Teenage schoolgirl Helen Majinsky and her friend Colette are part of a small circle that entertains hopes of leaving Liverpool through the route of college entrance. They play truant from school to see the Beatles play the cavern and they think of boyfriends. But there are forces as dark as the undertow of the Mersey and Helen's relationship with her admired father, diffident mother and feckless younger brother and their desire to keep their aspiring daughter within the family unit, are an inhibition to her dreams of leaving. It is when Helen meets a handsome American serviceman from the local base at Burtonwood that she realises her schoolgirl evasions are not enough, forcing her to confront awkward realities. Through him she finds the means to break the chains of the old life, and her guide through the hidden dangers of the new.