Michelle, companion in Shoreditch

About Michelle

Arnold Circus has a bandstand, a ring of red brick and almost no passing traffic, and Michelle treats it as the middle of her Shoreditch rather than the edge. Curvy, 173 cm, dark brown hair long and worn straight, and brown eyes that stay level with yours. She dresses in a way that survives a night out and a walk home: a dark dress with a decent hem, a heavy coat, and shoes chosen after a good look at the forecast.

Late twenties, fluent English, and calm in a way that lowers the volume of a room by a couple of notches. Michelle is a listener by preference and very good at it, so people end up telling her things they had not meant to. She swims at the weekend, cooks for other people, and has a long standing complaint about what happened to Redchurch Street, delivered with more amusement than anger.

Her usual booking is dinner at Rochelle Canteen, in the old bike shed behind the school wall, when they are running evenings. A courtyard, plain plates, no music and no view of the street at all. Boundary Street is four minutes from the door and Liverpool Street nine, if you are heading back into the City. She is based in Chelsea and comes east by road, forty minutes at eight, and she books her return the same way.

Shoreditch has more hotel rooms than the rest of the east put together, and she knows the doors of most of them. The numbers are on rates. One message through booking and Nell comes back with the arrival time in writing.

Booking her

Nell wants three things: which hotel, which hour, and how long the evening runs. She sends back a written confirmation with the arrival time on it. You settle with Michelle herself, in person, when she arrives.

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

An evening with Michelle

She will steer you away from the strip without ever making a point of it. One drink somewhere with a door that shuts properly, then the courtyard for dinner, then the streets behind the estate where the noise from the main road arrives as a distant hum and the windows are all old glass.

The second half of an evening is where she does her real work. The first hour is polite and pleasant; the third is the one people book her again for. She has a way of asking about the thing you have been avoiding, once, and then leaving it entirely alone if you would rather. Back at the hotel she takes the armchair, not the edge of the bed, and the conversation carries on until somebody admits the time.