“Oh man, I feel really… whoa… okay. Not good.”

The walk back to the car was fifty metres and felt like a mile: time slowing, peripherals blurring, temperature rising. I got back wobbly and collapsed into a deck chair.

“One sec mate,” said Seth. “I’ll get you one of those anti-nausea tablets.”

Too late. Way, way too late. Why did it have to be the car park? Why, universe? The French fishermen hadn’t left the lakeside all evening; we’d been waiting and drinking in the car park because we hadn’t wanted to pitch our tent illegally in front of them. And of course now was the time they chose to leave – tramping out of the bushes just in time to see me slither boneless from my chair onto the gravel, forehead slick with sweat.

“You alright man?” said Seth, leaning against the car beside me.

“No,” I slurred, gracelessly. “Don’t stand there and watch me throw up, for God’s sake.”

For a weird humourous microsecond I thought of Mike from Breaking Bad, telling Walter White to fuck off and let him die in peace. Seth apologised and hurried away around the car, seconds before my organs spasmed violently and I vomited wine and bread all over the verge. And it wasn’t one of those subtle, quick, satisfying vomits like when you had too much to drink at a party as a teenager and shoved two fingers down your throat to get rid of the spinning room. This was goat-scream loud; gut-twisting, involuntary vocal chord-wrenching. I fucking yowled, man.

Even through the midst of my sickness I somehow found the self-consciousness to worry what the French fishermen would think of us; as far as they were aware, two young Englishmen had arrived at the lake chatting amiably, taken out deck chairs, drunk two glasses of wine and immediately collapsed in a stupor.

After a long, awful few minutes I was done – but it wasn’t over.

“Seth,” I groaned. “Where’s the toilet roll. It’s gonna be both ends, man.”

“Where’d you put it?” he asked.

“Idon’tknowjustgivemeitnow,” I snapped, pushing myself to my feet.

He tossed me it over the roof of the car and I stumbled away into the bracken, past an RV with a middle-aged couple sitting outside it eating cheese, and eventually reached the lakeside to squat and wrestle down my shorts. After I’d finished, I threw a few handfuls of soil over my shame, and sat, with my pants and boxers still round my ankles and a welcome breeze on my genitals, watching the lake. Anyone might have walked along and seen me; in that moment, I couldn’t have cared less.

A quiet euphoria came over me, practically post-coital in the clarity and enormity of its relief, and I felt my head return to full sense for the first time in what I suddenly realised had been hours. All day I’d thought the creeping sluggishness had been dehydration or nicotine or the unfamiliar heat.

I passed ten minutes listening to unseen lake frogs, sweaty and naked from the waist down like Winnie the Pooh, until I heard the snapping of twigs away to my left, in a clearing. I pulled up my shorts and trudged over to find Seth setting up the tent.

“Alright,” I said.

“Jesus man,” he said. “That sounded so violent.”

“Yeah,” I said, dropping into the chair he’d carried down from the car.

“You alright to camp still?”

“Yeah sure,” I said, staring at the waters, exhausted.

I didn’t want to camp, obviously. I wanted to teleport myself to England – to my big beautiful bathroom and the cool tile floor and the handsoap and the reams and reams of toilet paper. But Seth had had a couple of glasses of wine by now, and anyway the road back was long – almost two hours – and filled with windy turns. It would have been torture.

Seth went back up the hill for the rest of our bags, and while he was gone I peered into the tent. It was warm inside, stale and dark, and two bodies in there would be pressed together like custard creams.

“I’m gonna sleep outside,” I told him, when he returned.

“You sure?”

“Uh.”

I rolled out my camping mat, pulled on a hoodie, and lay on my side, long blades of grass inches from my nose, spent. Seth sat up for a while watching the sky grow dark, while I lay a metre away and lolled in and out of consciousness.

“Listen to that,” said Seth, drawing me out of a strange dream. “The frogs are going crazy.”

“Uh.”

And then, an indiscernible period of time later:

“Alright mate, I think I’m gonna sleep.”

“Uh.”

Now, I don’t usually enjoy being alone in exposed places. I don’t love the dark, to be honest. I know rationally that it’s fine, but there’s always this primal bit of my brain that insists I’m in danger, and it joins forces with the bit of my brain that allows me to write nicely, the creative bit, and together they conjure up all sorts of vivid and unpleasant what-ifs. By the lake, however, Jason Vorhees himself could have come stomping out of the bushes and I’d not have managed more than an indignant sigh of protest as he slung my wilted form over his shoulder.

I wanted vaguely to know what time it was, but reaching for my phone in my pocket felt like needless exertion. As the frogs chirped and the evening cicadas sang, their voices merged with the clucking bells of the cows across the meadow. Seth had left a small electric lamp hanging on a branch nearby, so I still had some idea of what was around me – otherwise I’d have been in near-total darkness. I breathed deep, slow breaths, and my eyes began to close.

“Morning mate,” said Seth. “Rough one last night, ey?”

“Not my finest hour,” I said, laughing, as we shoved the tent into the car.

I jolted awake, still on my mat, crickets and frogs flooding back in. Ugh. The ground mat wasn’t flat; I was sleeping on a slant. No strength to move it though – just roll over slightly – that would have to do. Pillow was too low, had my neck on a crook. No changing it – just close eyes and wait until morning.

Seth swimming in the lake, inviting me in.

“The water’s so refreshing!”

Teaching English at my desk. Sipping a coffee. Making a student laugh. Leaning back and losing my balance in my chair.

Buying a coat in a shop. Trying it on – looking in the mirror. Who buys a fur coat in this weather?

Taking Millie for a walk. Throwing the ball for her. Mum’s not here though. She must have gone back to the car.

Plane – window seat. Strange mountains. Ocean. Off to visit Annie. Forgot to tell her I’m coming. Hope she’s home.

I woke up, not all at once but slowly, like a bug unfurling, glistening out of a cocoon. Something was bad. Why was it so hot? Oh god, no. It was meant to be done. It was over and done with for Blanche – one and done. Surely there wasn’t more.

I crawled away from my sleeping bag as far as I could muster – two metres – and threw up. There was much less this time, but the same aggressive tensing of my organs. My stomach didn’t know it was empty; it was only doing its job. I threw up on all fours, like a cat coughing up a hairball, and when it was done and the fever subsided again, I stood up and went down to the lakeside with the toilet roll. It’s not easy in the dark. I turned on my phone torch for help, but was immediately swarmed by bugs flapping at the beam, wings clustering my eyes. Water.

Dressed again, I stood quietly on the marshy bank, in quiet awe of my misfortune. The sky above was brilliant with stars – the most I’ve seen in a night sky since Australia. Silver speckles, no moon, but enough starlight to see by – and cicadas, and singing frogs.

I fell back onto my mat and tossed back and forth, forced to alternate between facing downhill towards Seth’s tent and the torch tree – pleasant, familiar – or uphill, which felt better, but had me staring down the black void of the forest path to nowhere. Heavy eyes.

“Daniel, come down here please.”

Was I in trouble or not? Why did dad never say what he wanted me for?

Brushing teeth feels good. Important to keep them white and strong.

I’ll never get to work on time if this rain doesn’t stop. But at least it’s warm.

Oh, hey Charlie. Hey Jack. I’m glad you guys are here. Did you bring your own tent, or?

Probably gone into my overdraft again on that last round. Got to sort my life out.

It was back again – the creeping heat, and this time worse. I’d had a sip of water earlier and thrown it straight back up. My lips were dry, and I realised with a wince that I’d drunk no other water since we left Albi. I really, really didn’t want to throw up anymore – but the uncontrollable mechanisms of my body had begun their steady and unyielding process. Everything was tightening inside, winding up tight like a coil.

“Fucking hell,” I shouted, between heaves. “Please, just—”

I cried – just one, short whine, like a dog – but shut it off quickly in case Seth heard. Seth – sleeping so close in the tent. I wanted to call him out, call him over, but for what? I had no hair to hold back. I wanted my back rubbed – someone to coo to me and tell me it’d all be over soon. But not Seth. Someone soft and nice. I missed my mum. And I threw up again, and I went to the lakeside again, and I felt euphoric and looked at the stars again. God the universe was beautiful when it wanted to be. Look at it – spread out all twinkling and smug and all-knowing. I could almost feel it smirking. You said you wanted to get out of London and into nature, Dan. You said you’d always been a country boy at heart. What a big, gorgeous, awful twat.

This cycle continued until dawn – a thousand hours of frogs, bugs, cow bells, and distant motors swishing up the road beyond the meadow. Strange sounds in the forest. Footsteps behind me? A twig snapping. Something big splashing in the lake – close to the shore.

I finally slept at 6am, after breathing deeply to fight off the last, weakened wave of nausea that attempted to draw me from my mat. Not this time. There’s nothing left, stomach. Get fucked. You’ve done what you needed to do – jobsworth – now take a rest and let me sleep. I know you’re only trying to get rid of the virus but come on – I’m almost dead.

At 8am, Seth emerged from his tent to find me sitting in a deckchair, hood up, looking out at the lake.

“Hello,” I said. 

“Jesus Christ mate,” he said, straining not to break into laughter. “Rough night?”

“I’ve had better evenings,” I replied. “Don’t go down to the lake that way. It’s like a minefield.”

“That sounded so violent last night, man. I sounded like you were throwing up your organs or something.”

“Yeah. I thought the same, to be honest. I actually shone my torch on it to check, because I thought I might be throwing up blood, but with all the wine in there I couldn’t really tell either way.”

“You had a good time though, except for the sickness?”

“Oh yes mate, fucking sublime.”

Seth laughed then, turning away and shaking his head. Then he stalled, straightening up as if zapped by electricity, and ran away into the bushes.

“What?” I called after him.

“Fuck,” he called back. “I’ve just shit myself.”