Jo Jackson, Dr. Josephine Jackson, rising 80 and an enthusiastic traveller, is dying, and intends to die "with her boots on." At least, that's what she said nearly a week ago. Now she has changed her mind: bed is what she needs, and quickly. Easier said than done: those days and nights of sitting in her wing chair have welded her joints into immobility, but even so she refuses to have any help from outside. Thus, it falls to Iris, her friend of many years, to get her out of the chair and up the stairs to her bedroom. A journey which takes them almost twenty-four hours, aided only by a plank,...

Uriel has many voices, her husband's, her sons', Mr. Kettle's, Abigail's, Ben Hagan's most of all perhaps - but none of them hers. It is their voices which tell us about her. Her own voice was snuffed out by an act she is unable to admit, even to herself.. It will return one day, she is sure, and she is right. But, when it does, what it says brings consternation to her and to those she loves most.