"One summer in the sixties, nineteen-year-old Paul comes home from university and joins the tennis club at his mother's urging. He's partnered with Mrs. Susan Mcleod, a fine player who's forty-eight. They bond immediately and soon become lovers. Decades later, with Susan now dead, Paul looks back on their story"--

One summer in the sixties, in a staid suburb south of London, Paul comes home from university, aged nineteen, and is urged by his mother to join the tennis club. In the mixed-doubles tournament he's partnered with Susan Mcleod, a fine player who's forty-eight, confident, ironic, and married, with two nearly adult daughters. They soon, inevitably, are lovers. They set up house in London to escape his parents and the abusive Mr. Mcleod. Decades later, with Susan now dead, Paul looks back at how they fell in love, how he freed her from a sterile marriage, and how-- gradually, relentlessly -- everything fell apart.