Deidre is a victim, of herfamily, her society, her history.That is how she seesherself, and so she feels free of all obligations, moral and practical.Untilthe police take her back to her family home... In a Cape Town where wateris rationed and has to be collected from trucks each day, with the consequencesof apartheid and the ending of it still evident, Deidre lives from day to dayin squalor - largely created by herself- borrowing, persuading, cadging her way from the water trucks to the bar, testing the tolerance and pity of everyoneshe knows.Then she is contacted by the police, and taken by a respectfulconstable to the house where she grew up and where she lost her leg in ashattering explosion while still young.Faced with what is found there, she hasto accept the truth of her past, and of her older brother, her parents' goldenboy.Then she must confront herself and her responsibility, and what it trulyis to be a victim.