Evenings two people arrange together

What is arranged, stated once and plainly

Two adults booking a companion's time and company together. Dinner, conversation, a walk, a drink afterwards. The fee buys her hours and nothing else, the same as it does on every other page here, and the fact that there are two of you at the table does not alter that in any direction. Nothing further is offered, implied or available at any length or any figure.

This is written out because the commission is the one most often misread. Guests who are asking for something else are told in the first reply that they have the wrong house, and are told it without rudeness.

Both guests, both talking

The evenings that work are the ones where she is company for both of you. The ones that do not are where one guest has arranged it and the other arrives unaware, which is obvious across a table within five minutes and is uncomfortable for all three. If only one of you has read this page, the honest thing is to show it to the other before writing.

She will do the work of including whoever is quieter, which is most of the skill involved. Several of the women here are noticeably good at it.

The shape of the evening

Almost always a table. A drink first at the hotel if you are staying centrally, then dinner somewhere with enough room for three to talk without leaning, then the walk or the taxi back and an hour of it somewhere quieter. Two hours is possible and rarely enough; four is what most couples settle on once they have done it once.

Four who are good with two guests

Lea is better in a room of six than a room of sixty and is quietly excellent at including the quieter person. Patricia is calm on a difficult evening and has no interest in drama of any kind. Liana asks about other people's work and means it, which keeps a table of three from circling. Thea asks, gently and at about the second hour, the question the conversation has been avoiding. Two of them are on the auburn drawer, which is the smallest one in the cabinet.

What Tamsin needs from the two of you

Both first names, so that she can greet you both properly at the door. Whether you are in a hotel or at home, since a couple's own house is an ordinary address here. What the evening is for, in a line: an anniversary, a few days in London, a table that has been two for too long. And anything either of you would rather not discuss, which is more useful than it sounds and goes no further than the booking.

Districts that suit three at a table

Belgravia and Marylebone are named above because the restaurants are small and the tables round, and nobody ends up at the corner. Kensington suits couples who have rented a flat for the week. Chelsea suits an afternoon that runs into an early dinner, which is a good first version of this for two people who have not booked it before.

Writing it

Both names, the date, the hours, the address and one line about what the evening is for. Tamsin replies with a companion's name, an arrival time and a figure, and asks the woman before anything is held. The fee is handed to her in person as she arrives, and it is one fee for one companion however many of you are at the table. Booking sets out the steps and the rates page the ladder.