Heller's Regret (4 page)

“Good news, ladies. I just didn’t feel as if
half-rations was enough to stop me being so angry, so Assistant Two
and I agreed that you’ll also each be responsible for cleaning your
respective bathrooms after dinner. Good times ahead for both of you
tonight.”

After a hard day of physical torture and
minimum amounts of food, I waited until the others finished in the
bathroom so I could start cleaning it. I sat on the floor while I
waited, too tired to keep standing.

“Tilly,” said Ariadne. “I’m worried about
you. You’re looking very thin.”

“I lose weight fast. And stack it on fast,” I
murmured, now lying on the cement floor in a curled up position,
eyes shut. I could have gone to sleep at that moment. The others
sympathetically stepped over and around me.

Ariadne crouched down next to me and looked
around furtively before pulling a scrap of stale bread crust from
her pocket. “I saved you what I could from my food.”

“Thank you so much,” I whispered, tears of
happiness springing to my eyes. I gobbled the crust down and closed
my eyes again. I slept for a while until Jessie shook me awake.

“We’ve finished here. I hope it doesn’t take
you too long to clean. I wish I could help. You’ve helped me so
much.”

I nodded to show I’d heard her and
reluctantly dragged myself to my feet. I spent the next hour
scrubbing, wiping, mopping and topping up the soap, toilet paper
and air freshener, before having a short shower and brushing my
teeth, both of which I did with my eyes closed. The whole time I
thought about how and when we could escape. I had no doubt that if
we were caught, the consequences would be severe, though I couldn’t
be bothered checking the rules to see exactly what they were.

I zombie-walked to the bedroom, hearing
nothing but the rhythmic sound of the other women sleeping inside
the Bunker. It wasn’t long before I joined them. It seemed an even
shorter time before the horn blasted us awake the next morning.

“I can’t stand this place one second longer.
I’m going to escape. Who’s with me?”

Ariadne, Jill and Jessie all agreed
immediately. The others were shocked by even the suggestion of
breaking the rules, too afraid to face the consequences to consider
such a reckless action. That saddened me. I hadn’t realised how
cowed they’d become, but a part of me understood their caution.
Most of us were now halfway through the torture, so why risk making
the remaining time even worse?

“How will we manage it?” asked Ariadne.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. It was just the
tiredness speaking.” I shot the three willing women a meaningful
glance. I didn’t want any of the others running to the Assistant to
tip her off.

The other women laughed in relief to hear
that, and we busied ourselves getting ready for the pre-breakfast
exercise session.

While I was in one of the stalls in the
bathroom, I used a small pen I’d found in the jeans I’d worn on my
first day and had hidden. You never knew when something would come
in handy, and at that stage I’d imagined writing an SOS message to
Daniel somehow. I used a couple of sheets of toilet paper to write
the same message four times:
We have to plan this secretly.
Flush this away after reading
. I passed three of the messages
to my fellow willing escapees in the bathroom and managed to find
an opportunity to pass the fourth to G-F-H when the Assistants
weren’t looking for a second on the Field later.

That became our method of communication, and
there wasn’t a person in Group A who could accuse us of plotting to
leave.

G-F-H, or Gloria as I found she was really
called, wrote to me that she had three women in Bunker Two willing
to risk it all to escape. Once again, I cursed the fact that the
Assistants had taken our car keys from us. Otherwise I would have
piled all the escapees in my little car and just driven out the
gates tonight, not confident I wouldn’t run down anyone who got in
my way, especially if it was one of the Assistants. But at least
they’d left us our house keys, probably as reassurance they weren’t
off ransacking our property and drinking our milk while we were
stuck here.

Our toilet paper plan began to evolve. We
decided I’d speak on behalf of Bunker One, and Gloria for hers.
That made it safer for us, as it reduced the number of notes being
passed back and forth, and also saved confusion from too many
people chiming in on the matter.

The plan was simple, as the best plans
usually were. We decided that after dinner the next evening would
be the ideal time to make our run for it. Once we were freed from
our misery for another night to eat dinner, the Assistants stopped
supervising us. The Assistant had watched us closely for the first
week, but noting with satisfaction that we were all too buggered to
do anything except eat, wash and crawl into bed, she left us alone.
The lights automatically turned off at seven each night and I
suppose she figured if any of us wanted to stay up later chatting,
we’d be sorry the next morning when the alarm sounded at
five-thirty.

Of course our bunker ladies would miss us
immediately when we didn’t turn up in the bathroom, but we had a
plan for that too. I’d tried to figure out every possible
contingency, thinking that Heller would be proud of me – if I
succeeded.

The next morning, we were all surprisingly
chipper. I had to shake my head and frown at Ariadne and Jill, who
giggled together while making their beds. We didn’t want to attract
any attention today. I wanted everyone, including the Assistant, to
believe it was just another ordinary day of torture on the hamster
wheel for all of us.

The half-rations were severely affecting my
energy levels. I couldn’t believe it was possible, but I’d lost
even more weight since my food had been stripped in half. I had to
keep yanking up my tracksuit pants during exercise to stop them
falling down. When I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, I
didn’t like what I saw. I looked pale and gaunt, the epitome of
utter misery. I’d almost passed the point where I was no longer
hungry, which worried me. I was fast heading into a ketosis phase,
but with not enough protein or fat to make up for the lack of
glucose. It was a dangerous diet and if I had any energy I’d be
furious.

As a result, I really had to somehow muster
the determination to make it through one more day without drawing
the Assistant’s ire. She worked us hard, and we all did what she
demanded, no sound audible except our panting and grunting during
some of the more difficult exercises.

I thought the day would never end, but
eventually it did and we were released for the evening. I’d
instructed the women to slip back to their Bunkers to secrete their
house keys in their pockets.

We ate dinner silently, the Assistant popping
in briefly to make sure I’d followed her instructions for
half-rations, something she did without notice now and then, trying
to catch me out.

“I might think about letting you have normal
rations tomorrow, Chunky, as you’ve behaving yourself,” she smiled
at me.

Fuck you, bitch
, I thought, keeping my
head low and nodding to let her know I’d heard her. Hopefully, I’d
be eating all I wanted tomorrow, in my own flat, surrounded by
people who loved me. And Clive.

Several of the women headed to the sink to
clean up. We’d decided to have a roster at night, so that at least
every couple of nights we all had the chance to go to bed
earlier.

I joined them wearily. “I think it’s our turn
tonight.”

One looked puzzled. “Really? I thought it was
ours, but to be honest I can barely even remember my own name
anymore, let alone a roster.”

“Go,” I insisted. “Fair’s fair.”

They didn’t argue, but gratefully scooted
away, taking advantage of the unexpected early pass. Ariadne and
Jill were on my kitchen duty team and began to clear the tables.
Jessie lingered, pretending to take longer than normal with her
dinner.

“Are you finished yet, darling?” Ariadne
asked her for the benefit of the last woman, who’d decided to have
some more cold water and was taking her time about it. We all
wanted her to get lost immediately. After a few more minutes in
which Jessie chewed and chewed food that must be paste in her mouth
by now, the woman wandered out to the bathroom to join her
bunker-mates.

“Thank God,” said Jill to me in a low voice,
wiping up as I washed. “I thought she’d never go.”

“Let’s hurry through this,” I said in
return.

Five minutes later, we switched the light off
in the kitchen and closed the door. We’d planned to meet Gloria’s
group at the perimeter fence closest to us where there were no
automatic spotlights. They’d come via the rear of our Bunker; we’d
approach from the front. The danger for us was that we’d set off
all the lights on each building as we passed, but I didn’t think
anyone was on patrol. After all, it wasn’t a prison, no matter how
much it felt like one. And there were only five staff. They had to
sleep some time, even if they didn’t seem human.

We huddled against the tall chain-wire fence,
waiting for Gloria’s group. They arrived in a burst, all of them,
except Gloria, looking terrified at their daring.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s climb the fence.”

“Maybe we should stay inside up against the
fence,” suggested one of Gloria’s team, Yvonne.

“Why don’t we just walk out the front gates?”
asked another, Helen.

“I’m pretty sure that’s the one place on the
perimeter that has lighting. We want to avoid any
illumination.”

“But at least we know the ground here in the
compound is even. We don’t know what it’s like on the outside,”
argued Yvonne.

“That’s true, but I believe we’ll have less
chance of being spotted outside the compound. And it’s more visible
over there than it is here,” I responded patiently. We’d already
been through this a million times. The plan was set in concrete. Or
so I thought.

In the end we decided to climb the fence
where we were. It was to the side of the buildings and in greater
shadow than the rest of the fence. Scaling the fence probably would
have been quite a physical challenge for some of the ladies a
couple of weeks ago, but now proved no harder than the awful
army-type manoeuvres we’d recently endured under the tender,
supportive ‘help’ of the Assistants.

On the other side we regrouped.

“What about my car?” panicked Ariadne.

“Forget about your car,” I said, a little
harsher than I meant. “I have some very tough guy friends and they
can organise to come and get them for us.”

“Okay,” she said in a small voice. I felt bad
for snapping at her, but I didn’t have time to soothe ruffled
feathers.

“What are we doing now?” asked JoJo, a
bubble-headed blonde from Gloria’s group.

I sighed quietly. “We’re going to head around
the perimeter fence until we reach the road that leads here.”

We set off cautiously in the very dim light,
not able to see the ground well. I suggested the ladies kept one
hand trailing the fence to keep us on track.

“What are we going to do then?” asked
Yvonne.

I shot Gloria a disbelieving look. She
shrugged her shoulders apologetically, as though she’d tried to
tell them the plan, but they hadn’t listened closely.

“We’re going to walk down the road until we
find the nearest phone. Then I’m going to call some of those
friends of mine and ask them to come and pick us up.”

“Sounds a bit vague,” complained Helen.

“You’re welcome to come up with your own
plan, if you like,” I snapped, my patience running out.

“No need to be so grumpy.” What did she think
I was going to be? I was exhausted and starving. It’s hard to be
cheery in those circumstances.

I stalked off in front, heartily sick of some
of these women already. Gloria scurried to catch up with me.

“I’m sorry, Tilly,” she said in a low voice.
“I
did
tell them, honestly.”

“It must have been fun bunking with them for
a fortnight.”

“Why do you think I’m escaping?”

That made me smile reluctantly. “Then why’d
you bring them with you?”

“They latched onto me from the beginning.
They didn’t want to stay if I wasn’t going to be there.”

“So you won’t be inviting them to dinner one
day?”

“Definitely not. I’d like to ditch them in
the bush right now.”

We walked for a while, turning the corner on
the fence from the side to the front. I stopped, waiting for
everyone to catch up.

“The next ten minutes is the danger zone for
us,” I addressed the group. “I don’t think anyone’s on patrol, but
we don’t know for sure. So keep quiet and move fast.”

“I didn’t realise how bossy you were,” smiled
Ariadne.

“I’ve been keeping fairly quiet for me while
we’ve been here.”

She raised her eyebrows in amusement. “I’m
looking forward to meeting up with you again when you’re your
normal self.”

I didn’t respond, but pushed forward. Though
it seemed as if some women didn’t understand the concept of
‘stealth’, crashing through the bush as though we were on a hiking
jaunt, we made it to main road, skirting the lights of the
gates.

I stopped and looked down that winding, dirt
road. And I smelled the wonderful, heady aroma of freedom.

Chapter 4

The dirt road was much easier for us to
navigate and we were fortunate that the moon was bright, otherwise
we would have been walking in the dark. I wished for a torch or
some kind of lighting, but we’d fled with nothing except our house
keys.

“Does anyone remember passing a service
station or cafe on the way in?” I asked hopefully.

Nobody had. Like me, they’d been too nervous
or simmering with anger to notice anything peripheral on the drive
here. When he heard, Heller would probably gently scold me about
being so inattentive to my surroundings. He probably would have
noted every structure on the way. He was infuriating like that
sometimes.