Throughout the book we get to know the three women that were mentioned in the prologue.
We left Bea heartbroken after her boyfriend ran away when he discovered she was pregnant, and she had to give up her baby son for adoption.
When we first meet Emma, she is a air hostess, and it is during a flight that she meets Max Hooper. She feels attracted to him at once, and when they talk, she discovers that he lives near the town where she shares a flat with two other stewardesses. Emma invites him to a party in her flat, and he comes with his friends. Then Emma and her friends go to the farmhouse where Max lives with some friends too, and there she discovers that he has a girlfriend, Bridget. Emma tells herself that she needs to fall out of love with Max, but it is difficult when they see each other often. Emma can see that Bridget is not happy as Max is not the attentive boyfriend she wants. So angry with herself, Emma argues with Max, telling him that he is blind to Bridget's needs. Thinking that she has let herself get entangled with this man, Emma decides to go to Seastone where her parents live. It is there that Max goes to find her and declares his love to her.
Marissa is the third woman. In the book she is introduced to us with her real name, Mary, who is married to Jamie. Mary was swept off her feet by this attractive man, but when she married him, it didn't take her long to discover that this man was controlling and illtreated her. Then she decides to leave him, taking with her just some pounds she had saved and her passport. Mary goes to live in a safe house, changes her name to Marissa, and when Jamie turns up there, she moves from squat to squat. She finally manages to find a job at Liberty and get her own place, but she is always afraid that Jamie will find her.
Bea and Marissa meet at a party. Bea is married and has two daughters, and her husband Clive is not the kind of man one can depend on. He keeps having money problems and he argues that he won't be controlled by some boss. When Bea and Marissa meet, the latter is trying to start a business, making clothes, and it is Bea who introduces Marissa to her friend Trisha, who has a shop. That is the first step for Marissa to start her own business. She eventually gets a shop and starts selling her own clothes.
In the shop Marissa meets Emma, who is married to Max, and they have two daughters like Bea. Marissa notices that Emma has a brooch made with papier-mache beads, which she has made, and Marissa asks her to make some for her. This is the point where the three women become friends. Bea has had to move to a cottage on the property of some acquaintance of Clive's because they can't afford the house. Things are good for a while, but then the acquaintance, Mitch, returns. Mitch is a social-butterfly who is always throwing parties, and Bea hates this new style of life she is forced to put up with. When Mitch challenges Clive to a race, Bea begs him not to do that, but Clive won't hear her. Clive crashes the car and Bea becomes a widow with two young daughters. Marissa and Emma help her, but she is feeling lost.
Another character that is important is Emma's mother, Tamar. She is an artist, and in her memories of her time during the war we discover that she found a beautiful hairpin among rubble, and the next day she saw a man in the house near which she found the hairpin she asked him if this was his. The man, whose name was Alexander, said that it had belonged to his grandmother, but he had to return to the front. Yet, she should keep the hairpin, and a year from now they should meet and she could give it back to him. Tamar went to the café a year later and many days during that year but Alexander never returned. Then she married Morgan and had her daughters.
Now an art dealer comes to talk to her because he wants to exhibit Tamar's father, who was a famous artist. Yet, when the man sees Tamar's own paintings, the exhibit will contain her art too. It is during the exhibition that a man approaches. It is Alexander, and he says that he went to the café but much later because he had been wounded during the war. This encounter seems to be significant for Tamar, and I wonder what this will mean for her life.
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