Enigmatic Claire is 30 and lives alone. When she meets Martin Gibson, a faded scholar, she becomes inordinately interested. She is even more interested when she meets his wife, a far more spectacular personality. But the unexpected news of this woman's death releases emotions that were not entirely foreseen.

Into the rarefied atmosphere of the Hotel du Lac timidly walks Edith Hope, romantic novelist and holder of modest dreams. Edith has been exiled from home. But among the pampered women and minor nobility Edith finds Mr Neville, and her chance to escape from a life of humiliating spinsterhood is renewed.

The latecomers are Hartmann and Fibich, brought over to England as children to escape Nazi Germany, now living close to each other in London in their 60s, and still friends. Yet they could not be more different, each having adopted different strategies to reconcile themselves with their past and to cope with an uncertain world.

Paul Sturgis is retired and lives alone in South Kensington. He dines alone, taking pleasure in small exchanges with strangers. His only acquaintance is a widowed cousin whom he visits on Sundays. Unable to make sense of his solitary nature, and fearing death among strangers, he wonders whether at last he might be ready for companionship.

Elizabeth and Betsy, old school friends meet again in their thirties. Elizabeth is relieving the boredom of a cosy but childless marriage with an affair. Betsy seems to have found real romance in Paris. Are their lives taking off, or are they just making more wrong choices?