Raven hair: six names, read by the entrance each one makes
Six women who share a colour and remarkably little else. Black worn long, from a sharp straight cut to a fall that reaches the waist, over heights between 168 cm and 178 cm and tempers running from dry to direct.
The desk knows them by their entrances, which is the part a lobby actually notices: the minute she arrives, the pace she crosses at, whether she speaks first or waits. The figures behind all six are identical, £250 for sixty minutes and £1,800 through to breakfast, set out in full on the rail.
Cast as Raven haired
Plain facts, checked in person, never a guess. Every badge opens her pass, where the same details sit beside her rail and her photo call.
The entrance that lands on the minute
Karolina lives three minutes from Bow Street and has the season's opera dates written down before the posters go up. At 174 cm she stands very straight, slim, the black hair cut in a sharp line just past the shoulder, and her wit arrives a second after you expected it. The evening usually runs four hours, £900, with a drink first, the performance, then supper once the auditorium has emptied. Opera nights want a few days of warning.
The entrance made after the second set
Angelika is 172 cm with shoulders built by three tennis mornings a week, her black hair worn dead straight, her manner dry more often than chatty. Seven onwards is her window and she would take the later performance over the early one every time. £500 covers two hours: a drink, a full set in a basement room and the walk back after it.
The entrance that already has a plan
Milena is 175 cm and tall enough that a room rearranges itself slightly when she crosses it. She means what she says, finds hedging tiresome, and a late request troubles her less than it troubles most of the board. Ceramics, tennis and coffee taken standing up. A night through to morning is £1,800 and is the booking she enjoys most.
The entrance made in a low voice
Danielle dresses almost entirely in dark colours, pauses before she answers, and has a real appetite for films that predate everybody at the table. Heavy straight black hair, 170 cm, late twenties, and a speaking voice that carries without ever being raised. Dinner and a late screening fit inside three hours, £700, and leave enough over for the disagreement on the walk home.
The entrance that arrives off the coast road
Roxi boxes three mornings a week and vanishes on surf trips that take whole weeks out of the diary. Black hair to the waist, 168 cm, strong through the shoulders, and not remotely interested in being mysterious about any of it. Two hours at £500 covers a yard and a walk beside the water. Check her page for the day she lands before you plan around her.
The tallest entrance on the sheet
Violetta is 178 cm, sleek black hair worn straight, brown eyes that give away nothing until she has decided otherwise, and the driest line in whichever room she is standing in. Thirty, precise, quiet, a swimmer at an unreasonable hour, and a collector of small comedy rooms and second hand bookshops. Dinner and whatever it becomes afterwards fills three hours at £700.
One colour, six ways of wearing it
Two wear it poker straight, one cut sharp, one heavy, one to the waist and one sleek, and the note records nothing beyond that. Four of the six also sit on statuesque, two on curvaceous and two more on slim and slender. If the darker end is the range you are reading for, brunettes runs alongside it with fifteen names on it.
Holding a late one
Four of these six are at their best after ten, so a message at nine for the same night is ordinary here rather than awkward. Name her, the address, the hour. The booking name and the room number go once into the same thread, and the night is written in ink. An evening that runs on after the last curtain is what this note carries best, and around Leicester Square it is the commonest booking on the board.
Cast another way
Call the stage door
One message names the evening you want and the desk answers inside a quarter of an hour, at any point on the clock. Tell us the day, the hour, how long you would like and where she should come, and the rest is written down for you.
Running order
- Half hour
- Beginners
- YouCurtain up
- Interval
- Final bow