The rare orchid

 Paid work. He was offering me paid work.

 

“Yes,” I replied, “that’s fantastic, I’d love to.”

 

“It’s not a great job,” he warned.

 

Matt was he name. Matt is the DIRECTOR of the National Trust North Yorkshire, and he was offering ME paid employment.

 

“Any job,” I said, “it’ll be good for my CV.”

 

“It’s only for two to three weeks and it’ll be nights.”

 

“I don’t care,” I said. A job like this was bound to lead to other opportunities.

 

Matt explained what the job entailed. A rare orchid had been found growing on national trust land. It was too valuable to move at this stage in its life cycle, but equally it couldn’t be left unattended in a place where hundreds of people walked passed every day. The orchid was therefore being placed under 24-hour surveillance, two people on twelve hour shifts.

 

“We’ve already filled the day shift, I’m afraid. It’s seven at night to seven in the morning, not counting the journey there and back. Still interested?”

 

“You bet,” I said. “I’m a night person, I’ll have no problem staying awake.”

 

It took approximately 40 minutes to walk from my house to the site of the orchid. Matt was there to greet me.

 

“Thanks for doing this at short notice,” he said.

“You must be excited,” I said.

 

“Frankly I could have done without the hassle. Our budget is already stretched as it is.”

 

“Why not use volunteers.”

 

Matt shook his head. “The volunteer insurance wouldn’t cover it.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because the orchid’s worth “10,000s, so there’s a risk that criminal gangs will try to steal it. The volunteer insurance doesn’t cover for attack by violent criminal gangs, the paid staff insurance does.”

 

I must have looked slightly horrified at this revelation, as Matt did his best to reassure me. Oh, don’t worry, there’s never anything like that, there’s been dozens of these around the country over the years, far too much work for criminals walking all the way out here. No, it’s simply an automatic trigger on the policy caused by the value of the orchid, nothing to do with actual risk. After all, if I needed security guards I wouldn’t exactly have hired you and Stella to do the job.”

 

Matt thus introduced me to the morning shift, Stella, a tiny waif of a girl, who looked more likely to blow away in a strong wind than to be hired as a security guard.

 

“Thanks Stella,” Matt said, as she took the cue to leave. “She’s done the odd job for us on and off for a couple of years, that’s why she got first dibs. The day shift’s not bad, you can sit and read.”

 

“I could sit and read,” I said. “I’ve brought a torch.”

“Ah, no, can’t let you do that I’m afraid. You’d be bringing attention to orchid, people could see the light from miles away.”

 

“What people.”

 

“Oh, you know, violent criminal gangs.” He laughed, as if to reassure me.

“Stella will be back at seven, if she’s not here by 7.15 call me on this number.” He handed me a piece of paper, with two numbers on it. “If you have any problems, which you won’t, then call the police directly on this number, there’s a team ready to come out with the GPS coordinates and everything. The public can come and look at the orchid and take photos if they want to, but don’t let anyone any closer than a metre to the orchid. You shouldn’t get too much trouble on this shift, not much daylight.”

 

He then told me a bit about the orchid and why it was special, in case I was asked questions by the public. I wrote down a couple of key facts in my notebook and Matt seemed impressed by my efficient manner.

 

“Don’t fall asleep under any circumstances and if you do fall asleep don’t fall asleep on the orchid.”

 

I laughed at what I thought was a joke and he snapped at me.

“It’s not funny, we lost a rare albino rabbit last year when our night watchman used it as a pillow.”

 

“Oh, sorry.”

 

“Right, I’ll be off then. Good luck. Try not to get killed by violent criminal gangs.”

 

“Is he going with you?” I pointed to the man who’d been standing a metre or so behind Matt the whole time we’d been talking. I’d assumed he was with Matt and was surprised when Matt left without him?”

 

“Him?  No of course not. He’s watching an orchid. He’s the night shift.”

 

“HE’s watching the orchid?” I repeated, confused. “I’m watching the orchid.”

“No, not that orchid, another orchid. Look.” I looked where Matt was pointing, and sure enough there was an identical orchid.

 

“I don’t understand. Why do you need two guards? Can’t I watch both orchids, they’re only a couple of metres apart?”

 

“Not our orchid,” Matt said, as he drew an imaginary line with his heel. “This is the border with Northumberland, that orchid’s the other side.”

 

“Couldn’t you come to an arrangement?”

 

“With Northumberland National Trust? Na mate, you’ve got more chance of peace in the middle east.”

 

Boundary issues thus explained, Matt left again, leaving me alone with the orchid, the other orchid and the other orchid man.

 

“Hello,” I said, “Can I take a look at  your orchid?”

 

“Don’t come within a metre of it,” he grunted. I wandered over. “It looks just the same as mine,” I said. “I wonder if they’re related.”

 

“Wouldn’t know.”

 

I held out my hand. “I’m James by the way.”

 

“Good, well now we’re on first name terms,” he said, ignoring my hand, “you wouldn’t’ mind watching mine for me. I need a dump.”

 

“Fine,” I said. I had wondered what to do in light of a call of nature. I imagined Matt’s answer. ‘Don’t shit under any circumstances, and if you do shit don’t shit on the orchid.”

 

The man was gone for over half an hour and I sat there both bored and in a state of high anticipation. This was my first job, not counting paper-round and occasional work in the corner shop. This was my first job for a national environmental agency, it could lead to great things. I kept at least one eye on the orchid at all times, ignoring the view and everything going on around me (not much to be honest). I pondered whether I should ring Matt if the man didn’t return, but then remembered the situation with Northumberland NT and thought better of it.

 

The man finally returned about half an hour later.

 

“Oy,” he shouted, “one metre.”

 

I moved back.

 

We stood in silence for a while, watching over our respective orchids like two nesting mother gannets on a cramped nesting site. The view though, was spectacular, with the setting sun casting golden lighting over the entire landscape. I was just about to pass comment on the view when he spoke.

 

“Shit isn’t it?” he said.

“Sorry?”

 

“This job. Must be the most boring job on Earth. Minimum wage for the night shift as well, serious drinking time I’m missing out on.”

 

“Well, it’s good for my CV.”

 

He looked at me non-comprehendingly.

“Why are you doing it then?”

 

“Gotta pay the rent somehow,” he said. “Nobody’ll take me on anywhere else.”

 

“Why not?” I asked, before realising that it was probably rude to ask. The man didn’t’ seem to mind though.

 

“Just got outta prison.”

 

“Oh!”

 

“Yeah, twenty years. The best years of my life.” He spat, either to remove unwanted saliva or to emphasise the irony.

 

“Twenty years! I didn’t think they gave sentences that long any more.” Again I spoke without really thinking, I’d just never met a man who’d served a twenty year prison sentence before.

 

“Yeah, for special occasions they do. Murder. First degree. Closest I ever came to a qualification.”

 

I stared in silence, unsure what to say.

“Get it?” he shouted.

 

“Oh, ha, ha, first degree. Very good.” I tried as hard as I could to laugh, but it was like the time my school organised a sponsored laugh-in for comic relief and made the mistake of showing an episode of Miranda. They didn’t raise a penny, in fact the school was sued for £2,330 by a disgruntled parent for having her child put through ‘The highest state of misery imaginable’.

 

“Yeah, well, you may laugh, but the jokes worn a bit thin for me after two decades o’ telling it.”

 

This statement was followed by silence, and more silence. The sun fell deeper and deeper below the horizon and we sat there, two men and two orchids and an entire universe before us, with the last rays of sunshine stretching themselves over an almost infinite landscape. Beauty, yet doomed beauty, the last fragments of a finite day.

 

“There’s a pub in the village,” the man said. “What do you think”?

 

“But the orchid.”

“Na, I didn’t mean both of us sill. I mean one of us goes and gets a take-out, the other watches the orchids.”

 

“Well I could go, I suppose.”

“Not being funny kid, but you don’t look 18, we don’t wanna risk your walking all that way and not being served.”

 

“Oh, but I am 18. I’m 19 actually.”

 

“See, they’ll catch you like that. If you’re gonna claim you’re of age you’ve gotta be clear how old you think you are.”

 

“No, no,” I protested, “I really am 18, I mean 19.” I realised how stupid I sounded. “Oh, go on then, you go.”

 

“What you drinking?”

 

“Bitter please.”

 

The man held out his hand. “A tenner should do it.”

 

“Oh, right, of course, yes.” I fished out a ten pound note. A big chunk of my evening’s earnings, but you can’t put a price on the value of quality social interaction and human friendship.

 

“See you in 40 minutes,” he said. He was gone for well over an hour. I started to wonder if he’d abandoned me, when I heard him return. “Oy, one metre,” he shouted

 

“I thought you said it was 20 minutes each way,” I said, chastising him.

 

“I had to go to the loo,” he said. “A man’s allowed to shit isn’t he?”

 

I didn’t have a response to that. He handed me a two-pint container of beer and no change.

 

“What is it?” I asked.

 

“Dunno. Bitter. I can’t tell ‘em apart myself. You might as well ask me what type of orchid this is.”

 

We sat there in total darkness drinking from our respective cartons. The man wasn’t a talker, I realised. Possibly a prison thing, I speculated. I had visions of a younger version of the man chatting away to a cell mate only for the entire conversation to be thrown back at him in the courtroom.

 

The clouds covered the moon, but every few minutes there would be a gap and enough light to see the orchid, just for a few seconds, still there, still being watched over by a paid employee of North Yorkshire National Trust. Before us, though hidden by the night, was a great expanse of award-winning scenery, Northumberland to our left, Yorkshire to our right.

 

“This reminds me of prison,” the man said suddenly.

 

“What, the wide open countryside?”

 

“Na, I mean this. Just sitting here, there’s fuck all to do, no music, nothing happening. At least lights our wasn’t ‘til ten in prison.”

 

“Well nature’s clearly a bit stricter than the prison authorities,” I joked. “It’d be worse in winter, no sunlight at all then. Not to mention the cold.”

 

“You wouldn’t catch me doing this in winter. Bad enough now.”

 

We sat in silence for a long time. Gazing over our orchids, like the world’s greatest shepherds watching their respective flocks.

“Fancy another beer? I’m empty.”

 

“I don’t have any more money, I’m afraid.”

 

“Me too. God this is dull. Watching an orchid. It doesn’t even do anything. I wouldn’t mind if it was an animal. I had a cushy job last year, watching over a rabbit. Much more interesting, and a convenient pillow if you fancied a nap.”

“That was you?”

 

He burst out laughing. “Of course it wasn’t me. I was in prison, dumbo. I just overheard your conversation – did  you not realise I was here?”

 

“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. A good joke though.”

 

“I hope I don’t fall asleep though,” he said. “I sleepwalk. I could trample on both of ‘em and not notice a thing.”

 

The night passed. I spent most of it fighting dropping off. I kept expecting to hear snores from my companion, but he too stayed awake, I heard the occasional mutter of ‘fucking orchid’ and ‘I wouldn’t a minded if it was a rabbit’.

 

At four in the morning the man rose and went off somewhere to urinate, I heard the noise gush of piss, like a pop-up fountain.

 

“I don’t think I’ve ever been up this late,” I said.

 

“What, not even for a party?”

 

“I’m not really the partying kind.”

 

“Well, I guess it’s a while since I’ve stayed up. Not many parties in prison.”

 

“Were you really in for murder?” I asked.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“How did it happen?” I wouldn’t normally ask a relative stranger such a personal question, but we had shared a lot over the course of the night.

 

“Don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t even know the guy. I was working for the national trust, you know, doing the night shift, watching over a rabbit, when I must have fell asleep and started sleep-walking. Before I know it I woke up with my hands around this bloke’s throat – he was stone dead.”

 

We didn’t speak for a while after that and eventually I did hear sounds of snoring. I kept alert, with his warning that he might sleepwalk and two orchids to watch over.

 

It was a long night.

 

Eventually the sun rose and the man woke, though he said nothing, just spat a lot and cursed the gods for some or other misdemeanour. At some time just after six a woman appeared and swapped places, clearly they work a different shift in Northumberland I thought.

 

“See you tomorrow,” I shouted at the man’s back, as he was already darting away.

“Looking forward to it,” he called behind him.

 

 

 

 

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