A boy plants a microphone in the sitting-room so that he can listen to his parents after going to bed at night.

Serialisation of the novel by Mrs Gaskell.

When their friend Nicholas is killed in 1960, several women think back to the time when they knew him, in 1945 "when all the best people were poor".

In the aftermath of the Trojan Wars, Queen Hecuba takes stock of the defeated kingdom. Her son has been killed, and his widow, Andromache, is left to raise their son, Astyanax, alone. Hecuba's daughter, Cassandra, fears being enslaved by her Greek masters, while Helen of Troy risks being executed. Astyanax also becomes the focus of the Greeks' attention as the last male heir of the Trojan royal family.