The Transition. Luke Kennard

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      GENEVIEVE PUT HER hair up with an enormous tortoiseshell hair-clip and 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 СКАЧАТЬ