The return was very slow. We had to clear a path for the trolley and found we were making a little road. Annabel went on ahead to request extra help.

‘But this road will tell them where we are!’ complained one of the women.

Anthea and Greta shrugged. Gradually, all the women who dared go down concluded that the guards would never come back. There was something so final, such a total absence of any trace of them in the abandoned rooms, that it was impossible to imagine anyone coming and claiming: ‘This is mine.’

We quickly organised ourselves into teams: some women went on ahead and removed the stones while others followed, scraping the ground with a shovel. At the slightest obstruction, we halted the trolley to clear the way. Because it was heavily laden, it took several of us to get it moving again. When we arrived, the fires were burning and grilled meat awaited us. Dorothy ate sitting on her chair, and we gathered around her.

‘We have to leave,’ she said. ‘We can’t settle here and live from the bunker like parasites. We must remain human beings. I want to know where we are, who imprisoned us and why. I don’t want to die sitting on a chair in the middle of I-don’t-know-where.’

Curiously, she had just described her fate.

‘We have blankets and lots of thread. We’ll make rucksacks, and each woman will carry as much as she can. It doesn’t matter whether we go north or south, since we don’t know in which direction whatever it is we’re seeking lies.’

‘Nor whether we’ll be glad to find it,’ muttered Anthea.

‘Greta, Anthea and the child will go back down into the bunker to fetch cans. We must assess the weight of what we eat each day and see whether one woman is capable of carrying two months’ food. We will walk. We’ll build up our stamina, and after a while we’ll be able to do twelve to fifteen miles a day, which means six to nine hundred miles altogether. In that time we’re bound to find something. Otherwise …’

She shivered. There was a moment’s silence, which was broken by Anthea:

‘If we take two months’ provisions, we’ll only be able to walk for one month. We have to think of the return.’

No one said anything. We didn’t want to believe that we’d find nothing. But at night, there were no lights. In the past, there were always signs of human existence—roads, planes— even over deserts. This empty plain and silent sky gave the impression of an uninhabited land.

‘We will leave in two days’ time. Tomorrow, we’ll make the rucksacks.’

That night, the sky cleared. After sunset, when night had fallen, I gazed at the stars for ages. Anthea lay still on her back, her eyes open.

‘Are you awake?’

‘I’m not sure that this is the sky above Earth. I can’t find the Great Bear, which is the only constellation I used to be able to recognise. In the other hemisphere, you could see the Southern Cross, but I don’t know what it looked like or where it was.’