The sea: turbulent and leaden; transparent and opaque; magician and mother.

When Charles Arrowby, over sixty, a demi-god of the theatre - director, playwright and actor - retires from his glittering London world in order to 'abjure magic and become a hermit', it is to the sea that he turns. He hopes at least to escape from 'the women' - but unexpectedly meets one whom he loved long ago. His Buddhist cousin, James, also arrives. He is menaced by a monster from the deep. Charles finds his 'solitude' peopled by the dramaof his own fantasies and obsessions.