Raven hair: six names and six rooms after ten
BLACK, WORN LONG. Six women who share a colour and very little else. The tape runs from 168 cm to 178 cm, the tempers from dry and unhurried to quick and loud, and each of them has a particular room she steers towards once the polite part of the evening is finished.
The card is arranged by that room. Everything else stays where it is printed: £250 an hour, £500 for two, £900 for a four hour dinner date, £1,800 for a full night, weekends by quote.
Raven haired, tonight
Everyone listed under raven haired, taken from her file rather than a guess. Open a card for rates and a message with her name.
The jazz room on Frith Street
Angelika is 172 cm, athletic from years of tennis, her black hair dead straight, her attention disconcertingly complete. Her diary opens at seven, and by half past ten she has walked you round for the later set, choosing a table for what it does to the sound rather than the view. She does not talk through a solo, and she will not forgive you for doing it either. Two hours or more gives the music the room it needs.
The house with the largest stage
Karolina, 174 cm and slim, lives minutes from the theatre on St Martin's Lane and builds whole evenings around whatever is on it. A glass beforehand, the performance, then supper as the crowd thins along Charing Cross. She plays piano, looks properly at buildings and never once glances at a phone in company. A few days of notice lets the timings work.
The late screen off Leicester Square
Danielle does not really begin until the dinner crowd has gone. She is 170 cm, her hair long enough to be a decision rather than a length, and old films are the love of her life; the repertory cinema on Leicester Place is where she takes them. Poetry travels in her bag and occasionally comes out. Three hours at £700 leaves room for the film, the supper after it and the amble back through Leicester Square.
The booth with the button
Milena, 175 cm and glossy, wants the peacock and gold booth on Upper James Street where the wall button summons champagne. She presses it before her coat is off and orders for the table with complete decisiveness. Evenings and full nights both suit her: ten hours comes to £1,800, held with half sent ahead, the travel share of that half not refundable.
The counter on Rupert Street
Roxi, 168 cm, is the liveliest arrival on this card. She wants two stools at the zinc counter facing the open kitchen, a long run of small plates and whatever the chefs decide to play through the speakers, which she will sing along to. She boxes in the mornings and surfs cold water for fun. Two hours at £500 fits her, and her page shows when she is back from the coast.
The cellar off Piccadilly Circus
Violetta is the tallest name the house keeps at 178 cm, lacquer sleek and very dry indeed. She takes seats far enough back in the comedy cellar to stay out of the act, laughs a half second before the rest of the room and then keeps her own counsel over a late dinner. She swims every morning and will rank this year's comedians on request, at length.
Naming the room, not the outfit
A basement, a stage, a cinema, a booth, a counter and a cellar want six different things, and all six dress for wherever they are walking into. One line about the plan, and the dress code if the venue has one, is all the guidance anybody needs. Booking late is no different from booking early: the same three details are checked on WhatsApp, a quarter of the fee holds the evening, and no figure on the board rises after midnight. For a night that runs through bars and shows before it reaches a door, read night out and after hours.
Same colour, other cards
Four of these six are tall enough for statuesque and three carry the figure of curvaceous, which is the more useful pair of cards if height and build matter more to you than shade. By stage of life the six split across the early twenties band and the two above it. Warmer colouring sits on brunettes.
Raven haired on the list
Choose a name above or ask the host who is free tonight.