Rosamund (Sandy Dennis), a "bookish" young girl in London society, spends her days studying for a doctorate in the British Museum and her nights avoiding the sexual attention of the men in her life. But one day, all of that changes. Through a friend, she is introduced to rising television newsreader and announcer George (Sir Ian McKellen), and after a further chance meeting and a tumble on the sofa, she finds herself pregnant from her first sexual encounter. After a failed attempt at self-induced abortion, she resolves to have the child, leaving her on a solitary, and at times discouraging, path through pregnancy and into single motherhood, aided only by her close friend Lydia (Eleanor Bron).