The volunteer induction took place on a sticky May Day, and I travelled by train from King’s Cross, wearing clear lens glasses, sensible shoes, a parka and a bucket hat. I felt completely invisible, which was disconcerting and interesting at the same time. Nobody glanced at me, no man smiled my way. I even brought a packed lunch with me, something I’ve always thought was a warning sign in a person over eight years old. According to Google Maps, the marshes were nowhere near a familiar coffee shop, and I wasn’t going to risk food which might have been cross-contaminated by anything remotely both wild and in Zone 4.
The visitors’ centre was a bleak affair. That description is already grandiose – don’t imagine a brightly lit complex with friendly signs or a working loo. It was a hut with a corrugated iron roof and, inside, childish posters displaying scribbled weeds and the occasional abstract bird. Roger, the man who ran the marsh project, was there to welcome the two of us who’d turned up. I was slightly shocked that someone else was voluntarily coming to work in a bog without the motivation of murder. But here one was. Lucy, she told Roger and me, was a 30-year-old woman who worked in IT but had always had a yearning to spend more time in nature. She had the look of someone who wasn’t exposed to vitamin D on a regular basis, pallid and drawn in the face. I fought to keep my expression neutral, seeing Roger’s eyes light up as he nodded enthusiastically in agreement with her every word.
‘You’ve come to the right place, Lucy!’ he said. ‘We might not be a UNESCO world heritage site but I always like to say that these marshes are the real eighth wonder of the world!’ His eyes disappeared into the crinkled skin which surrounded them as he laughed. I imagined he told someone that line at least once a day and idly wondered if he had a wife who’d dearly like me to dispose of him too.
My cagoule was pitch-perfect. Lucy wore a similar one, and Roger seemed to have taken it one step further and was decked out in what I can only describe as a waterproof onesie. A thermos of tea was proffered, as Roger leant against the reception desk and described what our duties would be. Though there were repeated assurances that we’d be entering the exciting world of conservation, our duties seemed really to boil down to just weeding. This was very important, according to Roger, to maintain the delicate ecological balance of the site. From reception, we were taken on a tour of the marshes, which only took us twenty-five minutes in total. Perhaps marsh singular might have been more appropriate.
It was a sorry affair, with little in the way of great beauty. A forlorn heron stood some way off, and a host of flies buzzed around the reeds, but aside from that, it wasn’t singing with wildlife. It also wasn’t exactly heaving with visitors. At one point, Roger muttered something about the local leisure centre and how funding was terribly weighted, his face darkening. Imagine a leisure centre being your nemesis.
Lucy seemed genuinely interested in the induction, asking detailed questions about netting and composting. I stayed quiet, nodding along, all the while searching for a man who could be Andrew. From the few photos that showed him at a younger stage, he was a tall, slim guy, with sandy hair and unnervingly symmetrical teeth. Moderately handsome, might get a second glance at a bar, standard enough London level handsome. But apart from Roger and an old lady, who reminded me somewhat of Alan Bennett’s old lady in the van, ripping up some unidentifiable plants, there was nobody around.
Amusingly, Roger wouldn’t let us actually do anything practical on the day, telling us that the job was very sensitive and insisting we spend an hour in the hut going over health and safety requirements instead. This mainly consisted of repeated warnings about the ponds, a few measly looking puddles, I’d thought, but Roger told us sternly that they were much deeper than we could imagine, their size concealed by reeds. We must be very careful when we worked near them, as one misstep could mean trouble. Even Lucy didn’t look very convinced at this.
As the induction wrapped up, Roger paused reverently, looking to the sky as if seeking permission before he spoke. ‘And now for the moment I’m sure you’ve been waiting for,’ he grinned. ‘The FROGS.’
‘There are,’ Roger said with a smile, ‘only two native species of frogs in this country – the common frog and the pool frog. They are commonly found in shallow water and gardens. But we have a more exotic customer here. Oh yes, we have the MARSH FROG.’ He waited for a murmur of approval, which Lucy duly gave, and continued. ‘The marsh frog is a special kind of fellow. A chap called Edward Percy Smith brought twelve of them back from Hungary in 1935, and they duly escaped the confines of his garden and multiplied. Clever buggers,’ he nodded, as though the frogs had some kind of master plan to colonise the British Isles.