visiting nightclubs together. Susan is restless in her post-war life, and expresses frustration with her job at the shipping office. During the winter of 1945-1946, she quarrels with Raymond, and suggests they separate for the winter. Skipping forward to 1953, Susan is now working as a member of Queen Elizabeth's coronation committee. She has moved into a larger apartment, and Alice is still her roommate. One day, Susan asks one of Alice's former boyfriends and a fellow working-class lover, Mick (Sting), to father her child. He reluctantly agrees to conceive a child with her, but is discouraged that she would want to raise the baby without him. When her job in the coronation committee is done, Susan begins working in advertising, but leaves within months, finding the work unsatisfying. Over time, Mick tries to court Susan, but she refuses to consider having a real relationship with him. After 18 months of trying and failing to become pregnant, Susan ends their involvement which leads to a confrontation on New Year's Day in 1955 between her and Mick in her apartment which ends with Susan firing a gun above Mick's head to make him leave. Alice telephones Susan's former boyfriend, Raymond (who is still working in the diplomatic corps), to report that Susan has suffered a nervous breakdown. He arrives to visit her in the hospital, and in time, Raymond and Susan get married. In a jump-forward to November 1956, Susan remains frustrated with her life despite that she is married and now living with Raymond in a smart house in the affluent West End. Susan's unstable mental state becomes apparent to everyone, including Alice, when Susan is moody and is insulting to Raymond and their friends during a dinner party attended by Raymond's employer Sir Leonard Darwin (John Gielgud). This prompts Darwin to needlessly humiliate Mme. Aung (Pik-Sen Lim), the wife of an Asian diplomat named Mr. Aung (Burt Kwouk), and then walks out of the party. Raymond then announces to everyone that Darwin is going to resign from his position due to Great Britain's disastrous involvement in the Suez Crisis. Skipping forward three or four years later, Susan and Raymond have moved to Jordan, where Raymond has been assigned a diplomatic post. Alice pays them a visit, and is alarmed by Susan's subdued demeanor. Although Susan claims to be happy, Alice questions her and Raymond about their sedate lifestyle, and