Client tables and black tie: a companion who has read the brief

Four or five lines. Who else is at the table, what they believe you do, what you would rather not discuss, the dress, and the hour it genuinely ends rather than the hour printed on the invitation. That is enough. She reads it before she leaves and does not need it repeated at the door. If there is a name she should use for you, put it in the brief. Maude keeps the whole thing to herself and it goes afterwards, exactly as privacy sets out.

You do, and be specific. Black tie is easy. Business formal in the City in February is not the same garment as business formal at a summer reception on a terrace. If the invitation says something vague, forward the wording. Every woman on this board owns the clothes for a City room, and several of them work Bank and Monument more often than they work E14, so the register is familiar rather than researched.

These run longer than anyone plans for. Book the four hour rung at £900 if the invitation says seven and nobody has mentioned speeches, because there are always speeches. Extending on the night is possible when her diary allows it, at the same rungs rather than at some surcharge, but it cannot be guaranteed at eleven o'clock. Every figure is on rates and none of them moves because the room is smart.

The invitation says seven for half past. She meets you at ten to seven outside the venue, never inside it, so you come through the door side by side and nobody holding the guest list has to reconcile two separate names. The reception runs until half past seven and is the hardest forty minutes of the evening. That is where the brief earns its keep: she already knows which guest has just moved firms and which subject to leave alone.

Dinner and the speeches fill the next two and a half hours. At ten the room breaks up and the table drifts towards the bar, and the four hour rung ends a little before eleven. She says goodnight on the pavement outside rather than in a crush by the cloakroom, and if you are staying on for a last drink with the client, nobody at the bar needs telling why she has gone.

Samanta reads contracts for pleasure and boxes at six; tell Maude there are clients and the register is set accordingly. Margo is always five minutes early and has never once been rattled. Michelle is the name to book when the number at the table is large. Liana has an unsentimental view of the Bank junction and six floors of practice above it. Tiffany is on a terrace above EC3 at six while the rest of the square mile is still finishing. If none of those fits, start on the desk.

Two days is comfortable, a week is better, and the same evening is possible but narrows the board to whoever is free. What goes wrong without notice is always the same thing: the brief arrives an hour before the taxi and there is no time left to fix the one detail that mattered. Send the invitation wording early, even while the rest is unsettled. The steps are on booking, and the figure goes to her in person when she arrives, at exactly what was written.