John is an indexer, and a bloody good one. He lives in a beautiful house with a beautiful garden, and has a beautiful wife, Janet. (Yes, yes, they are called Janet and John. They know.) And then, out of this clean blue May morning, John wakes up with the hiccups, and Janet has left him. So begins an extraordinary month, involving three conceptual artists, an unprecedented volume of champagne and some bad advice from Barbra Streisand as John sets out to avoid some awkward questions about his marriage.