Three languages, a De Pijp address, and a habit of asking which of you has the earlier alarm before anything else gets fixed.

French, German and English, which is useful in a week where a couple have been working in one language and eating dinner in another. Twenty-six, and she opens with the practical question rather than the pleasant one: who is up first tomorrow. De Pijp is where she starts from, so a room in the centre is a short crossing, while a Schiphol hotel is arranged separately with the travelling time agreed with you before the hour is set. She prefers ninety minutes to an hour for two people, on the plain ground that an hour divided between two is not much of an hour each. What a session holds is hers to decide, stated plainly before it starts.

Claire decides which bookings she takes and may decline any of them; she sets the limits for what a session includes, says what they are, and may end a visit at any point, as the terms set out.