Pauline is spending the summer editing a novel about it, ensconced in World's End, a grey stone building set on a hillside somewhere in the middle of England. The original three dwellings are now two, the rustic exterior belying the quietly humming machinery within -- computers, phones, faxes, microwaves, freezers, televisions and videos. The larger part of the cottage is occupied by Pauline's daughter Teresa and her baby, and from time to time by Teresa's husband Maurice, who is writing his own book about the myth of the British countryside. Teresa's passionate love for Maurice fills Pauline with dread. Her possessive passion for Teresa's father eroded her youth, as she finds herself recollecting during the long hot summer. It is not just the novel on which she is working that reminds her of her self-destroying jealousy: when Maruice's editor and girlfriend take to spending weekends at World's End she realizes that Maruice may similarly betray Teresa. But the protective bond between mother and daughter means that Pauline cannot endure this ...