‘I’ll read it,’ said Genevieve.
‘It’s an interesting history,’ said Stu. ‘Not without a few skeletons in the closet, but we’re in a good place now. We’ve managed to avoid attention, thanks to the whole confidentiality thing – we don’t allow our graduates to acknowledge the scheme in interviews. Why should they? You earned it – The Transition is just a leg-up. Most of them end up successful enough to be interviewed, which is the important thing. Generally they’re only too happy to move on – they’ve earned their right to a fulfilling life, we just gave them the means to start the journey. All we ask is you keep in touch, maybe come back to talk to a future year group.’ He got up. ‘Come on, you must want to see your quarters.’
Karl and Genevieve’s attic was not completely self-contained – cohabitation was stipulated in The Transition’s terms and conditions – but Stu had installed a small but luxurious bathroom with grey granite fittings. The shower head was the size of a frying pan.
‘Ooh, it’s like a hotel!’ said Genevieve. She tried the taps. The bevel was gentle and heavy like a volume knob and the water poured out with calm insistence.
They weren’t labelled.
‘Are you just supposed to know which is hot and which is cold?’ said Karl. ‘I can’t live like this. I have no memory for things like that.’
The rest of the attic had been divided into three rooms, one with a double bed and a small flat-screen TV on top of a chest of drawers; one with a sofa, a side table with a bowl of oranges and a print of Klimt’s Forest framed on the wall; and the last was a study with an old school desk and a new office chair, based on the audience seats in The Transition’s mezzanine. A little bookshelf had already been stocked with Karl and Genevieve’s library of twentieth-century fiction and poetry, the only possession The Transition’s removal service had had to contend with. A tall, bronze anglepoise lamp lurked in the corner like a prop from a steampunk movie. Next to it a blue Wi-Fi router blinked fitfully.
‘This is actually really thoughtful,’ said Karl, propping the second cardboard box of clothes on top of the first.
‘No more damp,’ said Genevieve. ‘I’ll have my fur coats taken out of storage.’
Each room had a Velux window and the view from the bedroom was of a tree-lined green with a wrought-iron fence and a locked gate. The four tall houses overlooked six parallel streets of Victorian terraces, the ornate and defunct public baths, a cordoned-off area of scrubland promised years ago to a major supermarket, and a hill with a busy road that wove down to the valley. Standing behind Genevieve, Karl put his hands on her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder.
‘We’ll manage, won’t we?’
He started working her skirt up and she pulled it down again.
‘I think so.’
By the end of the scheme, as long as they carefully followed the financial regimen, the young couple should have saved enough for a five per cent mortgage deposit on one of the new-build estates that sponsored the pilot scheme, as well as having developed the skills and responsibilities necessary to meet repayments. He kissed her neck.
‘You don’t even notice the Mohican after a while,’ said Genevieve.
They lay on their new bed, a firm mattress that yielded just enough to make you feel like you were lying in mid-air when you closed your eyes. The bed in their flat had felt like a giant bag of spoons and Karl was accustomed to arranging his internal organs around them when he slept. He lay on his back, speechless, while Genevieve took her square tablet out of her rucksack. She started to read the History.
‘“Everything was temporary,”’ she read. ‘“Because they could be moved on at any time, nobody felt like a stakeholder in their community, so the very idea of community had started to erode. Once, we gathered round the piano in the pub or the town hall to sing songs together in harmony; now we sang at one another in cold-lit karaoke bars, a lonely imitation of the fame we felt was our only possible escape.” That’s by Hannah Eldridge – she was part of the think tank ten years ago.’
She stopped reading out loud and Karl closed his eyes. Both of them were drifting into sleep when they heard Janna at the foot of the stairs.
‘Um … guys? Food’s ready.’
Dinner was roast squash, pumpkin seeds and rocket leaves with fresh bread and yoghurt. Stu explained that they weren’t vegetarian, but that they only ate meat twice a week. Janna opened a bottle of Rioja.
‘He only ever buys wine wrapped in a wire cage,’ she said. ‘He thinks that’s how you tell if it’s good. Look, we’ll talk through some basic rotas and stuff tomorrow, but tonight let’s just have a drink. We’re very happy to have you here. Cheers.’
‘THEY SEEM REALLY LOVELY,’ said Genevieve. ‘I think we’re very lucky.’
They were drunk on red wine, lying in each other’s arms.
‘I think we’re going to be okay,’ said Karl. ‘This could actually be the best thing that’s ever happened to us.’
Very suddenly, Genevieve started snoring.
Karl slept lightly and woke up at what his tablet told him was 4:26. He could hear a faint, uneven squeaking noise. It sounded like a pulley being operated.
‘You awake? You hear that?’
‘I’ve been listening to it,’ Genevieve whispered. ‘It’s crying.’
‘What? No, I mean the squeaking noise.’
‘What do you think I mean?’
‘It isn’t crying.’
‘It’s coming from the next attic. Someone in the attic next door is weeping.’
Spooked, Karl turned on the green glass library lamp on his bedside table.
‘It’s a creaking sound.’
‘It’s crying.’
‘It’s pipes or something.’
‘Someone,’ said Genevieve, ‘is crying.’
‘Let me get close – OW! Motherfucker!’ said Karl, falling back onto the bed, holding his foot. ‘What is that?’
‘Poor thing,’ said Genevieve. ‘You’ve stubbed your toe.’
‘I think they’re broken,’ said Karl. ‘All of them. Who installs a fucking metal buttress in the middle of their floor?’ He went down on his hands and knees and inspected the silver girder he’d dashed his foot against. Difficult to miss, now that he saw it. When his toes felt better he tried to get his ear flat to the low wall, but whatever the noise was, it had stopped.
‘OH, HEY, LOOK at this. Look. How did you sleep? It’s telling me precisely how I slept. These are the points where I was dreaming. This is where it brought me out of a dream that seemed to be upsetting me. I’m not sure how it does that. Did you have any bad dreams? Karl? Karl?’
Karl woke up. He was not hungover. There was no crust in his eyes. Genevieve was sitting up playing with her tablet. The smells of fresh coffee and bacon drifted up to the attic.
‘I’m a “full disclosure” kind of guy,’ said Stu. He poured them both a cup of coffee from the stove pot and pushed a jug of steamed milk towards them. They were sitting at the black granite breakfast bar. ‘Anything we do that pisses you off,