Lea, companion in Muswell Hill

About Lea

Auburn hair, wavy and long, is what people notice first about Lea, and her hazel eyes are what they mention second. She is 161 cm and petite, built on a small scale and entirely unbothered by it, and she has the trick of looking put together in clothes that are really quite simple: a good dress, a coat whose collar goes up against the wind, boots that have walked a hill before. At twenty three she is old fashioned about evenings, preferring one long one to three short ones, and she tends to say so while you are still asking.

Her company is bright and a little teasing, and she is far better at remembering names than anybody needs to be. One language, English, quick when she is happy and slow when she is thinking. She likes weather, which sounds like a joke until you have stood with her at the top of the hill watching a front come in across the whole southern half of London. She is also, by her own admission, incapable of walking past a good view without stopping in the middle of a sentence.

Alexandra Palace is where a Muswell Hill evening of hers begins, up on its ridge with the transmitter behind it and the city laid out in front, a stiff eighteen minute walk from the station of the same name. She comes from Belgravia, and she is honest about the journey: the Victoria line to Finsbury Park and the W7 bus up the hill is the best part of an hour, and a car on a Friday is not much faster. Muswell Hill has no tube of its own and never has had, so she builds an evening that does not depend on one.

The buses, the Broadway and the park are set out on the Muswell Hill page, and it is worth reading before you settle on an hour. Ask the desk for a date and Lea gives the true travel time rather than the flattering one, because nothing comes quickly up this hill.

Asking for her

Lea asks for a few hours of notice rather than a few minutes, because the hill is genuinely far from the middle of town. Her natural booking is the longer evening: three hours at £700 or the dinner date at £900.

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 Lea

A clear evening in March, meeting at six while there is still something to see. Lea walks up to the terrace at Alexandra Palace first, points out the four or five things worth knowing on the skyline, and gets at least one of them slightly wrong with total confidence. It is cold up there and she has dressed for it.

Down on the Broadway the pace changes completely. This is a neighbourhood that eats early and talks late, and by nine you can have a whole corner of a restaurant to yourselves. She is good at the part of the evening where nobody is performing any more. Getting home from here takes planning, and she will have done it before you ask.