The novel begins with the image of Henry Miles moving across the Common on a wet January night in 1946. “I hated Henry,” the narrator Maurice Bendrix confesses, “I hated his wife Sarah too” (4). Maurice has been to the local pub, and while walking home, he realizes that he took the wrong umbrella. As he crosses toward the “wrong—the south—side of the Common” (4) where he lives, he sees Henry. Bendrix wonders whether he should ignore Henry before reluctantly saying hello.

They share a stilted conversation, during which Bendrix makes a point of asking about Sarah, even though “any suffering she underwent would lighten” (5) his mood. Bendrix wishes that Sarah was dead, though his narration reveals a jealousy about her. A year-and-a-half has passed since Bendrix last saw Henry, he admits as they enter a pub. Bendrix first went out with Sarah with the intention of “picking the brain of a civil servant’s wife” (5), as he intended to write a novel about such a character. The two began an affair, even though Sarah remains deeply loyal to Henry.

The men sit in the pub and drink rum while they talk.