It is December 22nd, his son Euan's sixth birthday, and as he drives out to the coast on a day of thick snow, Paul begins to tell Euan a story.

He recalls the boy's birth, his first words and steps; there's the history of his relationship with Ruth, Euan's mother; there's the death of his own mother when he himself was a boy, and his father's refusal ever to explain what had occurred. It soons becomes evident, however, that Euan is not in the car. Evident, too, that Paul is living alone, and that in the cliffs and dunes of his destination lies the key to his story's conclusion.