This is the story of three girls who grew up in Cape Town in the 1950s. They were shaped by the South African past, the absurdities of a girls' school, and the pressures to marry at an early age. All three died young. At the centre of the group was Romy, the exuberant daughter of Jewish immigrants. A rebel at school, a resister of weddings, she enraged the men who loved her. As we follow Romy's explosive course, Ellie's struggle with loneliness in her career as a psychologist, and Rose's disappearance into marriage and motherhood, it is the redemptive power of friendship between women that comes to the fore. Through the eyes a school friend - Lyndall Gordon, prize-winning biographer of T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf - the significance of their lives, and their hidden courage and resourcefulness, are revealed. Three obscure women, who left nothing but their stories, letters and memories, are brought to life.