Iona Iverson is the protagonist of the novel. Her point of view introduces and concludes the novel, and several chapters are told from her perspective.

At the novel’s opening, Iona is 57. She has been employed at the same women’s magazine for 30 years, but her role has changed dramatically. In her youth, Iona was a dancer at the Folies Bergère, a famous cabaret in Paris. She met and fell in love with Bea, a fellow dancer, and persuaded Bea to return with her to London. They bought a house in East Mosely, Hampton Court, and for several years in the 1980s and ’90s were “It Girls,” famous for being beautiful and admired. Iona had a busy social calendar and wrote columns, articles, and reviews. Part of their appeal was that she and Bea were openly gay, referred to as “lipstick lesbians.” Iona was once badly beaten in an alley behind a club during an anti-gay hate crime.

Iona thinks of the ’80s/’90s as her glory days, but she maintains an insouciant façade that can seem intimidating or ridiculous to others. She wears colorful and dramatic clothing, carries a handbag full of an array of items—sometimes including alcoholic beverages—and brings her French bulldog, Lulu, with her wherever she goes.