Vanessa, companion in Bethnal Green

About Vanessa

Wadeson Street is an alley with a restaurant at the end of it and nothing else worth mentioning, and Vanessa thinks that is the most promising thing a street can be. Slim, 173 cm, sandy brown hair worn long and lifted with balayage, eyes hazel. She stands very straight and blames a decade of being told to. Clean lines in what she wears, a simple dress, a coat with structure, one good heel.

Mid twenties, fluent English, and observant in a way you only notice later. Vanessa will remember the name of the waiter and what you said about your brother. She paints on Sundays, keeps a flat with almost nothing in it on purpose, and has a low, level laugh that arrives late and is worth waiting for. She is calm company for anyone who has had a long week and no interest in performing through an evening.

Bistrotheque at the end of the alley is her place: a white room up a flight of stairs in an old factory, a piano going in the bar and no sign on the door to tell you any of it is there. Afterwards it is a ten minute walk to Cambridge Heath or four minutes to the Bethnal Green platforms. She lives near Paddington and is realistic about the distance, thirty five minutes on the Central line, longer by road on a Friday.

Bethnal Green sits a single Central line stop out from the City, full of rooms you would never find by walking past. The rates page holds the figures. Give booking a day and a time and Nell confirms both in writing.

Booking her

The desk needs a time, a length and an address, and Nell will confirm all three in writing before Vanessa travels. Dinner here is worth booking two days out, since the good tables go early in the week.

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

An evening with Vanessa

The walk up the alley does half the work. There is no sign, no window display and nothing to suggest a white dining room at the top of the stairs, and the surprise of it puts people in a good mood before anyone has ordered.

Vanessa is unhurried at a table and good at the sort of conversation that goes somewhere unplanned. The piano in the bar covers the gaps so neither of you has to. Afterwards the streets around Cambridge Heath are old workshops and quiet conversions, dark by eleven and completely still, and the walk back towards the main road takes ten minutes. If you are staying at the hotel in the old town hall it is closer than that, and she will say so before you call for a car.