Broom is in her fifties. An artist and set designer, she is spending Christmas in the Alps. For five years, she has mourned her lover Al, a climber and adventurer who died in a tragic accident. Now Broom is ready to engage with the world again - and in the mountain she meets Micky Flint, a young, slick advertising executive working on a new pitch.

Intercut with this story is that of Lockhart, with whom she once had an affair. He returns to the family estate on a remote Scottish island for Christmas, to confront his past: his wayward younger brother; and their autocratic father, to whom Lockhart must break some painful family news.

As Broom looks back on past lovers and how her life has unfurled, she becomes obscurely drawn to mephistophelian Micky, her polar opposite. And for their own very different reasons an intimacy develops between them that will wrench Broom out of the past and propel her forward into her new life.