The Resistance

she was taken, I was fine. I had a career, a life to live. I was grateful that I’d avoided a prison sentence; convinced myself it had been a close shave, a lucky break. But as the years went by, I found myself thinking about her. Found myself missing her, desperately, which is silly, because I hardly knew her – just a few weeks, that’s all. I found myself seeking out children’s things, rummaging through flea markets for vintage items like toys or small blankets. I’d knit little coats for her, sing little nursery rhymes in my head. Even though by that time she’d have been fifty. She’d probably look older than me now. Perhaps she isn’t even alive . . .’
    Anna saw a tear in Maria’s eye as her voice trailed off. She looked back at the photograph and thought of all the Surpluses back at Grange Hall, all the Surpluses around the country.
    ‘Not like you,’ Maria continued, appearing to shake herself. ‘I suppose you’re free to take Longevity now, aren’t you?’
    Anna shook her head, emboldened by Maria’s revelation. ‘I’m not . . . I mean, we’re not . . . We’re going to Opt Out,’ she said forcefully. ‘We don’t want to live for ever.’
    Maria nodded, her eyes filled with admiration. ‘Of course. You see, I knew that you were courageous. I could see it the first time I saw your photograph in the newspaper. Not like me, Anna. I wasn’t courageous; I was weak. I let my daughter down.’
    Anna took a sip of tea. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said. It was a line she repeated often, the line she always used when guilty or desperate women accosted her in the street. ‘It’s not your fault.’ ‘I’m sure your child was/is happy.’ ‘I’m sure you’d be a great mother, too.’
    ‘You’re kind, Anna, but I’m afraid it is my fault – both the act itself and my inability to get over it. But we find our own ways through times of difficulty, and I’ve found mine.’
    She looked back at the mantelpiece, and Anna followed her gaze, taking in each of the photographs before her.
    ‘Who . . .’ she said. ‘Who are the other ones?’
    ‘Children like mine,’ Maria said simply. ‘Babies, toddlers, young children torn away from their mothers. It’s too late to track my daughter down. But I try to help others to find their lost children. Talking to anyone who might know something. I thought . . . I thought you might recognise one or two of them. Anything you might be able to do to help . . .’
    ‘They’re all Surpluses?’ Anna gasped. ‘Where did they come from? The photographs, I mean.’
    ‘From their mothers, their fathers, from people who love them,’ Maria said softly.
    Wedging Ben between two cushions, Anna stood up, steadying herself on the side of the chair as the blood rushed to her head. She walked cautiously towards the mantelpiece, starting at the right end and working her way to the left. To her shock and surprise, she recognised some of them.
    ‘Surplus Sarah,’ she said, pulling out a pewter frame cradling a black and white photograph of a young girl. ‘She left three years ago. She’ll be a housekeeper now. And this one . . .’ She pulled out another frame, this one a larger, black frame with a young boy beaming out of it. ‘That’s Surplus Patrick. He . . .’ Anna felt her eyes well up again with anger and indignation as she remembered Surplus Patrick and his constant questions, his insistence that he wasn’t a Surplus, that his parents would be coming to find him any day. ‘Patrick was sent to a Detention Centre,’ she managed to say. ‘He didn’t fit in very well. He refused to accept that he was a Surplus.’
    Maria stood up and took the frame from Anna. ‘And you did?’
    ‘I was a Surplus,’ Anna said flatly. ‘There wasn’t anything to accept.’
    She returned to the mantelpiece. Face after face, staring out at her hopefully. And then she felt her chest constrict. Right at the far end, was a wooden frame, with a photograph of a toddler. A little girl with faint, red hair and vivid blue eyes.
    ‘Is there another photograph of this girl?’ she asked, her heart thudding in her chest. ‘One of her a bit older?’
    Maria shook her head. ‘The parents took it a few years before she was taken away. They didn’t take another – taking photographs is a dangerous business, I’m afraid. They count as evidence. Why? You think you know Sheila?’
    ‘Sheila?’ Anna gasped, clutching the mantelpiece as a feeling of nausea welled up