Brunettes: fifteen names, arranged by the street they walk you down
THE LONGEST CARD IN THE HOUSE. Fifteen women, in shades running from sandy balayage through chestnut and chocolate down to a brown that reads black under a low lamp. A card this long is useless as a column of names, so it is laid out the way the parish is crossed: by the street each one heads for.
The streets are a head start, not a boundary. Every name here comes to any address in Zones 1 and 2 for the same figure, from £250 the hour.
Brunettes, tonight
Everyone listed under brunettes, taken from her file rather than a guess. Open a card for rates and a message with her name.
Bianka
Jasmin
Laura
Liana
Lucy
Margo
Michelle
Molly
Rosa
Samanta
Sonya
Stacy
Tiffany
Tina
Vanessa
Dean Street, both ends of the clock
Sonya holds the early end, five until ten, at the old dining room under the stained glass, before the room fills. She is 162 cm and hazel eyed, and a decade of ballet shows in how she stands. Stacy holds the late end, 176 cm and the tallest name on this card, in the basement comedy room halfway up the street, sitting near enough the front to be spoken to from the stage. A message at nine about a show at ten is welcome.
Frith Street and Greek Street
Lucy, 163 cm with long dark curls, takes the pavement stool at the coffee bar that has been open under the same neon for generations, a ristretto in front of her and the whole street going past. She runs at dawn and watches the sky above the rooftops. Liana, 167 cm and soft spoken, prefers the eight tables of the patisserie on Greek Street, then the slow way back through the square. Both keep weeknights in Soho.
Old Compton Street and Archer Street
Laura, 169 cm, green eyed, with a rider's posture, treats the narrow Italian counter as a ritual: coffee while it is light, negronis once it is not. Same day requests work from midday. Bianka, 165 cm with sun bleached ends, takes the marble counter facing the kitchen and orders small regional plates to share, moving upstairs if the room turns loud. Give her a day and the table is as good as held.
Berwick Street and Rupert Street
Rosa, 160 cm with chestnut curls, works the racks of the record shop that has outlasted everything around it and explains exactly why the sleeve in her hand matters. She bakes, so the bread basket is judged before the starters land. Sunday to Thursday are her days. Tina, 158 cm and the shortest name the house keeps, comes in from Covent Garden for something stirred in the grand room above Regent Street, near Piccadilly Circus, and talks tailoring until closing.
Kingly Court and Ham Yard
Molly, 164 cm with dark waves, begins at ten in the theatrical little bar in the courtyard off Carnaby, swing records playing, and regards the small hours as the point. Tiffany, 169 cm and a resident of the parish, opens with two glasses of grower champagne in the tree lined courtyard a minute from Piccadilly Circus and waits for the light to be worth photographing. Midweek is her most open stretch.
Romilly Street, Sherwood Street and north of Oxford Street
Margo, 166 cm, takes the chair facing the door in the champagne bar hidden inside the old townhouse rooms and asks better questions than she answers. Michelle, 173 cm, goes down to the mirrored art deco bar below Sherwood Street and holds settled views on how a classic is built. Vanessa, 173 cm, and Samanta, 174 cm, head north, Vanessa for a long dinner in a Fitzrovia dining room, Samanta for candlelight and a violin. Jasmin, 160 cm, lives here and starts after nine behind a door in Chinatown with no sign on it.
Three questions that cut fifteen to two
What hour does it begin? Sonya runs early, Molly and Jasmin run late. Is there a table in it? Bianka, Samanta and Vanessa are the dinner names, and a four hour Theatreland dinner date at £900 is built around exactly that shape of evening. Is anyone performing? Stacy for comedy, Margo for a room with a piano. Answer those three in one message and the host does the rest.
Crossing to other cards
Colour is only one way to cut this list. Several of the fifteen reappear on petite and four of the taller ones on statuesque, so if build matters more than shade, start there instead. For a colouring the house has only three of, open auburn and red, then send the door a name, an address and an hour.
Brunettes on the list
Choose a name above or ask the host who is free tonight.