Karolina, companion in Bethnal Green

About Karolina

Columbia Road smells of cut stems on a Sunday and of very little the rest of the week, which is when Karolina prefers it. Tall and slim, 174 cm, with black hair worn long, straight and heavy, and brown eyes. She carries the height the way people do who stopped minding it years ago. Flat shoes, narrow trousers, a shirt with the sleeves pushed back: dressed for the walk rather than the photograph.

Late twenties, fluent English, direct in a way that saves everyone a great deal of time. Karolina asks what you actually want from the evening inside the first ten minutes and then builds it around the answer. She grows things on a balcony with mixed results, enjoys a long argument about films she has already decided are bad, and remembers what you said the last time.

Brawn on Columbia Road suits her exactly: bare tables, a wine list with opinions, a room that gets loud and then stops getting any louder. Ten minutes on foot takes you to the Hackney Road side; two stops underground puts you back in the City if that is where you sleep. She keeps a flat in Covent Garden and likes pointing out that Bethnal Green is one stop east of Liverpool Street, which puts it closer to her than half of zone one.

Bethnal Green is two minutes from a Central line platform that runs all night at weekends, so late finishes are easy here. Every figure is on rates. Name your hour through booking and Nell will hold it.

Booking her

The desk needs a start time, a length and an address, and Nell will confirm all three in writing. You settle with Karolina in person when she arrives at your door.

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

An evening with Karolina

She is the most efficient company in the book, and that is meant kindly. She arrives on the hour, knows the room she is taking you to, and has already worked out which of the two of you is doing the talking. The first hour is usually a bar on Hackney Road with a proper list and no music policy worth arguing with.

Dinner is long. She eats slowly and drinks less than you expect, and somewhere in the middle the conversation stops being polite and gets interesting. Afterwards there is the walk through the quieter streets, the E2 conversions with their lights on and their blinds up, which she reads like a catalogue. If you are at the hotel by the old town hall she is at your door in four minutes flat, and she will tell you the exact number, because she has counted.