From out of the blue Neil is given a cancer diagnosis. It's bad news because, like anyone else, he doesn't want to die. There's also the question of who he should tell. For a few weeks he tries to stay occupied by helping out an old student and working for CISC, but in the end he decides that he needs to escape to Spain.
In Spain he is trying to escape from thoughts of his own death. Events in the village where he goes, however, conspire to distract him in ways that he didn't expect.