On
three separate occasions throughout his shift, the hotel’s nightporter is
obliged to tread out an ordained route around the buildings, stopping at
designated and numbered points where at each is located a tiny key discretely
secured to the wall by way of a long and flat chain, which when inserted and
turned in the box he carries round his neck on a wide band will register the
time against that designated and numbered point; a security measure without
doubt tied to some insurance policy footnote whereby no claim for disturbance
or similar would be even entertained without the requisite presentation of some
form of physical printout resultant from the execution of this thorough and
regular (ie as clockwork) inspection.
On
this particular trawl, the first of the shift, he is trailed by a friend, a
sous chef who, finding himself unable to sleep, has come over from his dorm in
the staff block for a chat, some company for his insomnia.
cog:
Have you seen that girl yet, the one with the doll?
cog:
The, the E.T. thing, Avril said it was some E.T. thing.
cog:
Well, E.T.ish, it’s more kind of, it’s
cog
(spinning a finger at his temple): Is she daft?
cog
(laughing): Ha ha! Is she daft? I don’t actually know, I haven’t
spoken to her or anything but... she looks
daft, I can grant you that much.
Laughing.
cog:
She’s queer though, isn’t she? She
cog:
What she’s gay? Who said she was
cog
(laughing): No I don’t mean she’s gay.
I mean she’s queer. You know, there’s
just that something about her. Avril said she hasn’t even been out yet, or, I
mean, she goes out, but just in the
gardens or, I mean, she hasn’t actually left the grounds.
cog:
Yeah I heard that too. When I saw her a couple of days ago she was wandering
off round the back of the tennis courts and, crossing the car park to the back
wall, and she’s just
making
a slow gesture with his palm upright
cog:
you know, like she’s on quality seds.
cog
(laughing): Quantity seds.
cog:
Yeah hey. Maybe she’s a pisshead.
cog:
Maybe. She might be here on some kind of drying out thing, you never know.
cog:
No, no you don’t, I’ll grant you that. You never know.
