William Harriman, a retired civil servant, is a cultivated and kindly person in his late seventies, who has lost the two people most dear to him: his wife, Eve, now dead, and his son, Matthew, who is mentally unstable following an earlier breakdown. Even his relationship with his daughter Claire is not a good one. William's one joy in life is running an antique stall with Buffy Henderson, an old friend of Eve's. His other relations, however, are very different. They inhabit the Dog Museum in Shropshire - a decaying family home in whose grounds they house vast numbers of stray dogs and dog memorabilia. Linking these two worlds - the one urbane, settled, shot with loneliness, the other distinctly cracked - is Janice Harper who, restless with country life and walking dogs for the Harrimans, comes to London for some excitement.