In 1921 Malaysia, Lesley Hamlyn lives the outwardly pleasant and uniform life of a woman in British colonial society. With the arrival of Willie Somerset Maugham, an old friend of her husband Robert, liveliness returns to the house and experiences of the past come to the surface. Somerset Maugham is a famous writer at this point, but driven by worries and fears. The more Lesley and he become friends, the more secrets she confides in him: her former support for political rebels who wanted to end the old China, her affair with a Chinese man, the downfall of her marriage. Using the example of a friend, Lesley realizes how hopeless her love is and how devastating the consequences would be for her: without financial means, socially ostracized, she would have to live without her children.
Like Somerset Maugham, she also has to hide her true self and endure her unhappy marriage. She finds solace only in the thought that she might one day see her lover again. But Robert has long since decided to leave this part of the world and move to South Africa. (Publisher)