Despite the fact that Nick is openly gay, Wani has a female fiance and remains closeted, so their relationship is a closely kept secret.

He spends most of his time with Wani Ouradi, one of his Oxford contemporaries, the son of a rich Lebanese businessman. Having never moved out Nick is now a permanent member of the Fedden household. 'To Whom Do You Beautifully Belong?' (1986) Leo also introduces Nick to Pete, his middle-aged former lover who runs an antiques shop, like Nick's father, and who is sickly. As Leo lives with his religious mother and Nick feels restricted in the Fedden household the two conduct their sexual affair almost entirely outside in public parks and side streets. Nick dates Leo Charles, a black man from Willesden in his late 20s, whom he meets through a lonely hearts column. Nick helps Cat through a crisis when she considers cutting herself, and when her parents return they suggest he stay on indefinitely, since Cat has become attached to him and Toby is moving into his own place. Left at home with Nick is the Feddens' daughter Catherine whom the Feddens are reluctant to leave on her own because of her history of self-harming.

The son of the house, Toby, is his Oxford University classmate and best friend, and Nick's stay is meant to last for a short time while Toby and his parents-Rachel, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family, and Gerald, a successful businessman and just-elected Conservative MP for Barwick-are at their holiday home in France.

Nick moves into the luxurious Notting Hill home of the Fedden family. The novel begins in the summer of 1983, shortly after Margaret Thatcher's second victory in the general election. It explores themes of hypocrisy, homosexuality, madness and privilege, with the emerging AIDS crisis forming a backdrop to the book's conclusion. The book explores the tension between Nick's intimate relationship with the Fedden family, in whose parties and holidays he participates, and the realities of his sexuality and gay life, which the Feddens accept only to the extent of never mentioning it. Many of the significant characters in the novel are Nick's male contemporaries from Oxford. Nick is middle-class and from the fictional market town of Barwick in Northamptonshire he has graduated from Worcester College, Oxford with a First in English and is to begin postgraduate studies at University College London. The story surrounds the young gay protagonist, Nick Guest. The novel is set in Britain in three parts, taking place in 1983, 19.

The line of beauty novel