Billy Deane is hidden away. He knows only his mother and father. She is a hairdresser, young and beautiful. He is a priest, smelling of cigarettes and candles, who visits rarely to impart strange wisdom and tell stories.
As billy grows up he remains locked away, a secret child inhabiting his own private world. his father tells him he can heal, that he was born on a terrible day and that this might mean something. but then the day arrives when his father stops coming.
And Billy Dean's mother says it is time to go out and face the world...