GRACE cannot sleep. She spends her days working as a nurse stitching civilians who have been pouring into the local hospital due to a spate of terrorist attacks in bizarre locations, and spends sleepless nights listening to the sounds of a baby crying next door. 

 

 

Unsettled and exhausted she goes to visit her parents for the first time in months. But on the eve of her father's potential rise to power as Head of ''The Department'', he is nowhere to be seen.

 

HELENA reveals that after three decades as a decent woman in a sexless marriage, supporting LYNDON’s political ascendancy against her own political apathy and missing the children she brought up she’s asked for a separation and her husband has just checked himself into a hotel.

 

But as Grace pries into the reasons behind the split she discovers more about her parents' marriage than she bargained for; as a seemingly mutual parting of husband and wife reveals not only the sexual yearnings of a middle aged woman in a society where women are now the targets of volatile attacks from men in retaliation against The Department's increasingly restrictive laws on misogyny - but also a shocking secret from their daughter POLLY’s grave that will have irrevocable consequences.