Auburn and red: three names, three opening moves
THE RAREST COLOURING THE HOUSE KEEPS. Three women in three distinct shades: true auburn worn in waves, a dark auburn that goes frankly red under bar light, and an auburn brown that only admits to warmth near a window. Nobody else on the guest list sits in this range.
Sorting three names statistically would be absurd, so the card is arranged by each one's opening move, the thing she reaches for first when an evening starts. The ladder behind them is the published one, £250 for an hour through to £1,800 for a night.
Auburn and red, tonight
Everyone listed under auburn and red, taken from her file rather than a guess. Open a card for rates and a message with her name.
Lea opens with the room itself
Lea is 161 cm, hazel eyed, auburn waves past the shoulder, and she notices what has been done to a room before she notices anybody in it. Interiors are her subject and a potter's wheel takes her weekends, so expect a verdict on the wallpaper of the boldly decorated lounge off Richmond Mews within a minute of sitting down. Then a curtain on Shaftesbury Avenue at half seven, an ice cream at the interval without fail, and supper afterwards. Midweek, ahead of a show, is when she is simplest to hold.
Luna opens with the list
Luna is 171 cm, dark auburn red, and entirely certain of herself at twenty two. She studies wine seriously, shoots on film and keeps up with everything that opens in the parish. At the wine led dining room on Greek Street the first bottle is decided before you arrive, the second is handed to you as a test, and the ordering becomes the entertainment. Monday to Thursday only. A play and a long dinner make the natural four hour booking at £900.
Patricia opens with a book
Patricia, 172 cm, is the calmest of the three. She paints in watercolour, knows film noir frame by frame and can lose an afternoon to secondhand shelves. The evening starts at the big shop on Charing Cross Road, where a novel you have never heard of is put into your hands with instructions to read the first page standing up. After that a late screening, or simply a lounge, a glass of red and a voice that drops after midnight. A day or two of notice suits her.
Choosing between three
A curtain and a running commentary on the set: Lea. A serious bottle and a firm opinion: Luna. A paperback and a quiet corner: Patricia. Where the evening has a ticket or a table in it, the four hour dinner date at £900 covers the whole shape of it, and where it does not, three hours at £700 is usually enough. Patricia needs the least planning of the three, and a message earlier the same day often does.
How the hours tend to fall
Bookings from this card follow a familiar rhythm. A drink where you are staying while it is still early. Something with a start time at half seven, a curtain, a table, or a gallery keeping late hours. Then the lanes of the West End at eleven, and a last glass upstairs.
Put her name first in the message, then the address, the hour and the length. Happy with either of the first two? Say so, and the reply tells you which of them the diary can actually give you.
The version with nothing booked
None of the three enjoys being hurried, and all three are better in the second hour than the first. If what you want is an evening with no tickets in it and no performance to it, warm rather than staged, the easy evening page explains how that is arranged. The figure does not change for the absence of a plan.
Where else the three appear
One of them carries the neat frame of petite, one the fuller figure of curvaceous, and one turns up on both slim and slender and statuesque, which tells you how little a colour card settles. Two sit in the early twenties band, one in the late twenties. For six names in black instead, open raven haired.
Auburn and red on the list
Choose a name above or ask the host who is free tonight.