Bianka, companion in Hoxton

About Bianka

Hoxton Square at seven is mostly people finishing work and pretending they are not. Bianka is already in the corner with her coat still on. Curvy, 165 cm, hair long and light brown going almost gold at the ends. Her eyes are hazel and turn green under a low lamp. Her clothes are soft and unfussy: a wrap dress, flat boots for the cobbles on Charlotte Road, a coat she can fold over a chair back without a second thought.

Early twenties, and an easy talker, which is a different thing entirely from a constant one. Bianka speaks English fluently and asks good, nosy questions, then listens properly to the answers. She cooks, badly and with real enthusiasm, and holds firm views on which market stall does the bread. She laughs at her own jokes about a beat ahead of everyone else and it is impossible to mind.

An evening here tends to start underground at Happiness Forgets on Hoxton Square, where the ceiling is low and nobody has to shout. What follows is open: a Vietnamese table up on Kingsland Road, or the ten minute walk south if you want more noise around you. She keeps a flat in Knightsbridge and counts the run east as part of the evening, not a chore, though she will tell you flatly that the Overground beats the road after seven.

Hoxton station is two minutes off the square, and at weekends the Windrush line runs all night, so nobody here ends up stranded. Nell answers booking herself: one message gets you an hour rather than a brochure.

Booking her

Tell the desk a start time and where you are and Nell comes back with a yes or a nearer hour, never a maybe. Bianka would rather take two hours than one, given the journey in.

Every figure she works to is public on the board, and the steps sit on the booking page.

An evening with Bianka

She likes a first drink somewhere small enough that the barman remembers the order. Hoxton Square after dark is a strange mix, gallery people and builders and a wedding party on the wrong side of the green, and Bianka will give you a running commentary on all three without being unkind about any of them.

Dinner is unhurried and usually northwards, Kingsland Road, a plastic tablecloth and a menu with ninety items on it. She will order for the table if nobody objects. By eleven the square has emptied out and the walk back down to Old Street takes eight minutes, which is exactly long enough for the good part of a story. If you are staying near Finsbury Square she will see you to the door and mean it when she says the evening went quickly.