Stacy, companion in Sloane Square

About Stacy

Stacy measures 176 cm and is slim with it, which makes her the longest line in any room she walks into. Her hair is a near black brown, long and heavy, and her eyes are brown and quick. She dresses young and sharp: something narrow and dark, a good coat worn open, flat shoes because at that height she has nothing to prove. She stands with her weight on one hip and she does not fidget.

At twenty two she is much sharper than she lets on in the first half hour. Her English is fast and precise, particularly when she disagrees, which is often and always in good faith. Theatre is her subject, not as decoration but as an argument she wants to have, and she will take a play apart over dinner with real enthusiasm and no reverence at all.

Which is why her Sloane Square evening is built around the Royal Court Theatre, on the corner of the square, where she takes the stalls and reads the programme properly before the lights go down. Chelsea is home, so she arrives early and knows where to wait. Dinner comes afterwards, somewhere on the King's Road end that is still serving, and the first twenty minutes of it are entirely about what the second act got wrong, a verdict she will have reached well before the curtain call.

The theatre end of Sloane Square has a page to itself, and the lengths appear under rates. Give booking a date and the hour is fixed around the curtain.

• Slim at 176 cm, long near black brown hair
• Brown eyes, quick, and a fast precise delivery
• Twenty two; sharper than the first half hour suggests
• Chelsea based, two minutes from the square
• Stalls seats, late dinner, and the argument after

Arranging her evening

Stacy's evenings run around the curtain, so Delphine will want the date first and will confirm the hour once the programme is checked. Four hours covers the play, the walk and a proper dinner after it.

Her figures are the house figures, set out in full on the rates page, and the whole arrangement runs in one written exchange from the first line to the confirmation.

An evening with Stacy

She will have read about the play and she will not tell you what she read, because she would rather hear what you thought first. Stacy sits very still through a performance and says nothing at the interval beyond asking whether you want a drink. The opinions are being assembled, and they arrive all at once when the doors close behind you.

Dinner is the best part. She argues properly, concedes when she is wrong, and is entirely delighted when somebody changes her mind. By the second hour the theatre has been left behind and the conversation has gone somewhere far more personal. The walk back across the square at midnight is short. Anything after it is your decision, made without any prompting from her.