Never had any of the women spoken to me at such length. I sensed that she’d passed on to me everything she knew, and I experienced a mild light-headedness which was rather pleasant. It reminded me vaguely of the eruption and I promised myself I’d see if I could work it into one of my stories.

‘Can you tell me anything else?’

‘Nothing.’

She sighed and took up her needlework, inspecting it mechanically.

‘And we’ll never be any the wiser. We will die, one by one, as age gets the better of us. Dorothy will probably be the first, she has a bad heart. She looks over seventy. I don’t think I’m forty yet; with no seasons, we can’t keep track of time. You will be the last.’

She stared at me for ages without saying a word. Since I had greatly exercised my imagination of late, I could guess her thoughts: one day, I would be alone in the huge grey room. In the morning, a guard would pass me my food, which I’d cook on the hotplate, and I’d eat, sleep and die alone, without having understood our fate or why it had been inflicted on us. I was scared stiff.

‘Is there nothing we can do?’

‘There’s not one of us who hasn’t thought of killing herself, but they’re too quick. You mustn’t try and hang yourself: twist a piece of fabric into a rope and the minute you start tying it to the bars, they’ll be there. Mary, who’s sitting over there talking to Dorothy, tried to starve herself to death: they chased her with the whip and harassed her until she gave up. You know the knives they give us: they’re completely blunt. They’re just about good enough for scraping carrots, and we’re not allowed to try and sharpen them. Once, a long time ago, Alice, one of the most desperate women, persuaded another woman to strangle her. It happened at night, after they’d turned the lights down. We thought the guards were pacing up and down automatically, deceived by our stillness: but they watch us so closely all the time, that they realised what was happening and the whips cracked.’

‘They never touch us.’

‘At one time they did, there were wounds that were very slow to heal. We don’t know why they stopped. There’s no point rebelling. We must just wait until we die.’

She resumed her sewing. She was piecing together the least worn parts of a dress to make something or other. When I think back on it, I tell myself the lengths of fabric were almost excessive: it was hot in the bunker and we could have lived without clothes. I picture the two latrines in the centre of the room. Since there were forty of us, there was nearly always a woman sitting there doing her business, and I found it hard to believe that they allowed us to cover ourselves to satisfy our modesty. I watched Anthea and it occurred to me that seeing as I would be the last, I’d better learn to sew. Unless the women who died left me their clothing, and those hand-me-downs would last me until the end.