Growing up in rural Nottinghamshire, Arabella Cordon sees life through a filter of fairytales. She idolizes her father, but his enthusiasm is reserved for steam engines, motorcycles and Margaret Thatcher. On the day Thatcher comes to power, Arabella's life changes irrevocably. Alone and adrift in London, she takes a job as a striptease artist in Soho and makes friends with Saf, who is searching for her lost father amongst the city's homeless. Unlike Saf, Arabella is determined to leave the past behind, but she is haunted by the ghosts of fathers—missing fathers, pseudo fathers, fantasy fathers. In the icy years presided over by Britain's first female prime minister, Arabella's own identity and survival are inextricably linked to the question of what a father is.