Four weeks in and we were firm friends. I knew where he lived （Tottenham in a houseshare with four other guys, all doing PhDs）， what his favourite novel was （something by William Boyd, but I forget）， and that he was a strict vegan. We started going to the dreary pub after work on Saturday, where we’d get pretty drunk and I’d make jokes about Roger until he’d tell me off. By now, I knew how I’d kill him. Much like with my grandparents, the plan was vague in form and had the potential to fail, but I was confident after my first foray, and Andrew was trusting to a fault. After the pub one Saturday, I mooted going back to the centre and bringing a bottle of wine with us. It was a balmy night, and the stars were out, a rarity in this smog-draped city. He was game, if a little nervous.
‘Roger would go mad,’ he laughed, ‘but I guess there’s no harm done.’ Not much of a rule breaker, my cousin, despite his much-vaunted radical beliefs. I guess that’s what fourteen years of private education does well. Parents don’t cough up close to ￡250k in the hope that their child wilfully breaks the unspoken rules of British society.
Security at the marsh centre was … nothing. There was no security. No CCTV （what would you steal? Some minnows?）， no barbed wire. Andrew just used his key and we were in. We went down to the main pond and sat on a small section of decking Roger had installed so that he could observe the frogs more easily. I cracked open the wine and sipped from the bottle. As we passed it between us, I broached the subject that had been turning over in my head.
‘Can I try the frog drug, Andrew? You’ve talked about it so much, and it sounds like an adventure I’d kick myself to miss.’ There was a silence, and then I heard him breathe in and then breathe out in quick succession.
‘I don’t think so, Lara. I’m no expert yet, and I’m still trying to perfect the dosage. Last week I took too much and passed out cold for fifteen minutes. It’s so imprecise – I don’t want to use you as a guinea pig.’
I nodded, and made reassuring noises. ‘I totally understand. I don’t want to put pressure on you in any way. I just thought maybe it might help with my panic attacks in some small way …’ I trailed off, hoping to capitalise on his English built-in awkwardness. He sighed again.
‘I didn’t know you get panic attacks. I do too, ever since I was a little kid. I used to tell my mother I couldn’t breathe. But I couldn’t explain it properly. They came back with a vengeance recently.’ He looked at me with understanding and rubbed my thumb clumsily.
‘What happened?’ I asked, looking at him with a suitable amount of concern. Men like to be stared at intensely, I’ve found. It shows them you’re really absorbed in what they’re saying.
‘My grandparents were in an accident …’ He looked down and dropped my hand. I didn’t push it, instead taking the wine again and dipping my fingers into the pond.
‘Hey, how deep is this water? Roger always acts as though the Loch Ness Monster could be hiding in here.’
He laughed, and pushed his hair away from his face, making the hideous shell earring tinkle. The tension dissipated. ‘This place is his life. He just likes to imagine that everything here is bigger and bolder than it perhaps is. The ponds are all pretty shallow, though this one I’ve waded through and been caught out by how deep it is in the middle – probably up to your waist. And you don’t want to let Roger catch you – consider the frogs, Lara,’ he said in a faux outraged tone. We finished the bottle and I said I’d better call a cab. Andrew helped me up – I was drunker than I’d thought – and we stumbled back to the front gate, giggling and shushing each other. I offered to drop him home, but he said he wanted the air and I poured myself into a Toyota Prius, driven by a man listening to a strange medley of acoustic show tunes. A few minutes before we pulled up outside my flat, I heard my phone beep in my pocket. Clumsily, I unlocked the screen and peered down.
OK, let’s do it. Next Saturday, after work. You bring the wine – I think rosé would go nicely. But it’s TOP SECRET. Nobody knows that I do this.
Despite the terrible interpretation of ‘All that Jazz’ being played as we arrived at our destination, I managed a smile. Gotcha.
*
The following week is hard. I find it difficult to sleep, to work, to do much of anything except think about what is going to happen come Saturday. I remember a moment, aged 17, when Jimmy and I had been invited to a kid at school’s birthday party at a nightclub in Finsbury Park. Oh, the glamour! We’d spent weeks organising fake IDs, and consulting each other on what we’d be wearing. We’d come up with an eloquent lie to tell Sophie, and practised the details so that we wouldn’t get caught out in the run-up like so many idiotic teenagers do. This was all on me by the way, Jim would’ve been sprung in an instant. Terrible lying face. By the Monday before, we were so hopped up with anticipation that I couldn’t sleep. My stomach would flip and adrenaline would seep into my limbs, and I’d toss and turn worrying about whether or not our plan would work – if we’d get to the club and have the night we’d envisaged. It was miserable. We made it, and everything went like clockwork in the end, but the party was a huge letdown and we got stuck waiting for the bus at 1 a.m. in an icy downpour, Jimmy trying not to be sick, me trying not to go near him in case he was. All that worry and anticipation for not very much. This feeling is similar, except the stakes are much higher and I refuse to take night buses anymore.