Francis leads his life resolutely on the margins, an existence that is by turns solitary, feral and lawless. When his estranged teenage son, Julian, turns up on his doorstep one day, the two of them are forced into an uneasy relationship together. Then Francis' sometime girlfriend Carole appears on the scene. Her presence is a bulwark against his fiery temper and slowly, tentatively, she draws out of him a faith in the world again as the three of them strike up an unlikely rapport. Carole is called away to continue a tour of Belgium with her band and father and son revert to youthful reverie, wandering freely in the Sussex hinterlands. But this gives way to something darker when Julian breaks a promise by taking a friend into the woods. An accident occurs that puts father and son under the authorities' spotlight in a blink and they are forced to make a decision which will change their lives forever.