Tomboyish teenager Claire sneaks into a dilapidated house through a window. Startled by the sudden appearance of a burly elderly man, she hides under the bed. The door opens… Although Maurice Reverdy, a person as enigmatic as he is eccentric, has in fact taken the young girl into his home, she makes a point of avoiding this distant figure who is actually her grandfather. At 17, Claire is struggling, caught between her passion for swimming and the turmoil of her first romantic stirrings. Everything is a problem for this orphan left to her own devices. Her stormy temperament pushes her into the arms of Thomas, a young employee of the town casino. She is overjoyed when her trainer tells her she has achieved her ardent desire to compete in the swimming championship, but Thomas’s sudden disappearance revives her insecurities. For her grandfather, the funeral of a former companion in arms in the «maquis» arouses painful memories. Isolated, abandoned, Maurice and Claire suddenly emerge from their respective turfs; but what common ground can be found between these two generations, simultaneously drawn to, yet rebuffing one another, the one in search of her future, the other tormented by his past?