CAST

ALAN - A thirty year-old bachelor with the innocent babyish expression of a man who has always been spoiled by women. He wears neat, expensive, casual clothes and sandals.
VLASTA - A tall, striking thirty-five year-old Slav. She wears a white blouse, long black skirt, fur coat and histrionic jewellery.
LILLIAN - A pretty little girl in her early twenties. She talks with a chirpy local accent.
THE METER MAN - Wears a plastic raincoat, trilby hat, carries torch and notebook and speaks two lines.

SET

The ideal set would have a moss-green fitted carpet, white woodwork and pale grey walls, and an oriole window where two walls meet: a window with dark green floor-length curtains and a view of treetops.

On the right-hand wall, low shelves which incorporate a record player near the window and a hearth with burning coal fire in the middle.  The lower shelves would be hidden by louvre-board shutters, but along the top, starting beside the record player, would stand a record rack, then a china shepherdess, then two modern terra-cotta figurines of the female nude, then (above the fireplace) a clock with a revolving spring pendulum under a glass dome, then sherry glasses and decanter.

The hearth would have a polished brass fender, a tall brass scuttle and Victorian fire irons.  There would be an old-fashioned high-back armchair to the left of the fireplace, a small easy chair to the right, a chaise-longue opposite.

Against the left-hand wall would be a low double bed or very deep sofa with thick blue cushions and a framed print or drawing above it, and deriving an air of invitation from a low coffee table nearby on which lies a salver of apples, peaches and grapes; a board supporting a chicken, oatcakes, a pat of butter, a salt cellar and knife.  Left of the bed, the door.  When opened it would show a minute hall with the door opposite.

The room would contain nothing more than this.  What was not expensively bleak and contemporary would be expensively Victorian and ornate.  The print above the bed could be Picasso’s ‘Minotauromachie’ series