Laura, companion in Finsbury Park

About Laura

Sun lifted light brown hair, long and never quite behaving, and green eyes that make up their mind about you quickly: Laura is easy to pick out of a crowded concourse. Athletic and 169 cm, she sets a walking pace that other people end up matching rather than the reverse. Her clothes are practical before they are pretty, which in her case ends up being both: a well cut coat, a dress that travels, trainers in the bag for the last stretch home. At twenty five she has the useful confidence of somebody who has never been late for anything in her life.

She is quick, funny and a little competitive, and she gives you the honest verdict on a restaurant rather than the polite one. Her one language is English and she talks at the pace of somebody enjoying herself, though she slows down properly when the conversation turns serious. She runs, which is how she knows the park better than most people who live beside it, and she has strong opinions about which gate you should come in by.

A Finsbury Park evening of hers usually starts at the Park Theatre on Clifton Terrace, thirty seconds from the station barriers, which is the shortest walk to a curtain anywhere in north London. She comes across from Paddington, and this is the one journey she never complains about: the Piccadilly line runs straight into Finsbury Park and the Victoria line waits on the other side of the same platform. Afterwards there is the whole length of Green Lanes going north, where the grills stay open long past the point at which the rest of the city has given up.

She is the one to ask for when the clock is tight. Tell the evening desk which train you are on, or what time the table is held, and Laura will meet that hour exactly; the Finsbury Park page shows how little walking there is at this end.

Asking for her

Laura is the easiest companion on this list to arrange at short notice, because two lines and a mainline platform all meet where she works. An hour at £250 suits an arrival; an evening out wants three.

Every figure she works to is already public on the board, and the order of the evening is set out on the booking page.

An evening with Laura

Quarter past seven, curtain at half, and she is by the barriers rather than inside because the foyer at the Park Theatre is the size of a living room. The plays there are often new and occasionally difficult, which she considers a feature. She will not tell you anything about the plot beforehand, on principle.

Out by half nine, and the choice is a short one: south towards the quieter streets or north up Green Lanes to a grill with the bread still coming out of the oven at eleven. She recommends the second and orders more than two people need. The night buses along here run properly, and on a Friday the tube keeps going, which she points out with some satisfaction.