The travel companion: a timetable rather than an hour

An airport evening carries a three hour minimum with the travelling counted inside it. That is not a surcharge; it is an acknowledgement that a car to Heathrow and back eats most of an evening whatever happens at the other end of it. The figure comes back as one total rather than a set of parts.

Times are given as times. If the desk says she will be at the terminal at ten past six, she will be, and if the hour you have asked for is not realistic you will be told that instead of being reassured.

Longer journeys are written out against the dates you give rather than read off a sheet, because no printed figure would be honest about a week. Describe the trip in a few lines, including how many of the hours are genuinely yours and how many are meetings you will be at alone, and the answer comes back in writing with everything named.

For anything of that size the desk wants a day or two at the very least, and more if flights are involved. A diary has to be emptied rather than rearranged, and she will want to know what she is packing for.

Milena travels whenever a week opens up and keeps the sort of photographs on her phone that make other people book flights. Violetta is formal on arrival and extremely dry by the second hour, which is the correct order for a long journey. Margo rides at weekends, reads two newspapers a day and is the most composed person at any table, including a hotel breakfast table in a city neither of you knows.

Vanessa is quick to decide and comfortable with a late change of plan. Thea is gentle company and good fabrics and no need to try hard, which after a nine hour day in transit turns out to be worth a great deal.

Most of these journeys begin in Central London or in Westminster, at a station, a hotel lobby or a private address, and the first leg is the only part with a London arrival time attached to it. From there the timetable takes over.

She comes to you rather than meeting you at a gate, unless a gate is genuinely the sensible place, in which case the desk will say which side of security she will be standing on. Nothing about the meeting is left to chance or to a phone signal in a car park.

The dates and the hours. The fare beyond Zone 2, both directions, in whole pounds. Whether she is travelling separately or beside you. Where she is staying, if it is not with you. All of that is in the thread before anything is booked, and none of it changes afterwards.

Her fee is handed to her in person as it is on every other page here, at the start of the engagement rather than the end of it. Rates prints the ladder, booking sets out the exchange, and On The Books says who is used to being away from London.