When Lydia sees Simon late at night driving down Westbourne Grove her suspicions are aroused. Simon, a TV film director, lives in Hammersmith with his wife Flora and their three children, what need has he for the dubious attractions of Bayswater? The attraction is Gillian, an accountant, whom Simon met at a dinner party while Flora and the children were away in la douce France. Flora struggles with her re-found Christian faith, though Anglican now rather than Roman Catholic, as Simon falls into a hopelessly passionate and sexual affair that brings its own burden and guilt.
The smart world of middle-class West London is depicted with savage wit and a needle-sharp intelligence that will remind readers of the novels of Muriel Spark.
Madeleine St John was born in Sydney and graduated from the University there in 1963. She has spent most of the intervening years living in London. This is the author’s second novel, her first being Women in Black.