The novel opens with an open-air concert in London’s Regent Park in 1942, in the midst of WWII. The narrator first describes the attendees’ collective experience, then an interaction between Louie Lewis and an Englishman, later named as Harrison, who is antagonistic toward her. During the music, he thinks about a woman who had previously asked him to stay away from her; he nonetheless plans to go to her flat after the concert.

Louie thinks about feeling lonely and disoriented as her husband, Tom, is abroad with the Army, and her parents were killed in the Battle of Britain. She recalls spending that afternoon in a garden with a potential lover, a man in the Air Force. She lied about living with an elderly aunt when he asked her to go back to her flat, and he became angry at the sexual rejection.

Harrison leaves, and Louie follows him out, asking if he’s going home. He tells her he has a date, and that she should go home herself.