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'''Part 1 – "visitation"''': Social worker Leah Hanwell falls for a scam artist, who knocks at her door to ask for money, ostensibly to afford a ride to the emergency room to visit her sick mother. Leah becomes obsessed with the scammer, a woman named Shar with whom she went to school; after tracking Shar to her flat one day and leaving behind pamphlets for a rehabilitation center, Leah receives a threatening phone call from a man whom she believes to be Shar's boyfriend. Believing she recognizes his voice on the street one day, Leah inadvertently goads her husband, Michel, into confronting the man, who kicks their dog to death. Around the same time, Leah has a chance encounter with her former teenage crush, Nathan Bogle, now a homeless drug addict; it occurs to Leah that Nathan may be Shar's boyfriend and the man who called her. Shortly thereafter, Leah learns of a local man's brutal murder during [[Notting Hill Carnival]]. The incidents lead her to question her trust in the community and her own life's work.
'''Part 2 – "guest":''' Former drug addict Felix Cooper wants to start a new life with his girlfriend, Grace. Formerly a successful chef, he bowed to pressure from his [[Rastafarian]] father and uncle to quit his job to go into a tourism business with them; the failure of the business precipitated Felix's decline into drug abuse and eventually rehab. He meets one last time with his drug-using ex-lover to say goodbye and purchases a heavily damaged vintage car with the intention of restoring it. On his way home, a white woman mistakes him for the companion of a pair of disruptive train passengers because all three are black. Felix inadvertently slights the men in his efforts to get them to turn down their music. As Felix departs the train, the men rob
'''Part 3''' '''- "host"''': Keisha "Natalie" Blake has met every goal she ever set for herself. She graduated from a prestigious university, became a successful lawyer, married an investment banker from a rich family, and moved to one of to the most expensive parts of London to raise her two children with him. Nonetheless, Natalie feels that her life is empty and is haunted by thoughts that she isn't a complete person. She struggles to reconcile her working-class, liberal, Afro-Caribbean roots- "Keisha"- with the upwardly mobile, socially conservative "Natalie" persona she has crafted for herself and which she has come to feel increasingly trapped by. Hoping to find an escape, she arranges a series of disastrous sexual encounters online with couples via swingers sites. On the night of the Notting Hill Carnival, Natalie's husband learns of her double life and they have a disastrous argument that culminates in Natalie suffering a nervous breakdown and wandering into the carnival in her bed clothes.
'''Part 4 – "crossing"''': Wandering the streets of London during the Notting Hill Carnival in a fugue state, Natalie runs into Nathan Bogle, who offers her comfort. The two smoke marijuana together and reminisce about their divergent paths in life; Natalie looks for a reason for Nathan's downward trajectory in spite of his good grades in school and personal charisma, but Nathan sees nothing more than bad luck as responsible for his current position in life. The two pass the site of Felix's murder, which startles Natalie. Nathan makes reference to a violent acquaintance of his named Tyler; it becomes apparent that Nathan and Tyler were the men who robbed Felix, though
'''Part 5 – "visitation"''': Already strained by the events she's experienced and witness, Leah suffers a psychotic break after Michel learns she's secretly been taking birth control pills to prevent a pregnancy despite their trying to conceive. Michel calls Natalie, who remains shaken after her near suicide. Natalie arrives and recites what she realizes are a series of empty conservative talking points and declares her belief in the [[just world fallacy]], and that the two women are successful because they are deserving while people like Nat Bogle and Felix Cooper suffer terrible fates because they are unworthy. Feeling the need to do something truly meaningful, the women each contact the police to let them know Nathan Bogle has information about Felix's murder before resettling into their lives as they existed at the start of the book.
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