We thought we were too tired to feel hungry, but once we had bathed and rested, we did light a fire. The wood burned quickly, soon there were embers and the women made a sort of mesh from wire on which to grill the meat. For the first time, I ate something that hadn’t been boiled. It tasted delicious, I felt as though I never wanted to stop eating. In fact, I think I fell asleep with my mouth full!
I awoke in the middle of the night. I was amazed: it was dark! With my eyes wide open, I could barely see my own hands. The sky was a dark mass and rather frightening, as if it might fall in, and it took me ages to realise that once again it was very overcast.
I felt oppressed and tried to reassure myself by remembering what the women had told me about the stars, which are so far away – the constellations and the galaxies. But then another anxiety assailed me, the sense of an infinite void, vertigo, and the fear of falling in this strange darkness, spinning endlessly in nothingness. I curled into a ball as if to protect myself, and became aware that I was lying close to another woman, that I was touching her. That made me start and I instinctively moved away, because of the whip, then I remembered that there were no more guards. All the same, I didn’t like the contact with another human body, and I gently moved away. That was the only time I ever experienced the impulse that flung me into Frances’s arms that night. Someone had thrown a blanket over me, and I found that strange and touching.
I lay still among the women, my companions in life, who were asleep all around me. A light breeze made the leaves rustle, and I listened to this new sound. I was in a different world, and everything was unfamiliar. Since that morning, I had been learning all the time. I felt a surge of happiness: whatever happened, I had left the bunker, and, like the others, I knew I’d rather die than go back there. Already, I no longer understood how I’d been able to bear living there. I said to myself that if it hadn’t killed the women, it was because a person can’t die of sorrow.
I saw the sun rise. The sky grew paler as I watched, the clouds dispersed and it grew light – first grey, then golden as the sun climbed higher. I heard birds singing, and I saw some flying high in the sky. Gradually, the women awoke. They looked surprised, as if the night had made them forget that they’d escaped. Then they laughed and called out to one another. We went down to the river to wash and, on exploring further, we came across a place deep enough to swim. Anthea held me in the water, she wanted to teach me breaststroke, but I was terrified. I couldn’t follow her instructions and I grazed my knees on the stones. But still, I did manage to float and loved allowing myself to drift along with the gentle current. Then we ate the contents of a few cans of food. The women made a fire and managed to collect lots of hot embers, over which they set the potatoes to boil. We spent most of that first day in this way, eating for pleasure and returning to the river to bathe, time and time again, lazing around in the sun, which wasn’t too fierce. But we were still haunted by the fear of the guards, and we decided that two or three of us would keep a constant watch on the cabin from the top of the hill. When it was my turn, I said that I didn’t need company. I had a feeling that I’d enjoy being on my own.
That evening, the questions began to rear their heads again: where were we? What were we going to do?
Was this Earth?
They asked me how long it had been from one sunset to the next: by my clock it had been just over twenty-two and a half hours. Clearly, that didn’t prove a thing, because we had no idea what my heartbeat actually was. None of the women had ever seen such a wilderness of stones in such a mild climate, but they all admitted that they hadn’t travelled much and that in their past lives they hadn’t bothered much with geography. Their knowledge was confined to their immediate surroundings and a few local walks near their home towns. Of course, they’d seen films set in countries they’d never visited, but the Earth was so vast! It did seem odd that the vegetation was so sparse – a few clumps of familiar-looking small trees such as holm oak, boxtree and larch, but oh dear! they found it so hard to remember, and an unusual grass. There were no wild flowers, which meant nothing, since it might not have been the right season. They were struck by the absence of insects but were unable to deduce much from that. The terrain rolled towards the horizon in long sweeping undulations but it would be exaggerating to describe it as hilly. But how could we cope with the idea that this wasn’t Earth?
‘We must look for a town,’ they decided.
But what if the towns belonged to the guards? What if we were recaptured? There were countless arguments, which turned out to be in vain, because the fact was we never did find any towns. We were in no hurry to move: the joy of being in the open air, bathing in the river and eating as much as we wanted made us lazy, and we spent several days in idle discussions which the various pleasures soon interrupted.
I no longer felt the furious hostility of before; my anger had subsided. No longer seething with hatred and trying to find fault with my companions, I realised that it was difficult for them to pursue a train of thought for long, or to follow an argument through to its conclusion. Anthea was the only one capable of doing this. Some of the things she said made me realise that their inability to think clearly was the result of having been drugged for a long time. Perhaps I myself could have been a bit cleverer and thought harder than I did when, later, I found myself alone. For instance, it didn’t occur to me, after finding the road, to follow it in each direction. That only occurred to me recently, now I’m no longer able to do so. What’s more, they weren’t very well educated: they were women who, before these mysterious events, had run their homes and raised their children or, if they worked, were shop assistants, waitresses and checkout girls – jobs that were explained to me gradually. Only Anthea had studied: having been a typist for a few years, she went back to college to become a nurse and had qualified just before we were imprisoned. She’d forgotten a lot. The other women lacked foresight and were disorganised. They quickly became routine-bound; they’d never developed skills they hadn’t needed. On the whole, that didn’t change, and Dorothy, Anthea and I soon took responsibility for our existence.
I’d detested Dorothy because she’d assumed power purely because of her age, but I began to respect her when I saw that she was the first to think about vital matters. Each time the women embarked on a discussion and then lost track, Dorothy would tactfully interrupt them and make a useful suggestion. I saw that her authority came from her wisdom, but I wasn’t inclined to wait for orders from her. I preferred to do as she did and think ahead. After a few days, we realised that we had used up half our provisions.
‘We must go back and get some more food,’ she said, ‘and make a list of what is down there. After that, we will decide whether to stay here or leave.’
In her mind, that ‘we’ still only meant Anthea and her, but I knew it would soon include me.
About fifteen of the women came with Anthea and me. They weren’t going to go down into the bunker, but would help carry everything we brought up. It was also suggested they should keep a lookout, which I thought was pointless. I said so to Anthea.
‘You may be right,’ she replied. ‘But I’ll feel happier too if there’s someone keeping watch at the top. You never know. We don’t have a clue as to why they left, or how, so we can’t be certain they won’t come back.’
That made sense. It is impossible to predict what might happen in a world where you don’t know the rules.
So we retraced our steps back to the cabin and, as we drew closer, we fell silent. I’d never been very talkative, but I was used to living amid a steady drone of chatter, and now all that could be heard was the crunching of the stones beneath our feet.