Читать книгу The Transition - Luke Kennard, Luke Kennard - Страница 10

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.

‘Have one of each,’ said the barista.

Handsome boy, thought Karl. Slightly wounded expression. An RSC bit-player face.

‘Really?’

‘Three muffins, Genevieve?’ said Karl.

‘Don’t listen to him,’ said the barista.

‘I never do.’

She sounded too grateful. But then everyone Karl could see wore the glazed, winsome expression of the all-clear, the last-minute reprieve. The hundred or so young couples, the other losers who had accepted The Transition in lieu of some unpayable fine or term of incarceration, looked up from checking the impressive spec of the free mint-thin tablets they’d been handed at the door to admire the sun-dappled view over the city from the 360-degree window: Really? And they looked at each other, too. A preponderance of attractive, well-adjusted young people of every creed and orientation. They were athletic or willowy, at worst a kind of doughy, puppy-jowled fat which spoke of donnish indolence rather than profligacy. Inconspicuously smart or very casual – torn jeans, neon T-shirts – because they were good-looking and could get away with it. The couples were casing the joint, talking, making one another laugh. You wanted them as trophy friends. Thirty-somethings who could pass for teenagers.

Gradually, the lights dipped.

‘It’s getting dark,’ said Genevieve.

The stage held a glossy black podium and a large glass screen. There were rows of designer chairs. The chairs were spindly, improbably supporting fleshy orange pads which, when you pressed them, took a while to reshape, like a stress toy. Karl sat down, expecting to feel hung on a strange apparatus, but it was more like a hug. As the orange pads cupped his buttocks, moulded to the small of his back and pressed his shoulder blades he realised he was sitting in a modern classic: Eames meets Brutalism in contemporary Norway, an alien catcher’s mitt. He drafted five-star reviews in his head; it was unusual to actually experience the product first.

Genevieve sipped her coffee.

The rows filled in around them. A man sat on the corner of Karl’s anorak and didn’t notice, pulling Karl slightly to the right. Karl leaned towards him, then back. His coat was still trapped. He cleared his throat. He tried to make eye contact with Genevieve, who was eating her apple and cinnamon muffin. He leaned in again. He couldn’t look at the man’s face without putting himself uncomfortably close to it. He looked at the man’s shoes. Brogues, a slight residue of shoe polish. He stared ahead at the empty stage. Now he had left it too long to do anything about it. If he pulled the corner of his anorak out, the man would wonder why he hadn’t done so immediately. You actually sat there for two minutes without telling me I was sitting on your coat? What’s wrong with you? Karl tensed his right shoulder and cricked his neck so that he appeared to be sitting more or less straight.

‘It’s Stu,’ said Genevieve. ‘Karl, it’s Stu.’

‘Yep,’ said Karl, looking up to see a tall man with a Mohican approaching the podium.

‘Why is it Stu?’

‘Shh.’

‘Is he the boss or something?’

‘Genevieve, shh.’

Stu put his hands on the lectern, cleared his throat and looked at the big glass screen which was hanging to his right, seemingly without support. It flickered and a white oblong, off centre and barely a quarter of the size of the overall screen appeared. It was a clip-art image of a man with a briefcase taking a big step. Stu looked at the screen. Slowly the words WHAT’S STANDING BETWEEN YOU AND SUCCESS? appeared in Comic Sans by the side of the clip-art businessman, who had a perky smile. There was a wonky blue parallelogram behind him.

‘What’s standing between you and success?’ said Stu.

Karl, to his surprise, felt disappointed. To the extent that he yanked the corner of his anorak free from his neighbour, who looked startled. It doesn’t matter how you dress it up and how good the free coffee is, the medium is the message and the medium is fucking PowerPoint. It was a dismal feeling, like the moment when a delayed train is finally cancelled.

But then the lights went out completely and the clip-art businessman smeared and flickered into a dance of glitches up the glass screen. Karl’s knee-jerk delight at something boring going wrong was hijacked by an orchestral overture via invisible speakers, and a long, low cello improvisation. As the soundtrack dissolved into electronic pops and gurgles, the image left the screen, a jagged mess of pixels, and bounced over the panoptic window, bursting into smaller copies of itself, a screensaver taking over the world; it covered the whole room, morphing into clip-art houses, clip-art office cubicles, cups of coffee, ties and cufflinks, clip-art strong, independent women, clip-art harried-looking commuters. The seats by this point were vibrating and Karl’s laughter was distorted, like a child in a play fight. The images seemed to peel off the glass and float along the rows. The room was swimming in obsolete icons and logos, slogans and mangled business-speak – push the change, be the envelope – clip-art Filofaxes and aeroplanes, shoes and computers duplicating, fanning out like cards, whirling and distending, blittering into fragments. The cello piece was melodic, abrasive, fearfully attractive, and the windows resolved into operating systems and programs Karl remembered from childhood, a museum of dead technology, single ribbons of green text, and then the music stopped and darkness was complete – until a spotlight picked out Stu adjusting the point of the second spike of his Mohican.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Bit gimmicky.’

Karl was one of the first to start clapping.

‘All right, all right,’ said Stu. ‘There’s no getting away from the fact that this is a lecture, and I know there’s not a single couple in the room who’s chosen to be here so you can’t blame me for falling back on special effects. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to talk to anyone else yet?’

Silence. Aside from discussing the scene with their partner, none of the couples had exchanged more than a resigned nod, a hello which could have been a hiccup.

‘You all have something in common,’ Stu smirked. ‘I’m kidding. It’s true, though. You’re all feeling a little bruised, I’m assuming. You’re all here under duress, expecting to count out the minutes, endure the insult to your intelligence. You were probably expecting …’ He rubbed his right eye. ‘You were probably expecting something like a speeding awareness course, right? I know what they’re like – I’ve been on three.’ He looked at the floor in mock contrition then glanced up. A ripple of laughter. ‘Well, I’m biased because I love this company, but it’s more like being given a new car. Take out your tablets.’

A mass shifting in the orange chairs. Karl slipped the computer out of its fur-lined pouch. It was a black sheet of glass, eight inches square. The words HELLO, KARL! in the middle. He looked at Genevieve, who was already moving a glowing white orb around hers with her index finger.

‘Your copy of the Transition handbook is on there,’ said Stu. ‘It has everything from the FAQ – constantly updated – to the history of the scheme, to the complaints procedure, which we hope you won’t be needing. But aside from that, you just write on them like a slate. Try it. Write Hello Stu.’

Clusters of Hello Stu!s appeared on the screen behind him.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘We’re going to look at three articles. Use your tablets and just write down your reactions. Whatever comes into your head. Be completely honest.’

The screen faded into a photograph and a long headline. A young woman in an old-fashioned floral-print dress posed by a spiral staircase. The headline: WHEN THIS DESIGNER’S FAMILY GREW SHE BOUGHT THE APARTMENT DOWNSTAIRS AND MADE THEIR HOME A DUPLEX. After ten seconds she was replaced by a man with a beard stirring an orange crockpot: HOW GREG’S POP-UP RESTAURANTS BECAME A PERMANENT CHAIN AND MADE HIM A PROPERTY MAGNATE. Next a shiny man who looked about twelve adjusting his tie in the mirror: WHILE PLAYING WITH HIS TWO-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER, THIS TWENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD HAPPENED UPON AN IDEA WHICH REVOLUTIONISED THE WAY WE SEE PUBLIC RELATIONS OVERNIGHT. All three appeared together with their headlines.

‘I remind you that this is a completely anonymous process,’ said Stu. ‘We’re interested in your frank, knee-jerk opinions. You have ten seconds.’

Gradually the magazine clippings disappeared from the screen and a selection of comments scrolled across the glass and around the windows:

I want to kill them all.

HOW A PRIVATE INCOME AND MASSIVE INHERITANCE MADE ALL THESE ASSHOLES’ DREAMS COME TRUE!

oh fuck off just fuck off fuck off fuck off

seriously a designer who can make enough to buy TWO FLATS fuck you what does she design nuclear weapons?

‘Good,’ said Stu. ‘This is all good.’

Karl watched as his own comment – what kind of a monster would bring a child into this world? – performed a loop-the-loop off the screen and landed on the window to the east.

‘Okay,’ said Stu while the last of the two hundred comments disappeared into a spiral behind him, as if going down a plughole. ‘I’d like to welcome to the stage Susannah, Greg and Paul.’

The trio walked onto the stage in unison, dressed exactly as they had been in the projected magazine articles. Susannah’s dress, Karl noticed, actually had a Russian-doll motif. They stopped in the middle of the stage and turned to face the audience, who were quiet. Karl shook his head. Genevieve had put her hand on his knee. The bearded chef folded his arms and looked up, bashfully. The designer and the PR man smiled with a hint of defiance. Karl’s temples pulsed. A lone voice yelled ‘BOOOO!’ which caused some brief, relieved laughter, shared by those on stage.

‘Susannah, out of interest, what do you design?’ said Stu.

‘Patterns for mugs and tableware,’ said Susannah.

‘And maybe you could tell the ladies and gentlemen of the audience what exactly you were doing two years ago today?’

‘This time two years ago,’ said Susannah, pointing into the crowd, ‘I was sitting in that chair, that one, fourth row. I was sitting in that chair writing shitty comments about the three people onstage because they were more successful than me.’

‘We know what it’s like out there,’ said Stu. ‘The landlord puts the rent up every six months. We know. Let alone saving, it’s hard to meet the bills and reduce your debts once you’ve stumped up the rent. We know. You never expected to be earning the salary you’re earning, but on the other hand you never expected to have to think twice about whether you could afford a new pair of socks this month. You’re trapped. The debts keep growing. We know. You’re overqualified for everything except a job that doesn’t actually exist – a historian or something. We know. This is the most expensive house in London.’

A moving image of a hallway covered in dust and rat droppings appeared behind Stu. The point of view tracked inwards towards a grand, sweeping staircase with moss growing on it.

‘Uninhabited for twelve years. A giant, house-shaped gambling chip. None of this is fair. We know it’s not fair. There’s no changing that. So what can you do? You can throw in the towel, eat cereal straight from the box, watch internet porn and wait for death, if that’s what you want. Or you can be part of the solution. You can get into a position of power and wield it with a little more responsibility. That’s what this is about.’