The Transition

by Luke Kennard

‘So what are we waiting for?’

  ‘I don’t know how,’ said Mr Roderick.

  Karl’s disappointment felt like a stubbed toe.

  ‘The only reason I have the journals at all is because I coded that part of the security system. But the tabs don’t like receiving that amount of data in one go – it’s taken me two years just to work out how to share it with your tablet as a one-off, but sending so much data to every single Transition tablet is going to be impossible without somehow sidelining their data security from within. But we could perhaps just choose a few choice cuts, a few horror stories if you’ve picked out any highlights so far?’

  ‘It has to be all of them,’ said Karl. ‘It can’t just be a few disgruntled B-streamers. They’d say it was a regrettable exception they were looking into, that most people are totally happy or something.’

  ‘Here’s the thing,’ said Mr Roderick. ‘The files which have been bouncing back to me the last few years all come from the same location – it wasn’t hard to find the geographical coordinates attached to it, so a couple of years ago I drove over there to stake the place out, imagining I’d find a complex with massive fences, warehouses. But what do I find instead? Some sheep. A dry-stone wall. A static caravan with two women living in it.’

  ‘But that’s—’

  ‘One of them plays the violin. I watched them come and go for a few hours over a week.’

  ‘But I know them!’ said Karl. ‘That’s Lorna and Samphire.’

  ‘Friends of yours?’

  ‘I met them at a party at Janna and Stu’s,’ said Karl. ‘They’re connected; they’re—’

  Mr Roderick held up a hand to stop him. With his other hand shaking he took out his phone and dialled. ‘Alice?’ he said. ‘I’m with Karl.’

  He put the phone on the bar.

  ‘Am I on speaker?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I hate being on speaker. Hi, Karl.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘He knows the women in the caravan,’ said Mr Roderick. ‘I’m an idiot. I thought the archive must be under the ground. I’ve been looking for some kind of secret entrance. But they’re connected to The Transition. They must be … security or something.’

  ‘Why do they need a physical place to store the data at all?’ said Karl. ‘Isn’t it all on the cloud?’

  ‘Karl,’ said Alice’s voice, ‘you work online. You do realise the cloud isn’t an actual cloud, right? It’s all server farms and underground caves in China full of hard drives.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Karl. ‘Right.’

  ‘Some of them are really pretty – you should look it up. I mean, did you think …’ Alice started laughing.

  ‘It’s actually a fair question,’ said Mr Roderick. ‘A few years ago they’d have used a giant email account to store their data like anyone else. But record-keeping is very important if The Transition is going to keep its funding. The material is sensitive and confidential; it makes sense for them to bring data storage in-house.’

  ‘Plenty of talent on the scheme to help out,’ said Alice. ‘Plenty of black hats and crackers and, oh, I hate the names so much. Plus we lost some data in this stupid grievance case with Sebastian Francis, who enlisted a group of teenage weirdos and managed to delete almost everything to do with himself and almost everyone else.’

  ‘So now The Transition has its own underground cave,’ said Mr Roderick.

  ‘And nobody knows where it is. Okay, Karl, listen,’ said Alice. ‘You on good terms with the women in the caravan? Could you make up a reason to visit?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Karl. ‘I mean, yes, sure.’

  ‘And you’re certain they’re involved in The Transition? God. It’s not like you can just go in there and take their computer,’ said Alice. ‘We need to think of a way to get some kind of leverage, get them onside.’

  ‘Um …’

  ‘Take it slowly,’ said Alice. ‘Sleep on it.’

  Izzy took him back to the basement.

  The next evening, a Friday, Genevieve was supposed to visit. He tried to kill the hour as efficiently as possible. He opened a book on Medicine and Hermeneutics in Donne and read half a paragraph. He turned on the dribbly shower and tried to wash the sticky apple smell off his body, hoping he might emerge with towel around his waist to find Genevieve sitting on his bed, smiling, miraculously restored to her full self. It was twenty-two minutes past seven, his scalp chilled from the water he hadn’t dried off, when he gave up waiting, stamped up the spiral staircase and pounded the underside of the trapdoor with his fists. He did so repeatedly, as if working a ceiling-mounted punchbag, until his knuckles began to throb.

  ‘Janna?’ he yelled. ‘Stu?’

  The trapdoor swung upwards. Janna stuck her head in. She had a black cigarette between her lips, unlit.

  ‘Karl? What’s all the noise? God, you’re practically naked! What’s the matter?’

  ‘What do you think the fucking matter is, Janna?’

  ‘Something wrong with the placement?’

  ‘Where is she? She’s supposed to be here.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Janna. ‘Look, Karl, she’s really busy. I don’t think she can cope with seeing you right now. She said you’d been arguing. Emotional work is work too, Karl. I suggested she should prioritise, see you in a couple of days.’ She smiled sadly at him, tilted her head to one side. ‘I’m sorry. I probably ought to have come down and told you. We’ve got guests. I got distracted.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I don’t want you to worry about Genevieve.’

  ‘That’s thoughtful.’

  ‘She’s excited. She’s doing very well. She’s impressed the board. A couple of the management team are totally in her corner, and she’s the main point of contact for the delegation from Toronto.’

  ‘She mentioned something about that.’

  ‘Well, it’s going ahead. And it’s a big deal, so of course she’s anxious and … maybe you’re not used to seeing her like that.’

  ‘Anxious?’

  ‘It’s a high-pressured job. Honestly, whenever I had to present I was just sick, just throwing up for two days beforehand. Couldn’t eat. It affects people in different ways.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And it’s not that she doesn’t want to see you – she’s just got a lot of prep to do, you know? She’s very chatty. She’s just Genevieve, Karl. Lovely, effusive, slightly bats but, you know. She’s Genevieve.’

  ‘Janna,’ said Karl. ‘She’s clearly heading towards a breakdown – you must be able to see that.’

  ‘She’s a bit stressed. Honestly, she calms down after a glass of wine and a foot rub.’

  ‘The pacing, the fast-talking, the … There are cues you wouldn’t pick up on.’

  ‘Maybe that’s significant, Karl. Maybe if there are cues only you pick up on, you’re the only one with the problem. When it comes down to it, all I see is an ambitious young woman stressed out about one of the most important tests of her life,’ said Janna.

  ‘Do you believe there’s anything wrong with her at all?’

  ‘I believe you’re obsessed with there being something wrong with her,’ said Janna. ‘If I’m worried about her I’ll let you know – deal?’

  ‘I’m worried about her,’ said Karl. ‘I know.’

  ‘Take a couple of paracetamol. Honestly. It’ll take the edge off.’

  ‘If I could just see her.’

  ‘That’s not possible right now.’

  ‘I think you’re going to regret this,’ said Karl.

  ‘I should probably leave you to get dressed,’ said Janna. She leaned closer. He could feel her breath on his bare shoulder.

  ‘You’ll be out of here soon. You don’t need to be afraid. We’re looking after her.’

  Karl stared at Janna. There was nothing he could yell or scream that wouldn’t make the situation worse, but for the first time in his life he felt physically incapable of saying something essentially placatory. He snatched the black ciga
rette from her hand, tore it in two and dropped it onto the tiles.

  Janna paused for a moment, apparently uncertain what to do next, then she laughed, gave him a friendly punch on the arm and disappeared back through the trapdoor.

  Emotional work is work too. Karl kicked a wonky Formica cupboard. Fuck you, Janna. He sat in a corner and stroked his sore knuckles. He daydreamed about breaking Janna and Stu’s door down, an ambush which would leave them no time to retaliate; he would swipe Genevieve’s hidden credit card, the one she’d stashed in The Go-Between which he’d never mentioned to her, and run to the station, to the airport … The trouble was that even in his fantasy Genevieve didn’t want to leave the house. So Karl’s imagination kept stalling in the hallway – attempting to reason with her? To scream at her? To give her a fireman’s lift out of the front door? He couldn’t picture one of those things. And then the fantasy door would close, gently, and Stu or Janna would say, Karl. Come on. This went on with minor variations for upwards of an hour.

  Karl dressed in a pair of shorts and a Yo La Tengo T-shirt. He paced around the small, cold rooms. It was what everyone said about Genevieve when she was getting ill: they told him she was funny, full of life and creativity; that maybe he couldn’t handle her real personality, which was strong and quick and, sure, a little eccentric, but that was part of her charm; maybe he was so used to Depressed Genevieve that he’d forgotten who she really was; and that he was worrying about nothing; that he had to accept her for who she was; that he needed to stop being so neurotic. And this would go on until Genevieve went from saying a lot of things quite quickly to saying a lot of strange and increasingly aggressive things. At the first sign of which the same friends would run a mile before Karl could even say I told you so. There was a thing, a nervous tic he had developed: if she was struggling to be understood, if she was getting tangled up in her own words, he felt personally responsible. This meant that he would frequently start to talk for her, or talk over her and he wondered, as he lay in the lumpy duvet, if she wasn’t perhaps better off without him after all.

  THE VOID OF the weekend was getting unbearable when Karl got a message from Keston instructing him to come over at once. He set off on foot. Maybe he always over-read the signs. He had the unshakeable conviction that Genevieve was in trouble and needed his help. At least in a very simple, practical sense. She had called him on it early, before they’d really started seeing one another. It was pouring with rain and they shared an umbrella on the way back from a restaurant, a small chain which was still using fresh ingredients and employing real chefs. He had lent her some CDs, which she didn’t like. He held the umbrella and found that Genevieve was very good at linking arms – she linked arms as if it were a dance.

  ‘Steph used to say her type was tall men with severe mental-health issues. And you like troubled girls, don’t you?’ she said, leaning into him as they walked. ‘I remember seeing you with that … what was her name?’

  ‘Emma.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Genevieve whistled. ‘She still alive?’

  ‘I don’t … That’s harsh.’

  ‘You like troubled girls because you think you can save them.’

  ‘You flatter me,’ said Karl. ‘I like troubled girls because they make me look good.’

  ‘As long as you don’t try to save me.’

  ‘I think you’re probably beyond my messiah complex.’

  ‘We’ll see, won’t we?’ said Genevieve.

  When he arrived at the flat, he found Keston sitting in his leather armchair wearing a quilted maroon smoking jacket. He was drinking a Bloody Mary and looked like he was about to introduce Masterpiece Theatre or a tale of the unexpected.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s happening, K-braham,’ he said. ‘The middle class just died.’ Keston’s globe-shaped liquor cabinet was wide open in the middle of the room, like the world throwing back its head to laugh. It was empty. All of the bottles, some sealed, some half full, several containing less than an inch, were stacked up around the chair.

  ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘I’m moving out,’ said Keston.

  ‘Oh,’ said Karl. ‘Your place is nice. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not a big deal. I’ve been here three years, quite attached to it, but I’m a big boy. Landlord’s selling the whole building, as is his right. Happens all the time. Month’s notice. I’ve found a new place already.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Karl.

  ‘But this is where it becomes a tale of woe,’ said Keston. ‘It turns out you need quite a lot of money. Two months’ rent in advance, a damage deposit when I don’t have the damage deposit back from this place yet. A holding fee of a hundred and fifty. Agency fees of three hundred and fifty. For what? Twelve pages of photocopying and some phone calls. To me, most of them, so they can let me know how the twelve pages of photocopying’s going. Two days’ unpaid leave to find the new place. All in all it’s more than I earn in two months.’

  ‘So you’re selling the liquor cabinet,’ said Karl.

  ‘Selling everything,’ said Keston. ‘I need to raise fifteen hundred pounds, yesterday. Everything must go.’

  ‘Not the grandfather clock,’ said Karl. He could see the shadow of Keston’s Georgian walnut-inlaid grandfather clock.

  ‘Especially the grandfather clock.’

  ‘The armoire? The Hepplewhite?’

  ‘I’m an accountant!’ said Keston, sloshing the bottle of vodka into his tomato juice. ‘I work fourteen-hour days! I’m supposed to be the, the – the – the leech sucking this country dry, and look at me! I’ve fallen through the net! I’m the silent majority! Fuck!’

  ‘It makes you wonder,’ said Karl, ‘how people on minimum wage get by.’

  Keston thought a while, took a draught of cherry brandy straight from the bottle and said, ‘What would you bring in a month, on minimum wage?’

  ‘Uh, like seven-fifty?’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Wouldn’t even cover a week’s rent,’ said Karl.

  ‘So how do you get by at all if you’re on minimum wage?’ said Keston. ‘Tell you what –’ taking out his mobile phone, an early series model which he insisted was a design classic – ‘let’s ask someone, shall we?’

  Karl watched as Keston picked up a slim blue manual by its corner and leafed through it like a card dealer.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I got it because it went with the phone cabinet,’ said Keston. ‘But believe it or not some people still have landlines.’

  Keston stopped on a page and fumbled with his mobile before putting it to his ear. He raised his eyebrows at Karl, who shook his head.

  ‘Ringing.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Yes, hello. Yes. No, actually, we’re not interested in that at all,’ said Keston. ‘I wanted to ask you – I work for the government, you see – I wanted to ask you if you’re able to survive on your wage. I hope –’ he tried to conceal a burp – ‘I hope you don’t find this an infringement. I’m with the government. A think tank.’ Keston rolled his eyes. ‘We’re called, uh, Cloaca. No. Yes, we’re calling twenty people a day from a – a – a sample list and your number came up. So if you … Yes, that’s right. Thank you. Thanks. Cheers. So it’s just three questions, really, and it won’t take more than a minute or two. Firstly, if you wouldn’t mind telling me your net monthly income. Right. That’s. Right. Okay. And could you tell me your monthly rent or mortgage? Hmm.’ Keston sipped his cherry brandy. ‘So how the fuck does that work, if your income is less than your rent?’ He cleared his throat. ‘They hung up. Well, that doesn’t explain anything.’

  ‘Some people get help, don’t they?’ said Karl.

  ‘But that’s, what, like sixty quid a week?’

  ‘When I was on Jobseeker’s for two months,’ said Karl, ‘I’d have had my rent paid for me. If I could have found anywhere that accepted DSS tenants. Which I couldn’t, so I used a credit card.’

  ‘This doesn
’t make any sense,’ said Keston. ‘How do you live on negative one hundred pounds a month?’

  ‘It’s interesting that you’re suddenly developing a social conscience,’ said Karl.

  ‘You think an accountant can’t have a social conscience?’ said Keston. ‘I give away a third of my salary every month to homeless charities.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Karl. ‘That’s amazing.’

  ‘It’s not true,’ said Keston, ‘but how would you know if I did? And I can tell you, if I did, I certainly wouldn’t tell people about it. Even what I’m saying right now could be a double bluff.’

  ‘I’ve known you for fifteen years,’ said Karl.

  ‘I just think it’s beneath you, K-dog, this pigeonholing. People who care about stuff run theatre companies and eat flax, is that it? One of my clients runs a theatre company and he’s a monster of complacency. Look at my shoes!’

  Keston swung one of his legs onto the table. The sole of his black, well-polished brogue was flapping loose.

  ‘Middle-class revolt,’ said Karl.

  ‘This is the darkest of days,’ said Keston, and closed his eyes. ‘Maybe I should enrol on The Transition.’

  ‘What you could do,’ said Karl, ‘seeing as you’ve nothing left to lose and all, is you could help me bring The Transition down.’

  ‘Oh, Karlsberg,’ said Keston.

  ‘Don’t you care that you’ve been pushing people into a programme that systematically ruins their lives? Don’t you care that they’ve made you one of their … their beagles?’

  ‘Beagles?’ Keston screwed up his nose. ‘Huh. All the good it’s done me.’

  ‘So why not help me stick it to them?’

  ‘What’s the story here, though, Karl? Idiot Fails Self-Improvement Course? Hold the front page.’

  ‘We’re planning a subtle but devastating coup. A big information drop, then we just let everyone make up their own minds.’

  ‘We being?’

  ‘Me. A cider farmer. Girl with white hair. A woman who makes computer-generated paintings.’

  ‘The Fantastic Four,’ said Keston. ‘And what do you need from the dark accountant over here?’

  ‘I need you to blackmail a cash-in-hand violin teacher,’ said Karl.