One Year's Time

Liza thought, we can't go on if we're not married. We're marking time. When we were in London and he went out in the evenings, I was jealous if it was a woman, and if it was a man I was resentful, and I thought, he doesn't want me to meet his friends. And when I did, either I was his girl friend or some one he had known a long time and would never be in love with, according to the occasion. And all the time I was waiting to be me. It's New Year's Day and Liza is painting her floor. Walter, who she met at the party the night before, arrives unexpectedly, and they immediately start a sexual relationship, dividing their nights between his flat and hers. The relationship continues through the course of the year, with the couple even posing as a married couple at one point. But Liza is frustrated by Walter's lack of commitment, finding herself continually compromising her dreams and her work to fit in with Walter's ambitions, and increasingly questioning why she bends her personality in...