Zelda Dawkins' life has changed a lot in one evening. Soaking in her bath, she doesn't know whether to feel more distressed by the news of her father's suicide or by her suspicions that her lover, Foxy, is sleeping with another women.

But unlike her affections for Foxy, Zelda's feelings towards her father, a former Japanese POW, are confused. Forced by his death to re-examine their relationship, she recalls a childhood haunted by his night-time screaming fits and troubled by his chilly silences. But what she remembers most is his curious and intense attachment to the little boy next door. And when she discovers her father's diary, the secrets she finds there only raise more disturbing questions about her family's past.