The Transition

They stood.

‘We want you to know that we don’t judge you,’ said Janna.

‘Oh,’ said Genevieve. ‘Thanks.’

‘What she means,’ said Stu, ‘is that we don’t expect you to be grateful for this … situation. But we hope you’ll be nicely surprised by the set-up tomorrow. We hope you have as brief, as useful and as mutually pleasant an experience as possible.’

‘Okay,’ said Genevieve. ‘Thank you for … Thanks.’

‘What made you sign up to this as mentors?’ said Karl. ‘If you don’t mind my asking. What’s in it for you?’

‘We love this company,’ said Janna. ‘We’re proud to work for The Transition.’

‘A few years ago my generation kicked the ladder away behind us,’ said Stu. ‘This is our chance to teach you to free-climb.’

‘Oh, God, always with the analogies,’ said Janna. ‘It’s so embarrassing.’

‘Besides which, and I’m going to be honest with you,’ said Stu, ‘only crazy people lie; we never wanted children—’

‘We never wanted babies,’ said Janna.

‘Right, babies,’ said Stu. ‘Or children, really. Or teenagers. Plenty of our friends did and I can’t say it appealed.’

‘But sometimes we’d be talking and Stu would say, what if we’d had kids?’

‘What if we’d met each other at, say, twenty, and had kids?’

‘What would they be doing now? And it just got me thinking, what would my grown-up kids be doing now?’

‘What kind of advice would we give them?’ said Stu.

‘But you can’t adopt a thirty-year-old,’ said Janna.

‘Until now,’ said Genevieve. ‘Well, if it’s the only way out of the fine mess my husband’s landed us in, consider yourselves in loco parentis.’

And Karl was surprised to see his wife put her arms around Janna who, a little disconcerted, patted her on the back, lightly and rapidly as if tapping out a code.

5 (#u8dbad0ef-bff8-5bc7-834e-390a1c7b55f6)

THEY SPENT THE NIGHT painting over Blu-Tack stains with Tipp-Ex. Then Genevieve scrubbed the floor with a hard brush and a cartoonish bucket of soap suds and Karl asked her why she was bothering.

The next morning a black 4x4 was waiting for them outside their eviscerated bedsit.

The driver leaned out.

‘Transition?’ he said.

It felt like they were gliding over the potholed roads. It was an auto-drive, so for the most part the driver sat with his hands behind his head, watching the blue orb move up the map. Now and then he took the little steering column to fine-tune the car’s decisions, or put his foot down to override its obedience so that a stern female voice said speed limit exceeded. They were driven through urban clearways and bypasses, across double roundabouts and out-of-town shopping centres which had been absorbed into the town, past the football ground.

They were entering a rougher part of the city, but the high-rises had been freshly painted porcelain white. They looked at them and thought of a tropical island hotel rather than Findus Crispy Pancakes and canned cider; although Karl disliked neither, now that he thought of it. A building site promised a forthcoming swimming pool and multi-gym.

‘All that,’ said the driver, ‘that renovation – paid for by The Transition. I grew up around here.’

The car turned before a railway bridge and crunched over a gravel drive before entering an industrial estate. Corrugated-metal warehouses with big numbers and little signs. They passed a car mechanic’s, a boxing gym, a company called Rubberplasp whose name bounced around Karl’s auditory centre. Further in, the lots turned hipster: a craft brewery, a Japanese pottery, a vanity recording studio. Karl expected The Transition’s headquarters to be another identical shack, but when they rounded the last corner they were at the foot of a hill from which emerged four shiny black obelisks connected by footbridges, a letter H at every rotation. Each obelisk was roughly as tall as an electricity pylon, but only broad enough to contain a couple of rooms.

As they stepped out of the taxi the shiny black surface of the four towers turned blue, and brightened until it almost matched the sky. A film of a flock of birds flew across it, disappearing between the towers, which faded to black again.

‘This is …’ said Karl. ‘Wow.’

‘Hmm,’ said Genevieve.

A young woman was standing at the door of the first tower they came to. An earpiece stood out against her short, fair hair. They gave their names.

‘You’re married – that’s so sweet!’ she said. ‘Everyone is on the mezzanine. Floor 8. Here are your tablets.’

She gave them each what looked like a giant After Eight mint: a very thin square touchscreen computer in a protective sleeve.

‘Pretty,’ said Genevieve.

‘I was told this was a pilot scheme,’ said Karl. ‘It looks …’

The towers went through the sky sequence again.

‘… fairly well established. We’ve been going for eleven years,’ said the woman with the earpiece. ‘We try to stay under the radar.’

The lift opened on a wide balcony full of couples. Instantly shy, Karl stood to admire a giant hyperrealist painting of a pinball table, Vegas neons and chrome. He stared at the electric-pink 100 POINTS bumpers and the matte plastic of a single raised flipper. He felt Genevieve take his hand. She did this rarely.

‘What a waste of a wall,’ she said.

‘I like it.’

‘You like pinball? You like bright colours?’

‘I like the painting.’

‘You’re such a boy. Boys love bright colours. Like bulls,’ said Genevieve. ‘That’s why underwear is brightly coloured. Do you remember that bag I had, the one with the Tunisian tea advert with the sequins? Grown men stopped me on the street to say they liked my bag. I told Amy and she was like, what they mean is I like your vagina.’

Karl paused to make sure Genevieve had finished her train of thought. She had barely said a word for the last two weeks, but today she had opinions, theories. It was like she had been recast. It had taken him three years of marriage to learn that it was best to let her recalibrate without too much comment. Get a little depressed, then a little high in inverse proportion. Balance the ship.

He looked at the reflection of the pinball table’s garish surface in the painting of the large ball bearing that dominated the right-hand side of the canvas. It was so convincing he expected to see a reflection of his face peering into it. As you got closer you could almost make out the fine brushstrokes.

‘I just think it’s incredible anyone can paint something that looks so much like a photograph,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ said Genevieve, ‘but on the other hand so fucking what, you know?’

A brushed-silver bar served free cappuccinos and muffins in three flavours: banoffee, apple and cinnamon or quadruple chocolate.

‘Quadruple? I can’t choose!’ said Genevieve.