To Queenie, her house symbolizes her safety and security, and also a way to make a living. In the aftermath of her husband, Bernard, failing to return from India at the end of the war, she winds up renting out rooms in her home to lodgers to enable her to make ends meet.

To Gilbert Joseph, Queenie's house symbolizes a roof over the heads of him and his wife and an environment in which the landlord doesn't care about the color of his skin.

The other main character is Gilbert's new wife, Hortense, who has just arrived in England from Jamaica. For Hortense, Queenie's house represents a welcome retreat from a new and often overwhelming world, in which her Jamaican accent makes it difficult for locals to understand her English, despite it being technically excellent.

The house itself was damaged by bombs during the war and has fallen into a state of disrepair. Symbolically, it could be argued that this disrepair mirrors Queenie and Hortense's lives, which seem do not seem to be going the way they had hoped. In Queenie's case, she has to get used to looking after herself and being on her own since her husband, for whatever reason, did not come home. Hortense, who has left the comfort and familiarity of her life in Jamaica behind her to come England, has had the foundations of her world shaken.