Farewell My Love

Ellen Grainger believes many happy marriages are based on collusion : the defaulting partner thinks the other is blissfully ignorant of the truth and is allowed to go on thinking so for one reason or another - love, security, the children. She is supported in this belief by her middle-aged friend Charlotte Stubbs, who has learned to accept her own husband's infidelity as a fact of life, and to welcome him back after each romantic adventure. The result is a loving relationship and a marriage which nothing can rock. When Ellen's husband, Give, is unfaithful, she decides to use Charlotte's example as a blueprint for her own behaviour, unaware that like a choked-up spring, her friend's subconscious unhappiness has found another outlet.