 While staying with his boring aunt in the country during the school holidays young Mark explores a nearby derelict house and discovers it is not as uninhabited as people believe. Bernard, a man in his late fifties, has made it his temporary home and seems full of the joys of life. During the course of several conversations it transpires that Bernard is dying of cancer and has left his family in the city to enjoy his last days "as nature intended". Mark struggles with the feeling that, as a friend, he has a responsibility to break Bernard s cover and reunite him with his family before he dies.