In a small room in an Oxford college, at the worn-out end of January, Annabel works on an essay about Shakespeare.

She has a carefully considered plan for her day, but as the essay's deadline looms, so too does the urge to procrastinate and the insistent presence of other people.

Elaborate erotic fantasies, telephone calls from her boyfriend, family and friends who demand her attention, and darker crises, obliquely glimpsed - all these distractions threaten to disturb the much-cherished quiet in Annabel's mind.