‘We’ll do the same,’ said Janna. ‘There’s nothing more poisonous than pretending everything’s fine when it’s not. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ said Karl.
‘You’re being so lovely,’ said Genevieve, stirring her coffee. ‘You don’t need to be so lovely.’
‘Genevieve, the loyalty you’ve shown in joining your husband on The Transition; and Karl, the guilt you’ll be feeling about that … we understand this is a strange situation for you both. I promise you, it’ll be over before you know it, you’ll have a permanent residence and you’ll be doing the job you always dreamed of. How do you want your eggs? Poached?’
‘Poached is great.’
‘Right answer.’
‘This is how we start,’ said Janna. ‘Tomorrow is Monday and you go back to work as normal. We share every duty – we have a rota – it’s on your tablets so you’ll be reminded when it’s your turn to cook or clean up. You don’t have to pay anything – that’s part of it. Not just rent, but bills, food, travel to work – we’ll have a Transition car drop you off and pick you up. It’s all covered.’
‘See it as a complete break from ordinary life – a total anaesthetic while the operation takes place.’
‘Ick,’ said Janna. ‘But you don’t have any money either. So it’s a kind of economic house arrest for the first couple of months. We know that’s … patronising.’
As per the contract, Karl and Genevieve’s wages were paid straight into The Transition’s holding account. Half of Karl’s income went towards paying off his outstanding debts and fines. The rest accumulated and would eventually become their down payment.
‘But in losing your economic freedom you’ll gain something you didn’t even know you were missing: time.’
‘The language you’ve always wanted to learn, the weight you wanted to bench-press. All the things you’ve been putting off,’ said Janna.
‘I always wanted to learn Italian!’ said Genevieve. ‘Or Spanish, or maybe French!’
‘Pick one,’ said Janna. ‘You’re learning Italian.’
‘Molto bene!’ said Genevieve.
‘I don’t actually know what a bench press is,’ said Karl.
‘You’ll be surprised how quickly you take to it,’ said Stu. ‘And you’ll be surprised how quickly it makes a difference. To everything.’
Karl looked at Stuart’s thick and gladiatorial torso. He seemed like a different species, or at least a fantasy – what Karl imagined a man to be when he was growing up.
‘I have been thinking about getting in shape,’ he conceded.
‘But the first thing we want to talk about,’ said Stu, ‘and this may surprise you, is actually that lesion on your face, Karl.’
‘It’s an ingrown hair,’ said Karl.
‘Is that what it is?’ said Stu.
‘Whatever it is,’ said Janna, ‘it’s clear that you’re not leaving it alone to heal.’
‘I don’t even realise I’m doing it,’ said Karl, scratching his cheek to illustrate.
‘I’ve tried to get him to stop,’ said Genevieve. ‘For, like, a year.’
Karl felt his face flushing.
‘Mindfulness,’ said Stu. ‘You may wonder why we’re focusing on something so small, especially in the first lesson, but think about your face, Karl. Think about the face in general. It’s the first thing people see, before they even start talking to you.’
‘We believe that that mark on your face is a microcosm,’ said Janna, ‘of everything else you’re doing wrong with your life.’
‘Wow,’ said Karl.
‘Oh, do me,’ said Genevieve. ‘What do my split ends mean?’
This particular ingrown hair had followed the plot of a never-ending police procedural, with Karl the brilliant but obsessive detective on the trail of an ingrown-hair-stroke-serial-killer who might or might not even really exist; digging and gouging the same spot on his cheek night after night; thinking he once caught a glimpse of it, long ago; taking the drastic and controversial decision to stop shaving altogether for a fortnight; insisting that it was there, finding nothing, alienating his co-workers; letting it scab over, then going at it again too soon.
– I’m calling in the tweezers.
– Every time you call in the tweezers without a warrant you set our department back five years of good practice.
– I want the tweezers goddammit.
– Take some time off. See your family.
‘Karl?’ Genevieve called.
‘Yep?’
‘I hope you’re not fiddling with your face again.’
Karl’s hand shook as he turned off the shaving light.
‘You know what?’ he said. ‘I think it’s maybe just a spot after all.’
ON MONDAY KARL woke up to find that Genevieve, Stu and Janna had already left for work. It was half past nine. His tablet displayed a chart of his time spent in REM sleep. There was also a text message from Keston. Stu had showed them how to re-route everything through the tablet. Karl had already bagged up their mobile phones to send to a mail purchasing service, which ought to make them a couple of hundred pounds in emergency funds.
– How’s the prisoner?
Karl thought about it, stretched, put a jumper on over his Garfield T-shirt and replied.
– This is a joke, right? I’m a petty criminal and I’m being treated like a long-lost son.
Keston replied while Karl was buttoning the fly of his jeans.
– Safety nets, broseph.
While the prosecution had moved for Karl being banned from the internet altogether, his livelihood still depended on fake consumer reviews and essays and his lawyer had been able to prove this was a basic human right. On his first day working alone in the house Karl stayed within his quarters, writing five-star reviews of a new orthopaedic desk chair for eleven different office-product sites. ‘It goes way beyond health-neutral!’ he wrote. ‘This chair should be prescribed before you even know you have a back complaint.’ After 3,500 words of copy he felt bored. This wasn’t his internet connection, and he was on best behaviour. That he had used it so far solely to check his emails and search for information on the human spine was an act of discipline in which he took an almost ascetic pride. Perhaps this was The Transition working subtly in him already. He went to the little oak bookshelf he and Genevieve had shared since they were students.
He took out his copy of Machiavelli’s The Prince, opened it in the middle, flicked through it from the beginning and dropped it. He frowned. He took out Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and did the same thing, dropping it on top of The Prince. This was perturbing to Karl because he kept a Polaroid photograph of Genevieve sleeping naked in his copy of The Prince; formerly he’d kept it in Leaves of Grass until they heard a radio documentary about Leaves of Grass and Genevieve said she’d like to read it. She hadn’t shown much interest in any form of intimacy over the previous