In a Sydney suburb, two nurses, Maria and Flora, a housekeeper, Lotte, and a solicitor, Arnold, attend to Elizabeth Hunter as her expatriate son Sir Basil, a famous but struggling actor in London, and daughter Dorothy, a divorced and down at heel princess, convene at her deathbed. They come to make sure they can leave Australia with their hefty inheritance.
Inside the world of a youth refuge a passion is kindled when Hayley, a troubled teenager, meets the new boy, Terrence, a secretive mysterious type and discovers that where there's smoke, there's fire.