Balraj Singh Somal

Amir is an illegal Pakistani immigrant smuggled into England in the 1960's to work, to send money to his family and perhaps even bring them over with him. A skilled laborer, he is forced to do unskilled work like shoveling sheep dung and processing wool. He lives in a boarding house with nearly a dozen other men, under the supervision of Hussein Shah. He befriends a young student, Sakib, who dreams of being a writer. Their existence is punctuated by secret movies, a visiting prostitute, fear of detection and deportation, and the gangster-like smuggler who comes by for his take every week. The household is shaken up by the arrival of a white girl, Shah's girlfriend, and the sense of femininity and family she brings.

Francis and his wife, Elaine, are proprietors of a struggling window-covering business, agree to install curtains in an exclusive club patronized by Ron, a wealthy friend of theirs. After completing the job, the shop owner has great difficulty collecting payment for the job. His "friend" becomes scarce and Francis finds he has no legal foot to stand on since there is no written record of the informal transaction. With the couple's business floundering due to mounting debts, and their former friend Ron's crass attitude towards their predicament, anger and frustration reach the boiling point.

Dr Robyn Penrose is a lecturer in English at Rummidge University. Vic Wilcox is the Managing Director of Pringle's, an engineering firm in Rummidge. They meet when Robyn is told by her Head of Department to "shadow" Vic as part of Industry Year. They are initially hostile to each other but gradually come to understand each other's point of view. Based on the novel by David Lodge.