In the fishing village of Heype they disapprove of Dafty-Duncan Pike. He and his sour, crippled mother have lived here for eighteen years. And they still don't belong. Duncan is good for nothing. And he knows it. He's afraid of everyone. His mother. The sea. Ted Flint the fisherman is the only person he admires, and Ted sometimes has a word for him. Until the night the lifeboat is launched in a storm. After that, inside his slow mind, Duncan begins to hate them all.

In this distinguished collection of stories, Susan Hill writes about isolated people — the small boy facing the unspeakable terrors of a children's party; an old lady, longing for raffish excitement in a holiday resort.