Staying On focuses on Tusker and Lucy Smalley, who were briefly mentioned in the latter two books of the Raj Quartet, The Towers of Silence and A Division of the Spoils. They were the last British couple who lived in the small hill town of Pankot (after the Indian independence). Tusker was a colonel, a high rank in the British Indian Army. On his retirement, he had entered "the world of commerce" as a 'box wallah', and the couple had moved elsewhere in India. However, they had returned to Pankot to take up residence in the Lodge, an annexe to Smith's Hotel. This, formerly the town's principal hotel, was now symbolically overshadowed by the brash new Shiraz Hotel, erected by a consortium of Indian businessmen from the nearby city of Ranpur.