Once England's most promising young composer' - now living comfortably in Hampstead with his wife Milly, an heiress - Jack Middleton is in mid-life decline, his career in free-fall. When he visits Estonia for a three-week search for inspiration, he falls for a young waitress called Kaja, deeply bound up in the suffering of her country and the joy and danger of its new freedom. They embark on a passionate affair on a lonely island in a time warp. Then it's over.