3 on file
Three names, and a colour that changes with every room. Luna's is the deepest, a dark auburn that shows its red outdoors at night. Lea's falls in long auburn waves. Patricia's is auburn brown, near chestnut indoors and plainly red in sun.
A page this short is read in a minute, so it is written to be exact. Heights, eyes and home districts below are as Octavia noted them when she met each woman.
Membership follows the facts in each file, nothing looser. Every companion here travels to hotels and residences across central London.
161 cm, petite, hazel eyed, living in Belgravia. She studies interior design seriously enough to date a sash window at a glance, spends Saturdays at a potter's wheel and gives most of what she makes away. Given the choice, she wants a new play in a small theatre, a drink at the interval and a lively supper afterwards. Her jewellery is handmade and a little irregular, which is exactly why she chose it.
171 cm, curvy, brown eyed, and a resident of Mayfair. Luna plans the evening herself and has normally bought the tickets before you have finished writing. A film camera travels everywhere with her. She tastes wine blind with friends, keeps the score in a ledger and accepts defeat with good grace.
172 cm, slim, brown eyed, living in Belgravia. Watercolour is her discipline, practised at a table by her window each morning; film noir is the indulgence she saves for wet Sundays. She reads secondhand crime novels and speaks softly enough that a table leans in.
Their evenings trace a neat triangle. Lea's ends at The Wolseley on Piccadilly, under the high arches, once the play is over. Luna's centres on the Theatre Royal Haymarket, with a late table in St James's for the debate about the final scene. Patricia's starts at the Mall Galleries near Admiralty Arch and continues, weather permitting, up The Mall beneath the plane trees towards Green Park.
No colour gives a photographer more trouble than red. Daylight, a flash and a hotel corridor each report it differently. Octavia set all three women beside their portraits before any were published, as the photo policy describes, and a portrait was kept only where it agreed with her in person.
Lea is also petite. Luna is curvaceous. Patricia is both statuesque and slim and slender. By decade, Patricia is in her late twenties, Lea and Luna in their early twenties.
For a play, Luna or Lea, and Luna if you would like the tickets handled. For pictures and a quiet table, Patricia. For a guest who enjoys being told where the evening is going, Luna again. For one who would rather be asked, and listened to, Patricia. Lea sits cheerfully between the two and will change the plan only if the new one is better.
Octavia prefers the day before for these three, because three diaries fill faster than fifteen. Each begins at £600 for the hour. An evening with a performance in it fits the luxury dinner well, four hours at £1,800 with room for the curtain and a table afterwards. Everything else sits on rates, and Octavia answers through booking, day or night.
Mention the companion who caught your eye, or describe the evening instead. Octavia knows who is free tonight and who suits a long table.
