Roxi, companion in Muswell Hill

About Roxi

Long black hair and a steady brown gaze give Roxi a stillness that takes people a while to place. Curvy and 168 cm, she dresses with a fondness for the last century: a belted coat, a dress with a proper waist, red lipstick she reapplies without a mirror. At twenty three she is the youngest of the women working this hill and the one most likely to have picked the evening's film herself. Her style is deliberate rather than expensive, which is a distinction she enjoys making.

She is dry, watchful, and a good deal warmer once she has taken your measure, which does not take long. She has English and stops there, using it with an economy that makes people lean in. Film is what she cares about, the older and stranger the better, and she can talk about a picture for an hour without spoiling one thing in it. She hates talking over a soundtrack and will not do it.

Her Muswell Hill evening is built around the Everyman on Fortis Green Road, an art deco cinema from the nineteen thirties in the middle of the Broadway with a ceiling worth the ticket on its own. She comes up from Pimlico, and she is straight about it: the Victoria line to Finsbury Park and a bus up the hill is an hour, a car after six is not much better, and there is no station on the Broadway at all. Afterwards the restaurants along Fortis Green Road are quiet by ten, which she considers a feature rather than a failure.

Listings on the Broadway change on a Friday and she keeps an eye on them, so a note to the evening desk asking what is showing usually comes back with a start time attached. Dates open again at the end of the month; the bus, the cinema and the walk are described on the Muswell Hill page.

Asking for her

Roxi asks for the evening to be arranged earlier in the day, because the hill is a real journey from the middle of town. Three hours at £700 covers a film and a table afterwards without anybody hurrying.

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 Roxi

A quarter to seven, the Broadway busy with people finishing their day rather than starting a night, which is the character of the place. Roxi will have looked at the listings properly and chosen something she can defend. She buys the tickets and does not consult you on the seats, which is either charming or a warning.

Silence through the film, then forty minutes of argument about it over dinner somewhere ten doors down. She is good at this. By half ten the Broadway has gone quiet and the taxi situation needs thinking about, so she thinks about it before the credits roll rather than after. She would rather plan the way home early than have it hanging over the second half of the evening.