Penelope Keeling has recently had a heart attack. She discharges herself from the hospital because she feels that she can get more rest in her own home. Penelope knows that she should inform her children that she is home, but she cannot decide which one to contact. She knows that Nancy, her eldest, will be overly concerned and that Noel, her only son, will lack interest. Penelope decides to call her middle child, Olivia. She calls the magazine, Venus, where Olivia is an editor and demands to be put through to her office. Olivia is appropriately concerned but accepts her mother’s decision, asking only that she not strain herself by working in the garden. After hanging up the phone, Penelope reflects on her life and feels satisfied in what she has done and the fact that she is still living.

Nancy, Penelope’s eldest child, is a 43-year-old mother of two: Melanie and Rupert. Nancy, her husband, George, and her children live in a former vicarage that is old and large, making it difficult to maintain. Nancy laments that they do not have the money to heat the home properly even as they struggle to pay tuition for her children to attend a private school.