The Off-Season Demo

The hotel is closed for the winter. You have the keys.A seaside hotel on a coast nobody visits between October and March. The owner is away until spring. Her rules are pinned beside the key board in her own handwriting: No guests. I mean it this time. Boiler on at four, not before. The season still has an instalment to make and the boiler eats oil. The free demo is the first three nights of the season, at the desk, the door and the board of keys.

Somebody knocks. After the last bus, in the rain, with cash and no booking, and a reason they would rather not give. Nobody comes to this coast in winter without one. You can ask, but you are a stranger behind a desk at night, and every question you ask tells them what you wanted to know. Four answers at the deskGive a key. They are in the house tonight. Their money is in the box, and so is whatever came with them.

Refuse. The last bus has gone. Refusing costs something, sometimes before morning. Give a particular room. The one that matters. Take the money and leave the night out of the book. The cash is yours, not the house's, and the register never says they were here. The rooms are not interchangeable, and the house teaches you that slowly.3 looks over the road: you can see who arrives, and so can they.…