The inspection

Source: an original fiction extract.

“Mr Pritchard learned of the hotel inspector's visit at breakfast. By nine he had ordered fresh flowers for the reception desk, polished the brass bell and instructed the staff to say 'delighted' more often. At ten, a woman in a grey coat arrived carrying a small black notebook. She asked for a room overlooking the car park. Mr Pritchard welcomed her personally and assured her that the view was considerably more interesting than it appeared.

The hotel straightened itself around her. Cushions stood at attention on the lounge chairs; curtains were dragged into obedient folds. Mr Pritchard moved through the lobby with the brisk, shining smile of a man carrying a tray too full to put down. Behind him, the receptionist wrestled a vase of roses into place. One long stem reached across the desk and rang the polished bell.

The woman wrote something in her notebook. Mr Pritchard immediately offered tea. She declined and asked whether the back staircase was open. He explained that guests generally preferred the front staircase, which had recently been carpeted. She said she would prefer the back. He accompanied her as far as the service corridor, talking continuously about improvements. At the end of the corridor, a cleaner was trying to lift a bucket with a broken handle.

The woman stopped and took one side of the bucket. Together they moved it clear of the stairs. Mr Pritchard said that replacement equipment had already been discussed. The cleaner looked at him. The woman asked where the manager's office was. Mr Pritchard opened his mouth to explain that he was the manager, but she was already showing him the name written at the top of her notebook. She had come to inspect a leaking pipe for the building's owner.

For a moment, nobody moved. Then the receptionist appeared with a message: the hotel inspector had arrived the previous evening and had checked out after breakfast. He had left a report. Mr Pritchard took the envelope. Behind him, the cleaner set the broken bucket on the office desk. Water began to spread towards the flowers on the invoice. 'We have discussed it,' she said, and went back to work.”

Refer only to the second paragraph. Analyse how the writer uses language to present the hotel’s exaggerated efforts to impress. Support your ideas with quotations from that paragraph. You could consider words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.