Thea, companion in Regent's Park

About Thea

Caramel blonde and green eyed, Thea has the colouring people describe as warm and the manner to match it. Curvy and 165 cm, she dresses with an old fashioned regard for the occasion: something that moves when she walks, a jacket rather than a coat in summer, a scent she has worn for years and has no intention of changing. At twenty nine her taste has settled completely, and the result looks effortless in the way that only a decided woman ever does.

She is generous company, easy to talk to, and she actually wants to know what your week has been like. One language, English, delivered softly and without hurry, that slows an evening down in the best way. Gardens are her weakness: she knows the names of things, notices what has just come out, and will stop mid sentence to point at a border. She is also completely unsnobbish about food, which makes planning a night with her easy.

Her Regent's Park evening starts inside Queen Mary's Gardens on the Inner Circle, where something like twelve thousand roses come out in June and the whole place smells absurd for about three weeks. She comes across from South Kensington on the Circle line to Great Portland Street, twenty minutes and no changes, which she says is the most civilised commute in London. Afterwards the park gates close at dusk and the terraces on the outer edge take over, and she is happy to finish an evening on one of them with the trees going dark behind the railings.

Something in those gardens is always opening or just going over, and she will say which if you ask. The Regent's Park page has the Inner Circle, the terraces and somewhere to eat once the gates shut; one night sent to the evening desk is enough to start.

Asking for her

Thea likes a start with daylight left in it so the gardens are part of the evening rather than an idea about it. Three hours at £700 is her usual, or the dinner date at £900 when the roses are out.

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 Thea

Half six in late June, the gardens still open and the light doing something ridiculous to the beds. Thea walks the Inner Circle first and names about a dozen roses, then admits she is guessing at the rest. There is a bench she likes near the water, and she will sit on it for twenty minutes without needing to talk.

When the gates go the evening moves outwards to the terraces, where a table on the park side is worth asking for. She is at her best at this hour: settled, warm, interested. Later the Outer Circle is more or less empty, and the walk round part of it towards Marylebone or Baker Street takes twenty minutes and finishes a night far better than a taxi does.