Peter lived in London, he told her, in a house in Bloomsbury, a place where famous writers used to live many years ago. That had interested Anna, who was still hiding in Female Bathroom 2 as often as she could to scribble in her journal, relishing those moments in which she tried to make sense of her world and vented her frustrations. The house where Peter had grown up had an underground apartment, which was where he had spent most of his time when he was little. He’d been taught to read, write, use a computer, and to ‘question things’. He had read books and newspapers and been encouraged to ‘form opinions’. The very idea of being allowed to read stories that weren’t at all to do with making you more Useful seemed incredibly exciting to Anna, who had only ever been allowed to read approved text books on Longevity drugs and Housekeeping, along with long, ponderous works like Surplus Shame and The Surplus Burden on Nature: A Treatise, books which extolled the achievements of Longevity and explained in long, detailed paragraphs the Surplus Problem and the Enlightened Humane Approach, which enabled Surpluses to work in order to cover their Sin of Existence. Anna had read these books again and again, relishing the beautiful words and the cogent, well-structured arguments, which had convinced her, above and beyond anything that Mrs Pincent had told her, that her life was an imposition, that all she could do was to work hard in the hope that she might eventually be so valuable that her Sin of Existence might be forgiven.
Peter, on the other hand, knew nothing of these books, but he made up for it with knowledge of the Outside, of things that Anna had never dreamt of seeing or touching. Once a year, he told her, he’d been smuggled out of the house for a trip to the country, where there was a piece of land so big he could run around without anyone seeing him or hearing him shout. He would scream and yell as loudly as he could on those brief sojourns, knowing that for the rest of the year his life was to be conducted in whispers and furtive movements.
Peter didn’t talk much about his parents – not at all, actually – but he said that the adults he knew were all part of an Underground Movement that had been set up to fight the Authorities, to challenge the Declaration. When Anna’s parents had got out of prison, they joined the Underground Movement too, and Peter had gone to live with them. He said that they were trying to find out more about the use of Surpluses.
Anna didn’t really believe him, and had very little interest in his hatred of the system or tales of her supposed parents. But she treasured the guilty pleasure of listening to him talk about his life Outside, enjoyed the idea of running around a field, shouting and laughing. She thought that she would like that very much.
It was one such tale of the Outside that Peter was whispering to Anna one evening, just over a month after his first arrival at Grange Hall. The two of them had finished clearing up Central Feeding after supper and were sitting at one of the tables drying cutlery.
As they picked up the old, stainless steel forks and knives, drying them methodically with old rags, he described sitting by an open fire in the country, made up of illicitly collected driftwood, toasting marshmallows and playing something called a card game. And then he told her about Virginia Woolf, a writer who lived in Bloomsbury many, many years ago and had her first book published in 1915. She wrote all the time, Peter told her, but even her writing couldn’t make her happy and in the end she killed herself.
Anna listened in silence as she did her best to scrape the congealed fat from the knife she was holding – washing the cutlery in tepid water rarely achieved more than dislodging large pieces of food, and cleaning fluids weren’t considered necessary or affordable by Mrs Pincent. If Virginia Woolf had been a Legal, what could have made her want to die, she wondered. Virginia Woolf could probably have made as much noise as she wanted and wouldn’t have had any guilt at all to carry with her. She frowned, and noticed that Peter was staring at her. She still found it disconcerting the way he looked right at people, unashamedly.
‘What?’ she asked. ‘You know, you shouldn’t look at people like that. It’s rude.’
Peter grinned as if he didn’t really care if it was rude or not, then his face turned serious.
‘You really hate your parents?’ he asked her.
Anna answered without thinking. ‘Of course I hate them. It’s all their fault.’
‘What is?’
Anna sighed. Sometimes Peter could be really dim. ‘Me being here. Being responsible. Paying back Mother Nature for their Sins. Whatever you say, the Declaration was introduced for a reason and my parents abused Mother Nature’s benevolence. They make me sick.’
‘And you seriously believe that they’re wrong and the Authorities are right?’
Anna nodded. ‘Of course I believe it,’ she said flatly. ‘It’s the truth. Even if you do know them, I don’t care. They deserve to go back to prison and stay there for the rest of their lives. Now just shut up about it.’
Peter looked at her then and took her wrists firmly in his hands.
‘Your parents love you,’ he said in a very low voice. ‘You’re not surplus to anything, you’re Anna Covey, and you should never have been locked away here. Your Mrs Pincent is the person you should hate. She’s the one who brainwashed you, the one who beat you and starved you, just like she tried to do to me. Just like she’ll do again when she realises she hasn’t won. We need to get out of here. We need to get back to London.’
Anna stared at him, her mouth set crossly. ‘Brainwash!’ she said contemptuously. ‘That isn’t even a word.’
Peter smiled sarcastically. ‘Not a word they’d teach in Grange Hall, I suppose, but it is a word, Anna. It means to indoctrinate. To make you think things that aren’t true, to make you believe that you don’t deserve to live on the Outside, that you’re lucky to live in this prison.’
Anna pulled away, her eyes stinging with tears. Usually she loved to learn new words, treating them as exciting possessions that she could employ as she chose – in her journal, in her conversation – relishing the newness and the beauty of each one. But there was nothing beautiful about the word ‘brainwash’. To clean the brain. To strip it bare.
‘If anyone’s brain needs washing, it’s yours,’ she said angrily. ‘You don’t know anything. You’re full of lies, Peter.’
‘No,’ Peter said urgently, pressing her hand. ‘I’m not the one who’s lying, Anna. You and I can get out of here. Together. There’s a whole world out there, Anna, a whole world for us to explore. And a home, waiting for us in London.’
He was looking at Anna intently, and she felt herself weaken, felt herself wanting to believe him even if just for a moment, but then she forced his hand away. She couldn’t listen to him. Shouldn’t listen to him. Every paragraph in Surplus Shame refuted his arguments, explained in long, detailed prose, exactly why he was wrong.
‘I don’t want to go to London. And anyway, you’re talking rubbish,’ she said passionately. ‘My parents don’t love me. If they loved me, they’d never have had me. And Mrs Pincent’s the one who asked me to look after you so I don’t know why you hate her so much. She only beats you for your own good, to make you realise the truth . . . ’
She felt her voice quiver with emotion and tried to steel herself, wiping her eyes irritably. ‘I wish Mrs Pincent had asked someone else to look after you,’ she said eventually, her voice soft and low.
‘I wish you’d just leave me alone.’
Peter stared at her, his eyes flashing. ‘I don’t think you mean that, Anna Covey, but if you really want me to, I’ll leave you alone,’ he said bitterly. ‘You’re wrong about your parents, though, and you’re wrong about Grange Hall and Mrs Pincent. I’m going to get out of here somehow and you have to come with me. It’s not safe here.’
Anna looked at him with contempt. ‘Of course it’s safe here,’ she said. ‘Safer than trying to escape to the Outside when they’d only send the Catchers after you and put you in a hard labour camp. Your problem is that you think you’re better than other Surpluses, think the rules don’t apply to you. Well th
ey do, and I’m sick of you talking about my parents and stuff. I don’t want to hear any more. And don’t expect me to keep watching out for you either.’
Peter shrugged, but his dark eyes belied his casual stance, staring deep into Anna’s and making her shift uncomfortably. ‘Fine, suit yourself,’ he said evenly. ‘Stay here and turn yourself into a good little house servant. Let Mrs Pincent and the rest of them tell you what to do, what to think – or, rather, what not to think. See if I care. I mean, I got caught just so that I could find you, so that I could bring you back to your parents, but don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’ll be very happy, Anna Covey.’
‘Don’t call me that!’ Anna cried, putting her hands to her ears. ‘And I didn’t ask you to come . . .’
‘No, you didn’t, you’re right,’ Peter said slowly. He looked away and folded his arms defensively. ‘You know, tracking you down to Grange Hall wasn’t easy. And I knew that being here was going to be hard. But I never thought you’d be so difficult. I thought you’d be pleased I came.’
‘I am pleased you came,’ Anna said quickly, surprising herself with the words. ‘But you’re wrong about everything. You’re better off here, really you are. Can’t you be my friend and stay?’
Peter shook his head and Anna rolled her eyes in irritation.
‘Look, I could get in trouble just talking to you about this,’ she said. ‘The fact is that Mrs Pincent seems to quite like you now. You could be OK here, instead of having to spend your life hiding.’
‘I can assure you that Mrs Pincent doesn’t like me,’ Peter said sarcastically. ‘She doesn’t like any of us. Anyone who can beat someone the way she beat me isn’t capable of that emotion.’
Anna looked down at the floor. She’d suspected as much.
‘You don’t get beaten if you don’t break the rules,’ she said quietly.
‘You really have fallen for all her crap, haven’t you?’ Peter said with a sigh. ‘You believe every single word that woman feeds you. Well, I don’t. Anna, we’ve got as much right to be on this planet as the Mrs Pincents of this world. More right. They’re the ones who have outstayed their welcome by living for ever and they’re blaming us for it.’
Peter’s eyes were flashing and Anna looked at him with terror. What he’d just said was blasphemous. He’d be flogged if anyone heard him. She would too, just for listening.
‘Look,’ he said with a sigh, ‘I’m getting out of here, and if you’re not going to come with me then that’s your business. But I can’t wait for ever. You have to decide, Anna Covey. You have to decide whether you’re going to live a life of slavery or not.’
Anna stared at Peter, then stood up, only to discover that her legs were shaking. How dare Peter tell her she was a slave? Putting a hand on the table to steady herself, she took a deep breath and forced herself to look him directly in the eye.
‘I’ve already decided,’ she hissed. ‘You’re the one that believes crap, Peter. I’m a Prefect. A Prefect. In six months I’m going to be a Valuable Asset. You can ruin your own life, but you’re not ruining mine. Try and escape if you want, but I don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t want anything to do with you either.’
And with that, she turned and left, leaving Peter alone in the vast hall that was Central Feeding. She walked without thinking out of the door, across the covered courtyard that separated the feeding hall from the main building, then walked more quickly towards the stairs. It was only when she got to Floor 2 that she realised where she was going, and was soon running towards Female Bathroom 2. Once there, having made sure it was empty and safely shut the door behind her, she finally allowed her tears to fall freely as she collapsed on the floor in a heap of sobs.
‘I am not Anna Covey,’ she said to herself as she wept. ‘I am not Anna Covey. I am Surplus Anna. I am. I know I am. Please let things get back to normal. Please let everything be OK again.’
Chapter Seven
3 March, 2140
Peter says I’m a slave and that I should stand up for myself. He makes me so angry. I’m not a slave. I’m a good Surplus. It’s not like I chose to be one – it’s just the way things are and I don’t see why Peter has to make me feel bad about it.
He says he’s my friend and then he gets me upset and I feel like I can’t breathe properly because he talks about the Outside and he gets me imagining what it would be like, when it doesn’t matter because I’m a Surplus so Outside doesn’t belong to me.
If he was really my friend, would he say stupid, horrible things like that?
Peter isn’t afraid like the rest of us. And that makes him dangerous. It feels dangerous being with him because I never know what he’s going to say next, and whatever he does say, he’d never be able to say in front of Mrs Pincent. But sometimes he says nice things, or he looks at me and it doesn’t feel dangerous, it feels exciting, even though they’re probably the same thing. And I worry that it’s because underneath it all I’m not really Valuable Asset material, I’m just a Surplus, and however much I work and try my best I will always end up ‘letting myself down’ by liking things I shouldn’t and doing things I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t be writing right now. I shouldn’t have a journal. Maybe I’m really no better than Peter. Maybe it’s me that’s dangerous, after all.
The sexes at Grange Hall were segregated in a number of ways: firstly by the location of their dormitories, which were on separate floors; secondly by the timetable of their training sessions – at least half of the training sessions each day were single sex, focusing exclusively on the skills and expertise each would be expected to bring to their future employer; and thirdly by the ways in which they approached their confinement, the methods they employed to make their lives seem more bearable, their prospects less bleak.
The girls, with only one or two exceptions, got through each day by competing with one another over who was going to be most valuable, who could prove their genuine worth to Mother Nature. And whilst, on the surface, there appeared to be some camaraderie between the girls; whilst they would sometimes, in stolen moments, confide in each other and whisper forbidden thoughts about the Outside, about what it must be like to be born Legal, to have life stretched out ahead of you like a beautiful, soft carpet full of pleasure and expectations, in reality there was little friendship. Pity, sympathy and empathy were qualities that the female Surpluses could not afford the luxury of feeling; pity or sympathy extended to another could only highlight their own failings, their own destiny. And so, instead, the girls lived side by side, never letting their guard down fully, nearly always suppressing their instincts and questions, and constantly watching each other for the smallest transgression, even in stolen moments of leisure and recreation. In the hour or so before bedtime when, on the rare occasion that all chores had been completed satisfactorily for the day and the girls in Anna’s dorm had some free time, they would always play the same game. It was called Legal-Surplus, and would see one of the girls anointed ‘Legal’ for the duration of the game, and one other as her Surplus. The ‘Legal’ girl could ask her Surplus to do anything, from cleaning the floor with her tongue to eating faeces. The more creative and inventive the Legal could be in finding ways to humiliate and abuse her Surplus, the more the other girls would applaud and laugh until Lights Out were announced and the game’s Surplus would be allowed to escape her tormentor.
The boys, on the other hand, did not let their minds stray too far into the future, did not allow their thoughts to rest too long on the short life of servitude that lay before them. Instead, they coped with their frustration and restlessness by engaging in more physical activity. The rules of engagement in their game were similar to those employed in the female Surpluses’ game – one against one, with the other Surpluses acting as the audience, but in the boys’ version, the victim and bully were not chosen according to strict rotation; rather, the same boy or boys would be picked on and attacked by the same bullies, the others watching, vicariously feeling the pleasure of each kick, imag
ining the powerful feeling that would come from mastering another completely. The game would continue until the watching Surpluses could no longer control themselves and would throw themselves into the fray, kicking and punching the victim or anyone they considered to be weaker than them. Doing this allowed them, for a short time at least, to feel invincible, to feel as though they were no longer Surplus; the blood pumping around their body made everything outside the dormitory meaningless – their past, their present, their future.
Mrs Pincent and the Instructors knew of both these games and intervened rarely. In fact, Anna had seen Mrs Pincent smile and say that in these games the Surpluses were doing her job for her; the girls were learning to submit themselves fully to their Legal masters, whilst the boys were sorting out the weak from the strong, and taking their aggression out on each other, containing it so that no Legal ever need feel the brunt of it. Surplus boys were often employed in groups of two or three, with a weaker boy attached to two stronger ones, enabling this dynamic to continue until the boys were men and they were no longer gripped with the need to fight, to dominate. Hormone trials had been conducted years before to try and quell the Surplus boys’ appetite and need for aggression, but they were found to diminish their strength and brute force, so were soon abandoned.
Anna no longer engaged in the games in her dormitory. She was, after all, a Prefect now and was too old for such things. But the truth was that being a Prefect was not the reason for her looking the other way when one or other Surplus girl was forced to experience new, fresh, horrors, the result of feverish planning by whoever was playing the game’s ‘Legal’. The real reason that Anna could not bear to watch the tormentor or tormented was that recently she had begun to lose her appetite for the infliction of pain; she no longer felt comforted by watching another being bullied or, indeed, by tormenting another Surplus herself; no longer enjoyed the brutality and desensitisation that went with it. The shrieks of delight as the chosen Surplus was subjected to some new, horrible punishment used to make her feel elated and relieved, because whatever horrors lay ahead in her life could never be this bad, could never devastate her as the ‘Legal’ was devastating her slave for the night. But recently, Anna had begun to realise that the horror she faced in the life that lay before her was not in beatings, or humiliation. It was the horror of what they all were, what she was. Surplus. Unwanted. A Burden. Better off dead. And no amount of pain, no amount of desensitisation could take that away, or even make it matter slightly less.