Chapter 20

Ellie was the young mother whose toddler I’d carried when we first entered the shelter. Since Will and I had drifted apart, she and her friend Sharon had taken to coming and chatting with me every now and then, but we’d not discussed issues like these. We’d talked about my life in Burnfield, and theirs as army wives. Their husbands had been going to come with them to Finland, but were called away on an exercise at the last minute.

‘You go anyway love,’ Sharon’s husband had said. ‘And don’t worry about me, it’s only an exercise.’ I assumed Ellie’s husband had said much the same thing.

Sharon wasn’t sure about the exercise. ‘They used to tell us honestly when our chaps – and some lasses, of course – were sent on missions, but now they’ll as likely as not call a mission an exercise, and we don’t really know whether it’s an exercise or a mission until they get back. We’re not supposed to know even then, but we can tell. We could tell even if our men didn’t tell us themselves. They’re not supposed to, but of course they often do.

‘And even if it was originally an exercise, they’ll have been dragged off it for active service by now, with a war on.’

I didn’t tell them about Will’s and my idea that there might not really be a war at all, and that we might have been kidnapped for a psychosocial experiment. It had seemed almost credible while I was talking with Will; it seemed preposterous now. But Will is really such a down-to-earth fellow. Doubtless it only seemed almost credible to him, too. In fact we’d actually said as much to each other, and probably meant it. I don’t think we were just covering ourselves against seeming to each other to be conspiracy theorists.

Anyway, even if it was credible, it would be tactless to talk like that with Ellie and Sharon. I think.

Sharon also had a toddler, Donna, who had quickly decided that I was her friend, and was often fast asleep lying with her head on my lap. One evening Sharon and I found ourselves chatting late into the evening. That night, Sharon and I ended up lying side by side in our separate sleeping bags, still chattering, Donna sharing her mother’s sleeping bag. Everyone else probably thinks we’re a couple.

In the middle of the night I woke to find Sharon’s shoulder under my armpit, her head on my shoulder, and my arm around her, inside her sleeping bag. I thought of Cathie, and wanted to extract my arm, but I didn’t want to wake Sharon or Donna, who was behind her mum.

The next time I woke, the lights were just beginning their morning brightening. Sharon was sitting cross-legged next to me, with Donna on her lap, playing and laughing. I lay there looking at them for a little while, until Sharon noticed I was awake.

‘Morning, sleepy-head! Donna says you’re her Daddy now, did you hear her?’

Blimey. I thought Cathie was a bit forward, but that takes the biscuit. Blame Donna, would you? At least when Cathie chose me, we were both single! But how did my arm end up round Sharon during the night? Surely she didn’t do that herself? I must have at least played a part. I think.

‘And what would your husband say?’

‘Just carry on snoring, I expect. Anyway, the chaps don’t realize all us wives know the barmaid at the camp bar. Or maybe they think she’s deaf or daft or something. But she hears their chatter, and we get to hear all their stories. We know what they get up to when they’re away – or what they tell each other they get up to, anyway. Half of it’s probably exaggerated or completely made up. Whether it’s true or not, he can’t say anything without me saying something much worse back. Anyway, he might be dead for all we know.’

The thought doesn’t seem to bother her much. Cathie could be dead too, perish the thought. Cathie, I love you! What should I do?

Actually, I knew what Cathie would say. She’s too sensible. ‘I might be dead for all you know. We spent just one day together, and yes, I love you too, but we might never see each other again. Forget me. If I were in your shoes, I certainly would.’ And she’d mean it, too. Whether if she were in my shoes she really would forget me I’m less sure, but she’d mean it when she said it. What should I do?

‘You’re thinking about your Cathie, aren’t you? If we ever get out of here and she’s still alive, she need never know what happened here. Same with my Bernie. Live for the day, it’s all we can do anyway.’

It took me a couple of weeks to accept the situation, but Sharon was patient. Eventually we ended up in a zipped-up pair of sleeping bags.

One thing we don’t get in our thrice-daily packages is condoms. Or at least, I never have, and no-one’s ever offered to swap one for anything. Do the ladies get any other sorts of contraceptives? Or are there contraceptives in the food? Or are the authorities hoping that half the younger women will be pregnant by the time we come out? If so, why?

I didn’t find it an easy subject to raise with Sharon, but she was less reticent. ‘You’re worrying I’ll get pregnant, aren’t you? Well, don’t. I’ve got a coil in. In fact, I’m more worried about who’ll take the damn thing out for me when I want another kid! I can see the world being a very different place when we come out.’

If there’s a world worth coming out to at all. Even if we come out to a survivable world, will it be one I’d want to raise a child in? I wasn’t sure about that at all, but I didn’t say anything.

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On to Part III