'One wants to believe that everything lasts for ever, but it doesn't,' said Twice. 'One has to move on . . .'

Janet and her husband 'Twice' Alexander are on a homeleave visit from St. Jago in the Caribbean. Motoring down from Reachfar to Crookmill, the house they made for themselves out of a string of ruined cottages, the most human of married couples in fiction realise that, with the pattern of their lives changing, a hard decision must be made involving two of their dearest 'Friends'. But fate intervenes in the person of the exotic clairvoyant, Madame Zora, and nothing is quite the same again . . .