Between the floors

An original literary non-fiction-style account of using the lift in a hotel during a family celebration.

On our first evening at the hotel, I kept finding reasons to use the stairs. The lift had a mirrored wall, and I disliked watching myself wait beside people who seemed to know exactly where they were going. My family had gathered for my sister's wedding. Everyone appeared to have a room number, a task and a better suit than mine.

The following morning, I entered the lift carrying a large cardboard box of table decorations. A man in a suit held the door. I thanked him as if he worked there. He said that he was the bridegroom's uncle and asked whether he could carry the box. I refused before realising that he was trying to see the buttons behind it.

We stopped at the next floor. A woman wearing slippers came in with an ironing board. She apologised for taking up so much room. The man moved his polished shoes beneath the end of the board and asked whether she had managed to find an iron. She said she had, but the trousers were still upstairs. All three of us began laughing.

At the ground floor, I tried to turn the box without touching the ironing board. The man took one end while I held the other. In the corridor, he asked where the decorations were going. I discovered that he was expected in the same room to fold the place cards. We carried the box there together.

Later, dressed for the ceremony, I used the lift again. The mirror still showed a suit I had bought in a hurry. It also showed a crease in the uncle's sleeve and a small piece of ribbon caught on my shoulder. He removed the ribbon before the doors opened. I no longer felt that the reflection was an inspection I had failed.

Explain how the lift encounters change the narrator's feelings about the wedding gathering.