A young woman leaves Ireland to find her boyfriend in England, and while there is helped by a man hiding unsettling secrets.

Felicia (Elaine Cassidy) is an Irish teenager whose boyfriend, Johnny (Peter McDonald), has left to join the British Army after impregnating her. Taking a ferry to England, she begins a hopeless search for the lawnmower factory in Birmingham where she believes Johnny now works. Instead, she encounters Joseph Hilditch (Bob Hoskins), a catering manager at a factory who is also the son of an eccentric TV chef of decades past. Hilditch regularly watches the old programs of his presumably-deceased mother while he cooks her recipes and collects material about her. He offers to help Felicia find Johnny; however, his motives for doing so are initially unclear, and it is subsequently suggested through flashback sequences that he has befriended but then turned on vulnerable young women in the past. Hilditch offers to drive Felicia to what he suggests is the factory she is looking for, which is on the way to the hospital where the unmarried Hilditch claims he is going to visit his wife. Felicia fails to find Johnny at the factory; while she is out of the car, Hilditch goes through her bags and steals her money. Subsequently, Felicia comes across a Jamaican Christian witness who offers Felicia a free overnight stay at a church hostel. While staying at the hostel, Felicia discovers that her money has gone and, after appearing to accuse others at the home of stealing the money, goes to Hilditch's house. Meanwhile, Hilditch has traced Johnny to the barracks where he is serving, but does not disclose this to Felicia. He tells her that his wife has died and that she suggested that Felicia abort her unborn child. After the abortion, which Hilditch pays for, he takes her back to his house and gives her an overdose of sleeping pills. As she passes out, he explains that he has 'helped' many other vulnerable girls but 'lays them to rest' when they decide it is time to leave him. While Hilditch is digging out in his garden, the Jamaican witness and a new convert enter his yard and begin to preach. The Christian reveals that Felicia had told her about Hilditch, saying he was a kind but troubled man. Hilditch feels flashes of guilt and confesses that he did, in fact, steal from and cheat Felicia so that she would return to him. He explains that he feels lonely, and the horrified Christians leave. Upstairs in the house, Felicia awakens from her sleep and struggles down the stairs. Hilditch finds her trying to escape but allows her to leave. He later walks to his kitchen, where he hangs himself with a pair of tights.

A lonely middle-aged catering manager spends all of his time studying tapes of an eccentric TV chef. Meanwhile, a young woman is making her way from Ireland to find her boyfriend, who moved to England to get a job in a lawnmower factory. On arrival, she makes an early contact with the caterer, who recommends a boarding room to her. Slowly, it is revealed that the caterer has in fact befriended and subsequently abused more than a dozen young women. He, of course, now sets his sights on this woman. Much of the story is told in flashbacks, revealing how each of the characters grew to the point where they now find themselves.—John Sacksteder <[email protected]>