Catharine wakes to an empty bed. Her husband Tom, a human rights lawyer, is away on business and it''s the first time she has woken alone in their cottage since they moved there from London five months ago.

She is, as she confesses, a serious woman; realistic and practical. She has relinquished her hold on past ambitions, her music and her career, in preparation for family life. Now, without distraction, she wonders what she is to do.

Time progresses, and in encounters both real and imagined - with the village''s inhabitants, with her best friend Maria and with Tom - Catharine plucks at the fabric of her life until it is threadbare. From assured beginnings the day rushes to a realisation of her very worst fears, and to a denouement of devastating poignancy.