The book is divided, like the London Underground, into six zones. In Zone 1, the narrator, Xesús, describes his grandmother, Virtudes, who emigrated to London and has lived there for 25 years, working as a cleaner, which has permitted her to provide for her family and raise three daughters. Whenever they return to Galicia, Virtudes is weighed down with presents, their luggage is almost always over the limit. Her husband is absent – in Venezuela, where he went to make his fortune. Little is known of him – he may have adapted to life so well that he is unlikely to return, or he may not have the money. Xesús discovers that he is the spitting image of this mysterious grandfather. Virtudes – Betty, as she is known to the residents of the houses she cleans – is much appreciated by her employers and, when she retires to Galicia, they write to her. Not only has she raised a family, she has managed to buy a property and see her grandchildren go to university. She doesn’t put up with nonsense. If an employer doesn’t treat her well, she won’t go back. She continues working even after she could retire at sixty. Xesús and his family have returned to Betanzos in Galicia, and Virtudes sends them large boxes with presents. Xesús goes to stay with her in the summer, in her small room on Kensington Square, where she lets him have the bed and sleeps on the floor. One of her neighbours is a Colombian woman who works as a nanny and has a telephone. Xesús and his grandmother drink a pint in the local pub or by the river. They also visit other Galician emigrants who have settled in London – mixed couples like Amalia and her boyfriend from Mozambique, or Celia and her Pakistani husband. It was Celia Virtudes travelled with when she first went to London in 1961. On the way to visit these people, Virtudes would sometimes squat between the cars to do a pee, as if she was in a field of maize in Galicia. In her first job in London, Virtudes was treated so badly she became weak from hunger. The local priest got her a cleaning job in a local hospital, where she was able to recover. She went on to work in two other hospitals, Guy’s and St Mary Abbots, where lots of the cleaners were from Spain. When cutbacks in the NHS began in the late 1960s, they were often the first to go since they were the least visible.

In Zone 2, Xesús finds it difficult to extract any information about his grandfather, Marcelino, from his grandmother and must content himself with the analysis of old photographs. Marcelino was born in the Royal Hospital of Santiago in 1921, the son of a single mother. He went to the local school, where the teacher thought he could become a teacher himself, but Marcelino preferred to work with his hands and, after an apprenticeship, he set up his own workshop in Betanzos as a cobbler. He married Virtudes in 1943, and they had three daughters: Isabel (Xesús’ mother), Leonor and Elena. But it seems he didn’t like having to justify his expenses (such as going to the cinema), having to scrimp and save, and in 1955 he emigrated to Venezuela, leaving behind three young children. There is no correspondence from the years that follow – perhaps it was lost or destroyed – only a couple of photographs of Marcelino, briefly with a moustache, and a reciprocal photograph of Virtudes and her three daughters (which is the cover of the Galician edition of the book). In her husband’s absence, Virtudes takes on multiple jobs in Betanzos – from harvesting grapes and hops to stuffing chorizos, working as a waitress and washing clothes. All the same, their financial situation is not good and she asks her husband to send money, but he says he doesn’t have any. Nor does he want to return to Galicia or her to travel to be with him in Venezuela. She is about to go unannounced when a priest suggests the reason may be that Marcelino has another family. So Virtudes emigrates to London instead, leaving her children with her mother.

In Zone 3, Isabel, Xesús’ mother, grows up in the village in the care of her grandparents. She attends primary school, but there is no secondary school in Betanzos at the time and no money to move to Coruña, so she must abandon her dream to do teacher training and help support the family. At the age of eighteen, she goes to join Virtudes in London. She spends the first year in a convent, where she looks after an aged countess and helps clean. She also studies English. In autumn 1964, she moves to live with her mother in the basement of the nurses’ residence of Guy’s Hospital, where she continues to work as a cleaner. When she has a little money, she buys herself a typewriter. She goes to learn French, as well as English, in an academy in Holland Park, where she meets a wide variety of people: Rita from Switzerland, Astrid from Germany, Hyde from Sri Lanka, and an Ethiopian political refugee, Joseph. She also passes her Lower Certificate in English. By the age of 21, her prospects are looking up, even though her childhood (in a village under Franco’s dictatorship) has been so different from that experienced by someone from England. On a return trip to Betanzos, she is surprised by the attitude of some people to emigrants: they send money home, but live in a more liberal society, which is not to be trusted (Spanish women travel to London to have abortions!). Having passed Proficiency, she is tempted by an offer to do a secretarial course in Coruña, which, she is assured, will be followed by a job. She returns to Galicia, completes the course successfully, but no job is forthcoming – all the incumbents are handpicked, Isabel as an outsider doesn’t stand a chance. Her family buys an apartment in Betanzos, and she starts to give private English classes. It is at this time that she meets her future husband, Tito. Tito’s mother died when he was only four, so he and his brother lived with their grandparents until he was twelve. At thirteen, he started working – in a bakery and then in the building trade. He took great pride in his work and preferred to do something himself than to let it be done badly. Their family was known as “The Lamp Extinguishers” since they were responsible for lighting and extinguishing the street lamps.