The Tarrants and the Howards have been friends for many years, sharing holidays with their young children and enjoying convivial meals at each other's dining tables. But behind this companionship lurk seeds of a great and growing unhappiness, sown by events deep in their past. As these unresolved dilemmas begin to surface, the strains between the two families become impossible to ignore. And when infidelity casts its ugly shadow onto the proceedings, the collapse of their apparently ordered world seems inevitable...