A decent, harried young banker, already on the verge of distraction, hurries north to Scotland and his mysteriously troubled sister . . . A ';foreign' mother struggles to make a home for her family in a society she only vaguely comprehends . . . A baby girl is abandoned in a bus-station rest room . . . And thus five lives and more are caught up in a binding net of affection and responsibility, of sibling loyalty, romantic longing, and maternal love.