Roland's parents leave him at a boarding school in Ipswich, separating him from home life permanently.

Cornell pinches Roland's thigh hard and strikes him with a ruler as punishment during a piano lesson.

Cornell gives Roland a prolonged kiss on the mouth and instructs him to visit her home.

Fear during the Cuban Missile Crisis drives Roland to cycle to Cornell's cottage, afraid of dying before having sex.

Cornell takes Roland upstairs and has sex with him for the first time at her cottage.

Cornell locks Roland's clothes away and announces they will travel to Edinburgh to get married on his birthday.

Roland hesitates at Cornell's marriage proposal, and she orders him to leave her house immediately.

Alissa disappears, leaving Roland a note saying she has been living the wrong life and not to find her.

Inspector Browne visits Roland, suspects him of involvement in Alissa's disappearance, and takes his fingerprints.

Roland travels to Berlin with his friend Peter just after the Wall falls and watches East Berliners streaming westward.

While sitting in a crowded Berlin café, Roland notices Alissa at a table with a middle-aged man.

Roland confronts Alissa in the café, and she explains she left to avoid repeating her mother's unfulfilled life.

Police contact Roland about Cornell and encourage him to press charges for historic sexual abuse.

Roland confronts Cornell at her home, and she justifies her behavior by describing her own heartbreak and abortion.

Roland visits a dying Alissa in Germany, and she confesses he was the only man she ever loved.

Pool 1 follows the most critical turning points in Roland Baines's life, beginning with his separation from his family when he is sent away to boarding school. There, piano teacher Miriam Cornell initiates her grooming and abuse, which escalates dramatically when the Cuban Missile Crisis pushes a teenage Roland to consummate their relationship at her cottage. Their affair ends explosively when Cornell proposes marriage and Roland refuses, a rupture that echoes through his adult life. Roland's marriage to Alissa is thrown into crisis when she vanishes without warning, drawing police suspicion onto him and leaving him to raise their infant son alone. Years later, a chance encounter in a newly reunified Berlin offers Roland some explanation for Alissa's desertion. The pool closes as Roland confronts both Cornell and a dying Alissa, forcing him to reckon with the two relationships that defined his life.

The headline events of Roland's life, from boarding school to Berlin and beyond.

Jane travels from London to Munich after the war to research the White Rose anti-Nazi student resistance group.

Jane abandons her literary ambitions after marrying Heinrich and settling into domestic life in a small German town.

Roland witnesses a road accident near his London home just days before being dropped off at boarding school.

Cornell and Roland perform together at a piano concert in Norwich, where a newspaper hails Roland as a prodigy.

Roland enrolls in a German class at the Goethe-Institut and encounters Alissa for the first time as his teacher.

Roland travels to East Berlin with his girlfriend Mireille and befriends an East German couple named Ruth and Florian.

Roland returns to East Berlin carrying smuggled Western books and music albums as gifts for Ruth and Florian.

Ruth and Florian are arrested by the Stasi and have their children removed and placed in state care.

Roland learns that Ruth and Florian have been released from Stasi custody and reunited with their children.

Roland attends a Bob Dylan concert in London, bumps into Alissa after a scuffle, and they exchange addresses.

Alissa arrives at Roland's door after breaking up with her boyfriend, and they begin a relationship that leads to marriage.

Roland's father dies of a heart attack, and Roland attends the funeral reflecting on fond memories of him.

Roland proposes to Daphne and she accepts, but within days she reveals she has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Peter pushes Roland into a river and scatters Daphne's ashes before Roland can perform the rite she requested.

Roland receives a call from Alissa's former agent saying she has had her foot amputated and wants to see him.

Pool 2 traces the significant secondary events that give Roland's story its breadth and historical texture. It opens with Alissa's mother Jane, whose postwar journey to Munich to research the White Rose anti-Nazi group leads to her marriage and the abandonment of her own literary ambitions — a fate that haunts Alissa for life. Roland's own story gains momentum through a celebrated piano performance, a first encounter with the woman who will become his wife, and a series of increasingly risky trips smuggling banned books and music into East Germany. The arrest and miraculous release of his East German friends sets off a chain of events that reunites Roland with Alissa and eventually leads to their marriage. The later events trace Roland's grief after his father's death, his desperate attempt to build a life with a terminally ill Daphne, and a final phone call from Germany that sets the novel's closing movement in motion.

The relationships, journeys, and historical moments that shaped Roland's wider world.

Cornell makes inappropriate physical contact with Roland during his second piano lesson and threatens to dress him in a pink frock.

Cornell dismisses Roland's desire to play an unapproved jazz piece, revealing her possessive hold over every part of his life.

Roland burns his school books after walking out on Cornell, abandoning both her and his academic future.

Roland tells Alissa about his relationship with Cornell during an evening visit to her parents' home in Germany.

Roland and Alissa conceive their son Lawrence on the same evening Roland confides in her about Cornell's abuse.

Roland opens a drawer searching for a document and is overwhelmed by the lingering scent of Alissa's perfume.

Roland sees newspaper headlines about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster while out shopping with his infant son.

Inspector Browne returns three years after his first visit, still suspecting Roland and still holding his notebook as evidence.

Roland steps onto the former no-man's-land between East and West Berlin and feels as if he is walking on the moon.

Alissa hands Roland the English proof copy of her novel The Journey as they part ways in Berlin.

Daphne leaves Roland a note saying she is returning to Peter because Roland has seemed unwilling to commit to marriage.

Lawrence tracks down Alissa in Germany, and she coldly dismisses him and tells him she does not want to see him again.

Roland discovers through a letter to his half sister that he has a full brother who was secretly given up for adoption.

Daphne refuses cancer treatment and travels with Roland and her family on a final holiday to an island off southern France.

Roland burns his journals and tells his granddaughter Stefanie he has not learned a single thing from his life.

Pool 3 focuses on the pivotal moments of revelation and emotional shift that quietly redirect Roland's life. It begins with Cornell's early psychological manipulation of Roland — her inappropriate contact during lessons, her possessive reaction to his musical independence, and his eventual escape after refusing her marriage proposal. After Roland eventually finds his footing with Alissa, a private confession about his past unlocks an unexpected intimacy between them, but Alissa's sudden disappearance leaves Roland gripping a perfumed jumper and the news of a nuclear disaster on the same bleak afternoon. The middle section exposes hidden truths: a suspicious inspector who won't let go, a family secret about a concealed brother, and a son's devastating rejection at his mother's door. Daphne's dignified final journey before her death gives Roland his most honest glimpse of love before the novel closes with Roland burning his journals and admitting, with unexpected lightness, that he has learned nothing at all.