Love can drive a normal woman to extremes... Carla Tradescant hates her husband Alan's moustache. She hates the way he obsesses about school league tables and scrapes the dirt from under his fingernails with a matchstick. In fact, she has grown to loathe everything about him. She loved him once... but now, a careworn headmaster in his fifties, he has lost his appeal. As the school year begins, the allure of new young English teacher Peter Barrett proves too much, and he and Carla embark on an ill-advised affair. Meanwhile, Alan finds he has a secret of his own, as his past catches up with him... and the consequences of all their actions stretch out to envelop and change the small school community for ever.