Bond Street, W1S: one street under two names, and the evening after

The street is trade at its quietest. Sotheby's keeps its saleroom on the New Bond Street stretch, and on a viewing morning the pavement fills with people carrying nothing at all. Jewellers hold most of the corners. Between them sit doors with a bell and no plate, which turn out to be showrooms, agents, and offices belonging to firms that would rather not be looked up.

Almost nothing here stays open late. Shutters come down, the windows stay lit, and the whole length becomes the quietest walk in W1S. Our guests appear at exactly that hour, when the buying is over and nobody has yet settled on what the night should be.

Five hotels stand within a short walk, and a companion knows each entrance without being told which door to use. Between this house and any of them there is nothing: no arrangement, no understanding, and none ever sought. Guests simply sleep in them.

The Westbury Mayfair, W1S 2YF, is closest, on the corner of Conduit Street. Brown's Hotel, W1S 4BP, lies three minutes west on Albemarle Street, straight through the arcade. Claridge's, W1K 4HR, sits five minutes north along Brook Street. The Beaumont, W1K 6TF, stands behind Grosvenor Square in a converted garage, and Hotel Café Royal, W1B 4DY, is some seven minutes east where Regent Street bends into Piccadilly Circus.

The station called Bond Street is 2 minutes off the top end, serving Central, Jubilee and Elizabeth line platforms, which makes this the fastest address in the quarter for a guest coming from the City or from Paddington. Oxford Circus, 5 minutes to the north east, brings in the Bakerloo and the Victoria. Down at the Piccadilly end, Green Park is 7 minutes south.

She comes by car in any weather. Travel inside the first two zones is already covered by the fee, and beyond that boundary the cost of the ride there and back is stated as a number while the hour is being agreed.

A date, an hour and an address are enough to open the matter. Staying in one of the hotels, you give the booking name plus a room number, and that closes it. For a flat over a shop she asks which number, which floor, and what is written by the bell. It is said once and written nowhere afterwards.

Most evenings a companion is with you inside sixty minutes. On a Thursday or a Friday in W1S an hour of notice is generous rather than usual, and a message sent that morning buys the widest choice. Her fee changes hands on the doorstep, and the topic never comes back.

Buyers up for a sale, who have been agreeable since breakfast and would like an evening with no lots in it. Directors of the firms above the shops. Guests at The Westbury who have walked the street twice already and want somewhere better to be. The request hardly varies: someone composed, dressed correctly for whichever room she is about to enter, and glad to discuss anything except the day's work.

Six o'clock. A guest at The Westbury writes for three hours from eight, a table close by, and a companion who can hold her own on nineteenth century drawing. Octavia proposes Samanta. It is settled by ten past six.

Eight o'clock. She arrives in navy, and they walk down through the Royal Arcade to a table on Albemarle Street. The drawings last through the first course and give way to a long argument about hotel staircases, on which she keeps an actual list. At eleven he walks her back to the Conduit Street corner. Three hours, £1,500, and a promise to send her a catalogue.

Angelika, Luna and Samanta are Mayfair residents, four minutes from this pavement. Angelika holds firm views on new painting and no patience for a slow room. Luna tends to know what the night is doing before she is asked. Samanta is the composed one, and the name to request when the table is formal.

Liana and Rosa come down from Marylebone, ten minutes north. Karolina and Nancy travel in from Covent Garden, Tiffany from Soho, and none of those journeys takes more than fifteen minutes in a car.

Southward, Old Bond Street runs into the avenue and its arcades. Albemarle Street is one block west through the Royal Arcade, with Dover Street a block beyond it. North and west lie Grosvenor Square and the wider streets of Mayfair. Each is served on the same terms, by the same women.