The Transition

by Luke Kennard

  ‘And what if it’s being used, the system, for … for … a kind of social cleansing?’ Karl sloshed some gin and tonic out of his glass. ‘What if it’s actually a system to find the right kind of people and throw the rest of us on the shitpile? I’m not the right kind of people, I know that! I pride myself on not being the right kind of people, but what if they decide Genevieve isn’t either?’

  ‘You’re becoming demonstrative. Stop getting excited. Let’s be goal-oriented about this,’ said Keston. ‘Have you heard of Clovis? Jim Clovis?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘American. Extraordinary. Came up with this thing – you break the task down. You make a list.’

  ‘You check it twice.’

  ‘Your goal is you want to rescue Genevieve.’

  ‘Not rescue her. She’s not a storybook princess, Keston.’

  ‘A man needs a narrative, K-Jung. That’s something you feminists never seem to understand.’

  ‘Then I’ll be the Mother. Or the Flood.’

  ‘Great – perfect! Clovis’s principle is simple: no heroes. Nobody ever achieved anything by trying to be heroic, not really.’

  ‘This sounds like it’s in my wheelhouse.’

  ‘It’s a bit self-helpy. Bear with me. You have to – this may sound odd – it’s a visualisation technique as much as anything. You have to see yourself as the villain. Or not even a villain. A problem. Any sort of problem. It’s so easy to mess things up. That’s your mantra. What can I do to mess things up?’

  ‘What can I do to mess things up?’ said Karl.

  ‘It couldn’t be simpler,’ said Keston. ‘Do you master the subtle art of the endgame or stand up and sweep the pieces off the board? Do you enter into complex negotiations or do you blow up the whole building? It’s the main advantage terrorism will always have over the rest of us. So however bleak the situation, there are going to be some easy, stupid, destructive things you can do to get a little closer to your goal.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ said Karl.

  ‘See yourself as a virus,’ said Keston.

  Karl had spent too much money on the cinema. The walk home took him an hour and a half; but it was a purposeful hour and a half and by the time he reached the service entrance to Janna and Stu’s house his feet felt flat and virtuously achy. At the top of his concrete stairwell five stems of a weed, dead and blackened by persistent drizzle, pointed to the sky. Four heads had been lopped off, but one still had an attempted budding, halted at the seeding phase, the white fluff of its parachutes visible but arrested. This, Karl thought, might make a good first paragraph for his Why I Hate The Transition thesis.

  36

  SHE CALLED THEM conjugal visits and laughed. For one hour every other day. Can you believe this shit? Karl wanted to know.

  ‘Meh,’ said Genevieve. ‘Maybe some couples go for days together without ever really spending an hour in each other’s company.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe this will help you appreciate what a catch I am.’

  ‘I’m keenly aware of that,’ said Karl.

  The scarcity of her presence intensified Karl’s longing for Genevieve. The days felt so blank that even before the week was out it was all he could do not to spend 6:30 to 7 p.m. sitting at the bottom of the spiral staircase which led up to the ground-floor cupboard, whining like a Labrador. Until the trapdoor opened and Genevieve descended. His brief sessions with her felt like a tiny window onto a foreign esplanade, a static live-feed of a single field in a disputed territory where the passing figures were – huddled citizens? spies? militia? What did she do on the days he didn’t see her? What was her job? Was she getting ill? Of course she was getting ill. How ill? At the end of the second week she came to see him wearing a smart grey dress and black heels with pointed toes. Her hair was up as if she were attending a wedding.

  ‘Wow,’ said Karl. ‘I think I have a thing about business-women.’

  ‘You have a thing about everything.’ Genevieve sat on the school chair. ‘What do you want to talk about?’ she said. She crossed her legs and raised her eyebrows, professionally.

  ‘Well, listen,’ said Karl. ‘I want to talk to you the way we used to talk. We used to talk about things that had happened to us and listen to each other.’

  ‘Oh, I used to love that,’ said Genevieve, wistfully. ‘We’d sit up all night talking.’

  In fact, when Karl had responded to Genevieve’s plaintive email (in which she told him nobody would ever take care of her again, and that he probably didn’t even remember her, her, the woman whose expired railcard he’d been using as a bookmark since he’d finished university), she’d turned up at the tiny bedsit he was renting the very next day. It was the Easter holiday so she wasn’t teaching, and Karl was in too much of a state of bliss to pay any mind to his professional engagements. It didn’t seem possible that someone he had silently pined after, daydreamed about, longed for and written off ever seeing again could just show up like that; it was like visiting a ruin and finding it new and never fallen. When she fell asleep next to him in the single bed he pressed himself against the cold wallpaper, not daring to move in case he touched her. After two nights like this Genevieve groaned, muttered that he was an idiot, grabbed his arm and rolled into him. They lost all sense of day or night. Every five or so hours one of them would leave the room for the shared kitchenette to make coffee or fry eggs with diced red and yellow peppers, which was the only food in the cupboard. He remembered the urgency of their conversation, as if he’d walked into his room to find a complete stranger sitting on his bed and she had two minutes to explain what she was doing there, except that two minutes had sprawled outwards into a lecture series, a song cycle. She was the same person he’d met at university: here was someone who burned clean, who asked you how you were and genuinely wanted to know the answer. She stood out like a foreign-exchange student from another era.

  ‘But isn’t that just what people do?’ said Genevieve. ‘When they’re getting to know each other?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘I mean that’s the point of it, isn’t it? To get to know one another.’

  ‘Except …’

  ‘It’s like you don’t just carry on screwing each other like you did at the beginning.’

  ‘No,’ said Karl, ‘apparently not. I mean I’d be pretty amenable to that, but …’

  ‘It’s the same thing.’

  ‘Except I don’t really feel like I know you,’ said Karl, his voice unexpectedly thick. ‘And now it feels like all I do is snap at you and criticise you.’

  ‘Yes, exactly, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!’ said Genevieve.

  ‘Don’t gloat.’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘I thought it might help … I thought maybe we should make a conscious effort to start talking to each other again. Seeing as the time is limited anyway.’

  ‘It’ll be like going to the gym,’ said Genevieve.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘I don’t know if you can fake that. It’s like: you can’t make someone laugh.’

  ‘Yes you can.’

  ‘It’s like …’

  ‘You can absolutely make someone laugh.’

  ‘You’re not …’

  ‘I think you’re fundamentally misunderstanding the whole function of laughter.’

  ‘It’s usually you who hates organised fun. You don’t even like public footpaths. Can’t we just be natural about it?’

  ‘I’ve tried natural. My natural state is complacency and boredom.’

  ‘I don’t see why these hours need to be consciously used for anything.’

  ‘What is it you’re frightened of?’ said Karl. ‘That I’ll get to know you and realise that I don’t like you?’

  Genevieve leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

  ‘It’s eight,’ she said. ‘You’re smitten with me and you always will be.’

  Two days later Genevieve was wearing a fitted tartan trouser suit which looked
strange but not unattractive. He didn’t ask where she was getting all the clothes and shoes. He assumed Janna was taking her shopping. Like a divorced dad trying to curry favour.

  ‘It was crying, you know,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That sound in the attic every night. You thought it was pipes or something.’

  ‘How do you know it was crying?’

  ‘I knocked on the door,’ said Genevieve. ‘Our neighbour. His name is Dragan. Poor old guy.’

  ‘Why is he crying?’

  ‘Long story,’ said Genevieve. ‘I’ve told him I can visit every now and then. Help him get the garden sorted out. And he said he’d stop sleeping in the attic. He didn’t know it was disturbing me. In fact that was exactly why he’d chosen the attic to cry in every night – because he thought it wouldn’t disturb anyone. I gave him a hug and told him not to be ridiculous.’

  ‘You knocked on the door,’ said Karl.

  ‘That’s exactly the tone of voice which would have stopped me knocking on the door,’ said Genevieve.

  ‘So now you have two sad men to visit,’ said Karl.

  ‘Do you want to start the Talking To Each Other project today?’ she said, putting a hand on his knee.

  ‘All right,’ said Karl. ‘I think you should tell me something you’ve never told me before. Something you’ve never told anyone before.’

  Genevieve sat in silence for a little and then said she would tell him a story about when she was seventeen and living with her aunt. A temporary set-up for eighteen months after her grandmother died and before she went to university. Genevieve had the guest room, which was peach-coloured and had a box of tissues in an ornate metal case as if it were a Byzantine icon. Shelly had divorced her husband earlier that same year and they were both heavily medicated, according to Genevieve, and would drift around one another in a sort of chemical haze.

  ‘We’d take turns burning the toast every morning. We’d raid the wine cellar and watch the news, taking in precisely nothing. At night, though, I would just go. Shelly always left her car keys in a silver bowl by the front door and I’d wait until she was asleep. I’d get to the motorway at about 3 a.m. so it was quiet, and I’d be in the fast lane—’

  ‘The second overtaking lane.’

  ‘– and it was an Audi, Shelly’s car, Steve, her ex-husband’s car, and those things can move, you know? It still smelled of cigarettes and Steve’s aftershave – a heavy, medicinal smell. And as soon as I was past junction four I’d put my foot down and I’d just drive as fast as I possibly could, 80, 90, 100 … Tears streaming down my face—’

  ‘Stop it, you’re turning me on.’

  ‘120, 130, just bawling, openly. And I’d stare at the horizon and it felt like I might be a pilot, that the car might just take off, fly off the planet with me in it. I’d scream. And then, junction eight, I’d slam on the brakes, shoot up the exit, swing round the roundabout and drive back to Aunt Shelly’s in the slow lane—’

  ‘It’s not called the slow lane.’

  ‘– and I’d park the car right where she kept it, in front of the garage – Steve’s table-tennis table was still in the garage. I remember he used to say, I’m no socialist, but I draw the line at keeping a car indoors. He had a conscience, you know, for a banker. I’d park it right there and drop the keys back in the little metal fruit bowl and she was never any the wiser. Or if she was, she never confronted me.’

  ‘Distracted by the whole divorce thing.’

  ‘You know, I never even considered that she might have known …’

  ‘Didn’t have the inner resources to deal with an out-of-control Genevieve on top of everything else.’

  ‘I wonder.’

  ‘So she just let it go.’

  ‘So anyway, one night,’ said Genevieve, ‘maybe the eleventh time I’d been on one of my little drives, I’m just breaking a hundred where the Novotel meets the abandoned warehouses, about half three. And the road is just abandoned as usual – I passed two lorries about five minutes ago, apart from that not a soul – and by this point I’m used to that; it’s like my own abandoned playground. But then I see, in my rear-view mirror – I’m nearly sick with fright – I see red and blue spinning lights and I go all dizzy so that I think I might faint and just barrel straight off the motorway. My first reaction is to slow down as quickly as possible, as if I can get away with it – is that how fast I was going, officer? And of course he nearly goes right into the back of me. Then he undertakes and I can see him frantically waving me over. I pull in to the hard shoulder. He parks behind me and slams his door so hard I jump in my seat. I sit forward, like, braced, until he raps on the window. I’m trying to anticipate what he’s going to say, starting with Young lady … And I’m not insured on Shelly’s ex-husband’s car, so that’s kind of worrying me too. And also I’m a little drunk.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  Genevieve looked at the floor.

  ‘I snuck a few drinks from Steve’s single-malt collection. Not enough to get drunk. But I’m almost certainly five or six times over the limit, you know?’

  Karl said nothing.

  ‘And this is the funny thing: I remember hearing something about how sucking a penny neutralises the alcohol on your breath, so a breathalyser can’t detect it. I don’t know who told me, but it’s all I can think of in the seconds that pass as the policeman approaches, after slamming his door like he wants to slap me, and I reach into the little dashboard compartment and I pull out a handful of loose change – 5ps, 10ps, coppers – and I just shove them all in my mouth. I can still feel it. Taste it. I’m terrified. But then he’s standing over the car and he doesn’t knock at all, just waits for me to open the window, and I look up into his face lit only by the half-moon and some residual light from our headlamps – and his red and blue lights still spinning – and he’s smiling down at me, kindly, not even raising an eyebrow, and he has a well-trimmed beard and oh my God, Karl, it’s my father.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean obviously it’s not my father,’ said Genevieve, ‘but my God, separated at birth, okay? And I’m sitting there like this –’ she did chipmunk cheeks – ‘with my mouth full of coins. And what do you think he says?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Karl.

  ‘He says, “You need to stop doing this.” That’s all. Calmly, pleasantly. And I start crying, and there’s money falling out of my mouth. He puts his hand on my shoulder. Then that’s it. He walks away. Slams his car door again. He leaves me sitting there on the hard shoulder. And as the car passes I see that it’s a sort of boxy old Ford, with POLICE written on the side in big blue letters, but none of the – the fluorescent markings it should have. And the next day I do some research and it turns out the last time the police used a car of that model was over thirty years ago.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘So what the hell, right? Some kind of guardian angel.’

  ‘Or something,’ said Karl.

  ‘And I never drove at 130 miles an hour at three in the morning ever again. Okay, your turn.’

  ‘I don’t know. I sometimes wear your underwear.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because, I mean, feel free. I can bring you some.’

  37

  KARL WAS WOKEN up by a heavy knock on the glass. He staggered around looking for the key. When he opened the French windows he recognised the Transition driver.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Karl. Sorry to wake you.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Ugh.’

  ‘They’ve got you your placement. Six weeks. Starts this morning.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Karl. ‘That’s good. Where is it?’

  ‘An orchard. Few miles out of town. Idyllic.’

  Karl had time to splash cold water on his face and put on some jeans before meeting the driver in the road.

  ‘I never asked your name,’ he said, when they
had been travelling in silence for five minutes.

  ‘Izzy,’ said the driver.

  ‘Izzy. Have you seen much of Genevieve?’

  ‘I take her to The Transition every day,’ said Izzy.

  ‘How does she seem to you?’

  ‘Fine. Little bit stressed. But it’s a big chance, the leadership programme.’

  Leadership? Karl cleared his throat.

  ‘She talks to you?’

  ‘You know,’ said Izzy, ‘I think I’ve probably told her more than I’ve told my therapist.’

  ‘She talks a lot?’

  ‘She’s great, isn’t she?’ said Izzy. ‘Treats everyone like a long-lost friend. She’s like a female Jesus.’

  Karl wasn’t sure whether that was really the point of Jesus, nor whether it was an accurate analogy for his wife, but he felt almost chastised and didn’t speak again until they reached their destination.

  Roderick’s Orchard covered twelve acres of scruffy dry land. The self-drive dropped Karl off at the muddy driveway. A tall man with a slight limp walked towards him.

  ‘So you’re the intern,’ he said. ‘Ha!’

  ‘Ha,’ agreed Karl.

  ‘My name is Mr Roderick. If you don’t mind, you can call me Mr Roderick – it’s what I answer to. I was a teacher and I barely remember my first name.’

  Mr Roderick was a thin man, either a well-preserved late sixties or a worn-out early fifties, Karl couldn’t decide. But he had a dense, black, decidedly unironic beard that made Karl feel itchy just looking at it. He wore a straw hat whose jollity only served to make his expression more sour by comparison. He showed Karl two of the fields, picked him an apple and took him to a newly built barn which smelled strongly of second-hand books. Next to the barn, a concrete bunker containing a cider distillery, where Karl would be working. Next to that, a bar in a good-looking prefab wooden hut, designated The Apple Core on a smartly illustrated sign. A chalkboard listed three varieties of cider. The dark floorboards were scattered with straw and a wedge-shaped stage in the far corner held a pair of mic stands, a single speaker and a dusty bass guitar.