Some Light Reading

Just because I am not allowed to play on a certain collaborative site, doesn't mean that I cannot create characters for my own invented place, and post them here. So, meet Struan and Sharon:

STRUAN, NIGHT PORTER

He yawns and stretches. Checks the clock. He rises from the chair where he has slept for some small number of hours – though he will tell you he wasn’t sleeping. Only resting his eyes. Listening to the old building shifting in her sleep, the stiff creaks and cracks. He pulls on his blue uniform jacket. Fastens all the silver buttons. Picks a thread from his sleeve. Flattens his hair with a lick of spit on the palm of his hand. Then he checks the register on the front desk, runs the point of one finger down the list of names. Those who have spent the night there and those due to arrive later that day.

He picks up the phone and rings through to the kitchen. Just checking that Dugald McVey is there for the breakfast shift. And Sharon too, in her black skirt and white blouse. At her waist a pinnie that has been pressed and starched by her mother. He asks for a cup of tea to be brought up. Not because he is thirsty, or because it is a habit of many years, but because he wants to make sure that Sharon is really there as Dugald says that she is.

‘Morning Mr Courtald,’ she says.

He takes the tea from her. Nods thanks and sets the cup down behind the desk where no one but himself can see.

‘And how’s your mother, Sharon? Is she well this morning?’

Sharon stands with her hands clasped in front of her. Stands with her back straight and her feet together. Just as Struan Courtald had taught her. No make-up and no jewellery, except the thin strap of a watch at her wrist. Her hair is tied back from her face with a black velvet headband. She is pretty in an awkward way. All sharp angles. Her arms and legs as thin as sticks. Her eyes wide and her mouth a little crooked when she smiles.

‘Mother says to tell you she is fine, Mr Courtald. A little better this morning, thankyou. She slept well. She wonders if you will call for tea later. On your way home. If you have the time. That’s what she said I was to say.’

Struan nods again and smiles. Everything is formal and strictly controlled. Like something they have rehearsed.

He watches Sharon move away from him. She is the image of her mother when she was a girl at work in the hotel. That’s what Struan thinks. He remembers. How he watched the mother then, like he watches Sharon now. The flick of her hair, the swirl of her skirt, and Struan listening to the click of her shoes on the wooden floor.

He checks the register again. Looks for the early alarm calls he has to make. Glances up at the clock. He wonders, briefly, at the passing of time, wishes the spent years back again, and in the same moment wishes for the end of his shift and a cup of tea in Sharon's mother's kitchen.