The Sleepwalker (part one)

“Good morning, I am sorry to bother you, but I have locked myself out of my room. Incidentally, perhaps I should also point out that I have no clothes on.”

The phone next to my bed in the cottage across the car park from the hotel should never have rung at all. I was manning the night phones purely because staff had let me down. The switchboard at the hotel was set to ring by my bedside should there be a nighttime emergency. Standing naked in the middle of a hotel reception in the dead of night was no such thing, for me anyway. The guy clasping has credentials without a stitch on clearly thought differently.

It was 0345 and it had taken some ringing to wake me after a very long day during my annus horribilus. I decided that my Hugh Hefner style dressing gown and the slippers would match my hastily thrown on jeans, there was no time for knickers, now that was more like the Playboy founder, I thought.

As I trudged across the frosted gravel car park towards the hotel I made plenty of noise. The idea of having gravel is for exactly this reason; staff and receptionists can hear guests coming. Only this time I was trying to be as quiet as a creeping mouse. But I was sure my naked guest knew I was on my way.

As I keyed in the code at the front door to enter the reception area I could see the shape of my now freezing streaker silhouetted by the night-light. Holding his testicals one minute then offering to shake my hand the next, during our first introduction was too much, too soon. But as not many streakers introduce themselves things were looking up I thought. The real problem now was that he was a guest but had no idea which room he was from. During the time it took me to find the reception desk key on from a bunch a size fit for a jailer I had learnt that the guy was a sleepwalker.

We were now both awake, me trying to locate him in the reservation book and he, talking too loud in profuse apologies. Finally I found his room, booked in the name of his partner, I assumed she would be asleep upstairs as I should have been in the cottage.

I led ‘Steve’ to room 12, on the way thinking how weird it was to be followed down a long hotel corridor by a naked man. On reaching his room I knocked at the door. And knocked again a moment later. When I tried the door handle to find the door was locked. The door next to it opened and a surprised looking elderly gentleman laughed at what he saw in the corridor. “What’s going on here then?” He chuckled. I tried to explain but to no avail, but gladly he retreated now laughing. From the jailers bunch of keys I found one for the housekeeping cupboard and obtained the spare key to ‘Steve’s’ room.

Just as I unlocked it I heard his partner call out from within and I was a bit shocked but too tired to care when what I heard wasn’t “Steve.” But when the door opened they seemed to recognise each other so I could relax a bit. ‘Steve’ outstretched a hand of thanks, but given its proximity to his balls for the last twenty minutes I declined again.

I ventured across the gravel again, this time, with a crunch too many for the guests in room 2. They turned on their bedroom light and peered out at the innkeeper in disguise, retreating home to Sybil. She didn’t say much, except to question why the telephone system rung us and not the live-in staff, whose duties would include this sort of event. But we had no reliable English speakers in the staff accommodation that night and it seemed the sensible thing to do, after all the fire alarms had to be manned, I told her confidently. Sybil didn’t remove her eye mask to interrogate me further about my nocturnal jaunt. She employs this to shut out any light and enable her to slumber. I might have copped a lot less of an eyeful of ‘Steve’s tackle, when he removed his hand to shake mine if I had borrowed it I thought before slipping under the duvet to warm my frozen toes on her legs.

At breakfast there was no sign of the couple staying in room 12 in the dining room. I did see the old buffer in room 11 again, though, he teased me about what Basil and the guests get up to in the dark of the night, a little louder than I would have wanted, right in the middle of the restaurant. I tried a little harder than I had the previous night to explain what had happened but I didn’t want to make ‘Steve’s’ entrance at breakfast any harder, so the information I gave was a little sketchy, then again that was all I had. I figured it unlikely that the old fella was a psychiatrist, but like the one in Torquay, this would be book worthy.

By now the receptionist had found the sleepwalkers room key. It was in the Oak Room waste bin. ‘Steve’ had apparently left the room ‘asleep’ locked the door and wandered around the ground floor until waking up confused. He then woke the confused Basil. I could not understand the night before how he had locked himself out, as he needed the key to lock the door?

When ‘Steve’ and his partner came down long after breakfast had finished, too embarrassed to have a Purbeck Grill, I heard their story and the history of the sleepwalker. I advised them to lock the bedroom door from the inside and take out the key so the he couldn’t get out for a nocturnal wander. They had another night to stay in the Elizabethan manor.

The day passed without great event, except the verbal jibes from the ‘psychiatrist’ it was a peaceful day. The hotel and I had a decent evening, 34 diners ate the fare produced by the men in white coats and had received some great punter reviews. These reviews are rarely passed on to the madmen of the snake pit because that would fuel their egos, generally I translate a customers “fabulous” into Basil’s “barely adequate.” I did my rounds of the Oak Room and restaurant before heading home across the gravel for some essential sleep after a busy day.

To be continued.....