Client dinners, openings and the rooms in between

What she will be, in the room

Somebody you are having dinner with. That is the whole of the presentation and it requires no story, because a story is the thing that goes wrong. She will not volunteer what she does, she answers a direct question briefly and without embarrassment, and she is practised at turning a conversation back towards whoever asked it, which nearly everybody prefers anyway.

She is on your side of the room without being attached to your elbow. If you need twenty minutes with somebody, say so beforehand and she will be somewhere else, pleasantly, for exactly twenty minutes.

Briefing her properly

Tell Tamsin the kind of room, the dress, the hour it starts and the hour you want to be out of it. Say if there is a name you would rather she did not sit next to, and say if there is a subject that is not to be raised. Two lines of brief make a considerable difference. A companion who knows that the evening is a difficult client rather than a celebration behaves entirely differently, and better.

Leaving, which is the difficult part

Most of these evenings go wrong at the end rather than the beginning, because nobody decided in advance what time it finished. Name an hour when you write and she will begin the business of leaving twenty minutes before it, quietly, without announcing to the room that anybody is going anywhere. If the evening is going well and you would rather stay, ask her at the time and she will say honestly whether the night allows it; extra hours are agreed at the ladder rate before they run.

If it is going badly, the same applies in reverse. A companion who has been told that the evening may end early will end it gracefully, and there is no reduction in the figure for hours you chose not to use, which is stated here so that nobody has to raise it in a doorway.

Photographs, and the answer to them

No companion here is photographed at an event, by a guest or by anybody else, and she will decline a camera politely and without making a scene of it. If the evening is one where a photographer is working the room, say so when you write, because some of the women will not take it and it is fairer to know that at the start. The house's position on images is set out on the photo policy.

Four who do this without effort

Margo is thirty-one, exact, and the calmest person in most difficult rooms. Samanta arrives at the agreed minute and looks expensive in the plainest clothes present. Liana is generous about other people's work, which makes her unusually easy company for anyone tired of being asked what they do. Violetta is comfortable with events that require standing about politely and says so herself. All four also read well under slim and slender.

Which rooms, and where

Mayfair and Grosvenor Square hold most of the dining rooms these evenings are booked into. St James's holds the galleries and the older rooms where a private view becomes a late supper for twelve. Marylebone is the answer for a smaller dinner that ought not to look like a business one. The women below know the doors in all four and dress to whichever you name.

Arranging one

A day or two of notice, because these are rarely last minute anyway. Give the date, the hours, the address and the dress. The reply names a woman, an arrival time and the figure, and holds nothing until you agree. Her fee is handed over in person before you leave for the room, in the sum confirmed, and is never a matter for anyone else that evening. Booking has the sequence.