The Transition. Luke Kennard
wiped her eyes. Ten minutes before, when Karl had told her he was off the hook, she had cried and hugged him. Then she read the Transition brochure while smoking three cigarettes with increasing speed and intensity. Karl made two cups of tea in someone else’s mugs from the shared kitchen. Everything else was packed. One of them, a shiny black mug, bore the motivational slogan: Don’t fear the future. Be the future. It was supposed to be heat-activated, but something had gone wrong so that when Karl poured boiling water into the mug the only words visible were fear the future. Be
He was stirring one sugar into Genevieve’s tea when he heard her give a long, low howl. Not quite a howl, he thought, as he tapped the spoon on the side of the mug and threw it into the sink. It was too flat and unemotional to be called a howl. It was more like the cry of an animal in the jaws of a predator when it resigns itself to its fate. Karl pictured himself driving along a suburban road … He walked towards the sound.
Genevieve was lying on her side, like a shop-window dummy knocked over.
‘I’m so angry,’ she said, quietly.
‘I know it’s …’ said Karl.
‘It sounds absolutely bloody awful,’ she said, sitting upright and closing the booklet. ‘Couldn’t you have just gone to prison?’ Karl put the cups of tea on the floor next to Genevieve, sloshing a little over the side so that it scalded his hand. ‘I’m joking,’ she said. ‘It does sound dire, though. So don’t try to pretend we have any choice.’
‘The way I see it is it’s like a speeding course – you take the points on your licence or you give up a day for re-education.’
‘Yeah,’ said Genevieve. ‘Except your wife has to go with you and it’s six months.’
‘No rent,’ said Karl, shuffling down to the floorboards next to her.
‘So we get to live rent-free in a loft apartment – that’s great, Karl. Maybe I’ll start painting again.’
‘It’s more like lodging.’
‘I can see it’s more like lodging,’ said Genevieve. ‘Except the landlords don’t get paid. So they resent us. Even more than normal landlords.’
‘Well, the programme pays them,’ said Karl, taking a sip from his tea, which was still too hot, ‘but they’re not really doing it for the money. The notary said it was more like jury service.’
‘You know I don’t take sugar,’ said Genevieve.
‘What?’
‘My tea.’
‘I thought you—’
‘Only in coffee. It calls them “mentors”. I don’t like the idea of having mentors.’
‘So we put up with it,’ said Karl. ‘It’s supposed to help us and, you never know. It’s a pilot scheme; they haven’t ironed out the kinks yet, so it might actually be more helpful than they mean it to be.’
‘It’s patronising.’
‘That’s true.’
‘It says it’s a “fully holistic approach to getting our lives back on track”. It says they give us advice on being married. As well as the financial stuff. We’ve been married four years! It’s enormously patronising. And what about privacy?’
‘I’m not trying to argue that this is a good thing, G.’
‘It’s humiliating.’
Karl looked at her. Saying he was sorry seemed redundant.
‘You’ve read this?’ said Genevieve, flicking to the fifth page. ‘There’s a section on healthy eating. There’s a section on how to vote. A generation suffering from an unholy trinity of cynicism, ignorance and apathy,’ she read. ‘That’s you and me, honey.’
‘It’s certainly me,’ said Karl. ‘You’re just getting dragged down by the rest of us.’
‘And who are they, anyway? Are we randomly assigned? Is it like a dating website?’
Karl looked at his feet. They had already been allocated mentors. Once he’d agreed to the terms and signed and dated two documents, the process had been seven mouse clicks on the other side of the notary public’s desk.
‘Do they pick us out like puppies?’
‘We meet them tomorrow,’ said Karl.
‘Oh God,’ said Genevieve. ‘What are their names?’
‘Stu. Stuart Carson. And Janna Ridland.’
‘Janna,’ said Genevieve. ‘Janna. The name sounds half empty.’
‘You’re doing this to keep me out of prison. Do you need to hear me say how much I appreciate it?’
Genevieve turned and kicked her legs over his. She shuffled closer.
‘This is what I don’t like, Karly, we’re –’ she put her head on his shoulder – ‘we’re going through the same ups and downs young couples have always gone through, and they’re treating us like we’re an aberration.’
Karl took a sip of his tea.
‘I’m thirty-four,’ he said. ‘When my father was thirty-four he and Mum already had my two sisters. And a Ford Escort. They owned a house. They went on holidays.’
‘When my father was thirty-four,’ said Genevieve, ‘he had my mother sectioned, dropped me and Nina at Granny’s and drank himself to death in Madrid.’
‘Madrid?’ said Karl.
Last time it was Berlin and, now that he thought of it, he was certain that Genevieve never mentioned the same city twice.
IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER, every room looked like a waiting room, lined with low oblong benches and school chairs, one strip light flickering. It was hard to get up from the deep spongy bench when their mentors came through the double doors of 151.
Karl’s first thought was that they didn’t look any older than him or Genevieve, but then maybe there was only a decade or so in it. He had expected an aura of age and experience: authority figures, the way teachers looked when he was a pupil. Janna was angular and pretty, a white blouse tucked into a black leather pencil skirt. Her mouth was very small, like a china doll’s. Stu at least looked weathered. He was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt with a lightning bolt on it. He had a black and purple Mohican, four inches tall, five spikes.
‘God, this place is depressing,’ said Stu. ‘Sorry they made you come here.’
‘Don’t get up,’ said Janna, once they were up. They exchanged air kisses.
‘You probably weren’t expecting us to look like this,’ said Stu.
‘Oh, what, the Mohawk?’ said Karl.
‘The Mohawk actually wore a patch at the base of the skull and a patch at the forehead,’ said Stu. ‘This is closer to an Iro.’
‘Do you have any …’ said Genevieve. ‘Indian blood, I mean?’
‘Genevieve,’ said Stu, ‘I am merely an enthusiast.’
Stu busied himself collecting four flimsy cups of coffee from the machine in the corner. The two couples sat opposite one another over a pine and clapboard table too low for the seats.
‘Drink,’ he said. ‘It’s terrible, but, you know, ritual. Everything feels better when you’re holding something warm. You’re a primary school teacher, I’m told?’
‘That’s right,’ said Genevieve.
‘That’s