At the beautiful manor-house where she has lived for many years, Charlotte Chayter prepares for her 80th birthday party, an occasion that sees her family and friends gather to celebrate her long and eventful life. Her daughters Glenda and Georgia will be there, and, Charlotte hopes, her long-absent granddaughter Elvira. Her son Steven is also expected, fully intending to ask his mother for money. It should be a memorable day, yet Charlotte is secretly dreading it, terribly aware that, beneath the veneer of 1950s middle-class pretensions and respectability, there are secrets and divisions which could tear her family apart.