Tina, companion in Bank and Monument

About Tina

Tina fits more into an evening than people twice her size. She is athletic and 158 cm, her espresso brown hair long, her brown eyes moving quickly around a room before settling firmly on you. She dresses smartly and simply, a fitted dress, a short coat, heels she wears because she likes them rather than because she needs them. In her mid twenties, she is brisk in the best sense: she arrives ready, she knows where she is going, and she has never once been late.

Her English runs fast and warm, and she asks questions better than most people answer them. She trains most mornings, runs the bridges at the weekend, and has a completely undisguised love of the City, its alleys, its churches and the fact that it goes silent at half past seven. She is cheerful company after a day of being entirely serious, and she has the knack of pulling somebody out of a bad mood without ever mentioning that she is doing it.

Her Bank evening starts in the courtyard at the Royal Exchange, under the arcades, where you can sit with a glass and watch the last of the office crowd go home. When the courtyard closes she walks you through the alleys behind Cornhill, past the churchyards, to a table near Monument. Her home is Covent Garden, and the Central line drops her at Bank twelve minutes later, so an early start is no trouble and a late finish is none either.

Alleys, churchyards and a short list of hotels make up the Bank and Monument page. An hour and a date to booking is all this takes, and the reply says where to find her.

Booking her

Tina is comfortable starting at six, straight from the office hour, which suits a guest whose day has been one meeting after another. The date and the hotel are all Cordelia needs, and her confirmation arrives in writing with the meeting point set.

Her figures are the same figures every companion here works to, printed on the rates page, and the order a booking runs in is on the booking page.

An evening with Tina

Six o'clock under the arcades, when the courtyard is still full of people finishing their week and nobody is paying either of you any attention. One drink there, and she will have found out more about your day in ten minutes than most people manage in an hour.

Then the alleys. She takes the route behind Cornhill deliberately, past two churchyards and a passage barely wide enough for both of you, and comes out near Monument for dinner. The City has gone silent by then, which she considers the whole point of eating here. Afterwards, the bridge if the night is dry, or straight back to your hotel, and she is equally happy with either. She knows which of the two churchyards has a bench worth five minutes of sitting on, and she will stop there when you are in no hurry.