Synopsis
On an icy winter’s day, the lives of the eccentric residents of a Scottish sea-side village come apart, then together again …Frances, a recently widowed photographer, copes with her loss by refusing to get out of bed, leaving her thoughtful fifteen-year-old son to look after her and himself. But Alex is an adolescent and naturally has other concerns: he is on the brink of sexual awakening and a breathless encounter with Nita, a flirtatious teenage neighbour, marks their first step to adulthood.
Frances's mother Elspeth struggles across frozen hills in a determined effort to defy old age, resolved to win back the trust and affection of her bereaved daughter.
Two elderly friends, Chloe and Lily, consult the obituary columns to choose which funeral they will attend the day before cautiously making their way to the waterfront to wait for a bus that may never come.
Meanwhile Tom and Sam have declared a holiday of their own, skipping school to play on the beach. The boys dare one another to walk out on the frozen expanse of the sea which stretches before them as mysterious and uncertain as their own future.
Bv turns tragic and comic, the story explores the separate and connected lives of these four odd couples representing four generations: the two ladies, the young lovers, the fragile mother and her grieving daughter; the school chums. Each of them is at a cross-roads and all have been touched by the fear, anticipation or unexpected arrival of THE WINTER GUEST.
