The novel starts as two independent stories that initially are told in alternating chapters. The first is a passionate love affair set in Soho in London in the 1950s. The couple meet in Devon, over a garden fence, but the scene swiftly moves to the capital and Lexie, a young impressionable graduate, moves in with Innes, a self-confessed hedonist and a journalist. They live for several years in Hampstead, working together on a magazine …