A child is born to a single mother. His feckless father has vanished, leaving the mother to cope as best she can, watched over by a kindly Jamaican. A country cottage is visited by a young hotographer, whose happiest days of childhood were spent there; he longs to live in it again but first must negotiate the duplicities of adult and professional politics. Intimations of immortality, nostalgia and dreams of excape to a reggae or post-hippy lifestyle permeate these interwoven histories. A vivid London of the day-before-yesterday is evoked against apprehensions of a more ideal form of existence.