Britanny

In the margin

There is a stretch of the year when the sky over Oud-Zuid holds the same grey from breakfast until dark, and Britanny is fond of it. She works better in a room where the curtains can come across at four in the afternoon and the light turns into something chosen instead of something let in. Warm oil, warm hands, and a pace built on the assumption that there is nowhere else to be that day. French or English, neither of them hurried. At twenty-eight she asks for ninety minutes rather than sixty on days of that kind, and she gives the reason when she asks.

Britanny 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.