The Declaration

and her fellow Daily Record readers thought that the parents of Surpluses should be locked up for life and their progeny put down. Not their own Surpluses, of course, not the ones who cooked their food, tended their gardens, worked on building sites or undertook any of the other tasks that no one else wanted to go near. No, not them; just the ‘others’, whoever they were.
    No doubt the Authorities would conduct an opinion poll at some point, Julia thought to herself.
    Set up another working party. Give someone like her husband the job of overseeing it for twenty or so years until they had drawn some conclusions. And then . . . well, then they would implement the conclusions, she supposed. If anyone still cared enough about it.
    The fact of the matter was, though, that Julia didn’t have twenty years to form her opinion about the Surplus Problem. She didn’t have twenty years to make her mind up about what to do. She wasn’t certain the escapees were in her summer house, of course, but in her experience, two plus two usually made four.
    Standing up and taking the spare key from the kitchen, she wrapped a coat around herself and put on wellington boots, then picked up some gardening tools for good measure. Just in case the neighbours were watching. Just in case anyone else was too.
    She often wondered what drove the parents of Surpluses to defy the Declaration in the first place. Was it arrogance – a conviction that the Declaration didn’t apply to them? Did they not realise that they’d never get away with it? She’d heard talk of a movement, a pro-new-life movement that believed that the Declaration was wrong, that people shouldn’t live for ever, that youth was better than age. But no one took them seriously.
    She’d suggested once to Anthony that Longevity drugs should contain birth control drugs, so there wouldn’t be a Surplus problem. It had seemed so straightforward, so simple a solution. But Anthony said that it wasn’t possible because the drugs were finely balanced and you couldn’t overburden the formula; that birth control implants were better, safer, cheaper. Julia had pointed out they obviously weren’t a hundred per cent effective. Anthony had told her that she simply didn’t understand; that things were never that easy. But it seemed easy to her. She sometimes thought that the Authorities overly complicated things just to make sure they had enough to do.
    Julia herself had been one of the lucky ones, of course. She’d had her children by the time Longevity came along. Never had to make the choice.
    Well, not children – child. But one was enough, she and Anthony had agreed. One was plenty. And Julia had been delighted when it turned out to be a girl. Someone to go shopping with, to have a bit of a gossip with, she’d thought happily.
    Hadn’t turned out like that, of course. Tracey had ended up moving to America when she was thirty-five. Had a career, she’d said, and that’s where it was all ‘happening’. That was seventy years ago now. It didn’t seem that long, somehow, and yet sometimes it felt like a lifetime ago.
    Tracey called from time to time, which was nice. And every so often, energy allowance permitting, Julia would fly over and see her, but her daughter was very busy and they hadn’t managed to find a suitable date for the past ten years or so.
    Still, she had her friends, Julia thought to herself, forcing a smile on to her face. She had the bridge club, didn’t she? No, she was very happy, all things considered. And if she sometimes wondered what the point was of living for ever when you had no one to love, no one to love you, then she didn’t dwell on it for long. She was one of the lucky ones, she would remind herself. She was really very happy indeed.
    As she made her way towards the summer house, Julia wondered whether it was the same Anna. It had to be, didn’t it? But what were she and the Surplus with her planning to do? Were they just hoping to enjoy a few days of freedom before their inevitable recapture, she wondered. Or were they more ambitious – did they actually think they’d be able to hide for ever? Except it wouldn’t be for ever, would it, Julia reminded herself. They were Surplus. Their lives would be so desperately short it could hardly be worth the effort.
    Quietly, she approached the small wooden building, and tapped lightly on the window.
    ‘Anna,’ she called softly. ‘It’s me, Mrs Sharpe. I’m fairly sure you’re in there.