your beloved wife, Karly. And you’re keeping her awake.’
Karl swallowed. He had an earthy taste in his mouth.
‘Where’s my book?’
‘What book?’
‘How long have I been asleep?’
Karl got out of bed and took an awkward step, nearly stubbing his toe on the metal girder again.
‘You were asleep when I got in,’ said Genevieve. ‘Which is good: you need to rest off the hangover.’
Karl walked around the room. He looked under the bed. Nothing.
‘I was reading something.’
‘Come back to bed. Look for it in the morning.’
Karl picked up his pillow and threw back the duvet.
‘Hey,’ said Genevieve, dragging the duvet back up again.
‘It’s gone,’ said Karl.
HE NEVER FELT more euphoric than in the dying embers of a hangover, the next day when the body realises that it’s not going to be like this for ever. Karl was troubled by the evident snatching of The Trapeze, but didn’t want Janna or Stu to think he suspected them, so he read the newspapers cover to cover to show goodwill. A small news-in-brief story in The Guardian caught his attention: A young couple, Edward and Jessica Anderton, had been apprehended outside Glasgow. They had been charged with dealing class A restricted substances and were in hiding. They represented a new class of white-collar drug dealers. It said the police had been searching for them for a week, ever since they broke the conditions of their bail and that their resistance would be taken into account in their sentencing. Karl checked the names against Keston’s text. He remembered Stu saying, ‘Silly sods.’ At the time he had assumed it referred to their running away from a good deal rather than into a worse punishment.
Everyone was being nice to him to make it clear that it was a new month, a new start. He had a lot of information to process and some leads to chase up, but in the meantime maybe he would try to get involved in the voluntary reading service after all. While Genevieve was outside helping Stu with the allotment, Karl prepared the roast with Janna.
‘Janna,’ he said, sweeping the potato peelings into the bin. ‘What’s in the basement?’
‘What?’
‘Am I allowed to ask you about it?’
‘Why not?’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a basement, Karl.’
‘What do you use it for?’
‘Storage, mostly. Why do you ask?’
‘Can I see it?’
‘No. Well. If you want to, I suppose. Remind me later and I’ll try to remember what I’ve done with the key.’
On Monday a letter arrived addressed to Mr Karl Temperley. It was handwritten. Karl couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen that much handwriting.
So, uh, hey. I couldn’t help but notice someone had used the account. Hope you don’t mind me following the paper trail. It’s a risk writing to you like this, but worth taking. If you want to meet up, I’ll be at The Trocadero, Tiverton Road, Tuesday at 8pm. The following is not a newspaper clipping because the article was spiked. The Transition has friends in all the right places. Should have appeared in the Weekender two years ago.
A paragraph had been copied out, longhand.
‘Sebastian Francis was one of the founder members of The Transition: “Back then, we took on four couples a year. We expanded, and so did our targets. Within five years we had become three-quarters self-funding, exceeding the government quota, employing over two hundred people spread over eight departments, many of them former protégés. Now it’s triple that including regional offices with plans to expand overseas within the next three years.” But Francis checked out when most would have been consolidating their position. “I left when I could see it was becoming a social eugenics programme, selecting and discarding its protégés, a six-month job interview when it was supposed to be a generational mission. An almost cult-like structure. A rescue programme which, in a word, requires its own rescue programme.”’
– text from a redacted profile of Sebastian Francis.
32
THE TROCADERO WAS a small industrial bar made of scaffolding inside a hollowed-out shop. It was busy for a Tuesday evening and Karl made his way around the room, craning his neck looking for someone who might be Sebastian Francis. The clientele was too young. On the first floor he was horrified to find Janna sitting at a corner table with two cups of coffee. He tried to pretend he hadn’t seen her and turned around. She stood.
‘Karl,’ Janna called. ‘Don’t be worried. Sit down. Talk to me.’
Karl sighed and did as he was told.
‘I’m supposed to be meeting—’
‘Sebastian Francis, I know,’ said Janna.
‘You read my letter?’
‘I recognised the hand. I’m sorry for the invasion of privacy.’
Karl shrugged.
‘Don’t be surly. Karl, if you knew … It isn’t the first time this has happened, okay?’
‘The first time what’s happened?’
‘The first time he’s tried to get back at us through our protégés.’
‘Is it true that he founded The Transition?’ said Karl.
‘Sebastian Francis is a predatory sex offender who was charged with eighteen counts of indecent assault and was only released from prison two years ago,’ said Janna. ‘I’m ashamed to say that yes, he was one of the founder members of The Transition, and it pains me to this day that we didn’t realise he was using it to pick off and seduce vulnerable young women until someone was brave enough to report him. That’s why he doesn’t work for The Transition any more. He’s also extremely paranoid and totally deluded about his responsibility for his own situation. Which is typical of sex offenders. That’s why the article was spiked. The journalist did a little research. Stu and I severed all contact, naturally. We were sad. He was a friend. We misjudged him.’
‘Right,’ said Karl.
‘I don’t know why you’d want to get involved with that kind of person, but if you do, here’s his number. Unfortunately I still have reason to contact him occasionally. You’re completely free to call him if you want to.’
‘The thing is,’ said Karl, ‘this is just your story.’
‘And do you have any compelling reason to suspect I might be lying?’ said Janna.
‘If Sebastian wrote me the letter asking me to meet him, why isn’t he here?’ said Karl.
‘Ooh,’ said Janna. ‘The master detective. Shall we get a drink while we’re here? They do a mean Old-Fashioned. They have the right cherries, you know?’
‘Did you write the letter yourself to see if I’d turn up?’ said Karl.
‘No,’ said Janna. ‘But either way, you did, so maybe I shouldn’t trust you.’
Karl folded the receipt with Sebastian Francis’s phone number into his pocket.
‘It’s just rather neat,’ said Karl. ‘It’s the easiest way of discrediting someone.’
‘It was
n’t big news,’ said Janna. ‘We kept it relatively quiet in the interests of protecting his victims and protecting The Transition, which it could have completely destroyed, you understand. There are records of the case, though. What are you worried about, anyway, Karl? You don’t think you’re good enough? You think Genevieve’s our favourite?’
‘I think you could have me killed if you wanted to,’ said Karl.
Janna laughed.
‘You’re being ridiculous. I think, I honestly think you should talk to one of our counsellors, Karl. It’s all included. It would normally be pretty expensive. Do you want me to set that up?’
‘I think you could harvest and sell my organs,’ said Karl. ‘If you wanted to. Or if there was someone better than me who needed a heart.’
Janna smiled and shook her head.
‘Tin Man over here,’ she said. ‘It’s funny though, isn’t it? You’ve seen the sites. Anyone could have anyone killed for a few thousand pounds. It’s a wonder it doesn’t happen more often. Shall we change the subject? The counselling service. It’s won awards. Based on a Swedish school of cognitive therapy.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’
‘I’m getting a little bored,’ said Janna. ‘We’ve been nothing but kind, patient and generous, maybe too generous.’
‘Maybe showing me your breasts—’
‘I misread. I crossed a line. Mea culpa,’ said Janna. ‘I thought maybe you were ready for that, but I was wrong. Listen, you’ve got the offer of high-quality counselling and the rest of The Transition to go through. I’ve given you the sex offender’s number. It’s time to choose sides.’
All his life he had been plagued by impulses to do something inappropriate or despicable for no reason: grab his dissertation supervisor by the ears and give him a big Bugs Bunny kiss, drop the precious vase … These thoughts arose from nowhere that he could account for and, at their worst, caused him to lose sleep. When he read Goethe’s statement about every man secretly believing himself to be an undiscovered genius or an undiscovered maniac, he wept with relief. He lived in fear that the thoughts might show in his eyes. Usually though, when he had reason to be offended, his mind was a clear disc of hurt, not a thought of any action, violent or otherwise. But something had changed.