Michael "Mick" Marler has risen through the ranks at Grenfell, a large British company specializing in business machines. Despite his drive and polished air, Mick comes from a tough working-class background, and has worked hard to fit into the posh world in which he and his social-climbing wife Rosemary live. His marriage consists of little more than animalistic lovemaking in between traded insults and long silences with his wife.