It was daylight. The sky was grey, but not the lifeless grey of the bunker walls. Huge masses of subtle hues glided gently in a light breeze. I recognised them as clouds; they were tinged with pearl, lit from behind by the sun. A strange emotion choked me, more restrained and exquisite than the exuberance that had borne me up the stairs. I wished I could linger, but there were too many other things to discover. It was drizzling. Fate would have us emerge on a rainy day. Later, we realised that rain was rare in this season. I stepped forward, raised my face and arms to this extraordinary wetness, which I’d heard about but had been unable to imagine. A few drops fell onto my hands and I licked them, enthralled. My dress was soon soaked through and the breeze, light as it was, plastered it to my thighs, and I found that wonderful.

‘But where are we?’ asked a voice behind me.

It was a breathless Dorothy, supported by Anthea. They both looked around, and so did I. There was nothing but a gently undulating plain stretching as far as the eye could see, from one end of the horizon to the other.

‘We’re outside,’ I replied, laughing. ‘And there isn’t a single guard. They’ve all gone.’

‘We’re a long way from a town, there’s no sign at all of any housing. I’d always thought we must be near some big city,’ said Anthea.

Dorothy frowned.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it. This plain is vast, it’s unbroken. We are not in my country, you could always see mountains.’

Anthea seemed so puzzled and anxious that I felt sorry for her.

‘What does it matter?’ I said. ‘The main thing is that we’re outside, free, and there are no guards.’

The other women began to arrive, out of breath and stumbling, and we moved away from the cabin to make room. Soon, they were all there, looking around in amazement, trying to fathom where they were, repeating, one after the other, that they’d never seen anything like it, almost terrified at being in such a strange place. I couldn’t understand why they weren’t rejoicing wholeheartedly at the miracle of being outside, released from the cage, at seeing the sky and feeling the wind and the rain. They’d wanted something all their lives, but now they had it, they didn’t recognise it. Perhaps, when someone has experienced a day-to-day life that makes sense, they can never become accustomed to strangeness. That is something that I, who have only experienced absurdity, can only suppose.

‘I’m frightened,’ said Annabel.

They huddled together, a small, terrified group in the middle of an unknown land. After the familiarity of the cage, the forty women clung to one another, disorientated by the vast stillness from which nothing emanated.

‘What if they come back?’

I realised they were trying to justify their fear. We scanned our surroundings; all we could see was the stony plain where nothing moved except the scant grass gently swaying in the breeze.