'This is Gustav.' Monika's Polish face is powdered into a paler version of herself. She looks like a Noh mask: black kohl eyes and lips the colour of a recent massacre. She has painted an expression that will hide her own, and presents herself to the assembled company as the star player in a drama they have been invited to participate in - though they do not know the story. These unwitting players will have to make up their lines as they go along.

Monika looks happy. Gustav holds her in his arms for slightly too long and then shakes hands with Philippe, Ben and Wilheim. For the women, the bit parts in this scenario, he smiles and nods in a warm and chivalrous manner. He rolls their names across his tongue, 'Luciana, Yasmina, Nancy, Mary,' giving each a smoky inflection. 'And this is Sylvia,' Gustav gestures to the awkward bleached-blonde eighteen-year-old standing at his side, a ruched leather jacket draped over her shoulder. 'Sylvia', Monika announces, 'is an astrologer.' Everyone understands the plot. Sylvia will play the girlfriend, Monika will play the wronged lover, and Gustav the guilty philanderer. Nancy says, 'I don't want to know about the future. If I thought about my life everything would close down.'

MONIKA: This is Gustav. [They embrace.]

GUSTAV: And this is Sylvia.

MONIKA: Sylvia is an astrologer

NANCY: I don't want to know about the future. If I thought about my life everything would close down.

'We've bought two apple tarts.' Sylvia points to the white box on the table tied with yellow ribbon. Monika's powdered face leans to the left in a thank you gesture as she glides across the room towards a tray of wine glasses. 'The future is always melancholy because it is there our dreams are supposed to become reality,' Sylvia suggests to Nancy.

Monika interrupts.

'The porcelain teapot just near your elbow, Gustav.' Gustav removes his elbow which is precariously near the sixteenth-century teapot just in time. 'Look.' He waves his cigarette in the direction of the barn. Everyone murmurs at the sight of a hawk, hovering above the roof.

MONIKA: This is Gustav. [They embrace]

GUSTAV: And this is Sylvia.

MONIKA: Sylvia is an astrologer

NANCY: I don't want to know about the future. If I thought about my life everything would close down.

SYLVIA: We've bought two apple tarts. [Monika distributes wine.]

SYLVIA: [To Nancy] The future is always melancholy because it is there our dreams are supposed to become reality.

MONIKA: The porcelain teapot! Just by your elbow, Gustav.

GUSTAV: Look! [They all look at a hawk circling the barn outside.]

Monika needs another language. She is badly, fatally hurt. The apocalyptic, the inflammatory, the controversial and contradictory - Monika cannot afford them this evening. There is no love without rage, that is why the script is ridiculous. Love and Rage' the four-letter furnace that will torch the stage sofa and consume them all. Monika wants to destroy Gustav. Gustav, to survive Monika's rage, has to have not nine but infinite lives. In the room next door, Tatiana and Claudine watch Terminator on the TV reassemble himself after multiple woundings.

'I so much want', Gustav slides a forkful of sea perch into his mouth, 'for the young people of Poland to try out something of their own.' He looks across the table and finds Monika's eyes. 'Some things are worth suffering for.'

'Like whet?' Monika watches Gustav smear a thick layer of butter on to his bread roll.

'Freedom.'

'Oh,' she says.

'I am sad particularly for the dead of Romania who did not live to see the future they shed blood for.'

Wilheim looks across the table and finds Mary's eyes. He says, 'Now that socialism is dead, we have to live more experimentally.'

'Socialism is not dead,' Mary replies. 'As long as people are not equal, socialism is not dead.'

'We are all unequal all of the time,' Monika interrupts. 'Isn't that right, Sylvia?'

Sylvia tucks her blonde hair behind her ears. 'Enjoy the present and let the future take care of itself!'

'Sylvia's surname is Starr,' Monika explains to Luciana.

Gustav puts his hand protectively on Sylvia's thigh.

Monika wants to suck this sad night out of herself for ever. She closes her eyes and hears the sound of troops firing guns. She is an executioner. All in all, she has killed the man who betrayed her, fifty-two times. She suddenly yearns for silver herring on a piece of rye.

Gustav and Monika walk in the dark towards the barn. 'I would really like to know.' He pauses, and she holds her breath. What is it the man she loves, but who no longer loves her, wants to know? That she wants to stab a screwdriver into his eyes? 'I would like to know what the recent events in Eastern Europe mean to you.' She is ashamed of how much pain she is in at this moment. The amber heart she wears around her neck feels like a teenager's trinket. 'They mean we must seriously listen to people who are unhappy,' she says. When they come to the end of the path they stand uncomfortably by the barn door, looking out at the cedars. 'Communism was the last dream.' His voice is sad and flirtatious. Monika, do you think there is no past and no future, just capitalism?' She bends down in the dark, and gathers something up into her arms. Biddy Ba Ba cries into her breast.

'There is only revenge.'

The English man looks at his watch, puzzled. 'It's almost stopped.' Mary peers at his wrist. When she sees the violent red streaks of his rash, she takes some ice from her water and gently rubs it on the back of his hand. 'It's slowed right down,' she says. 'The hands are flickering.' Philippe looks over Ben's shoulder. 'Like that rat,' he jokes. 'Your watch is in its last death throes, like the feet of the rat.'

'What rat?' Nancy looks at the other women, confused.

'You were out enjoying yourself.' Philippe refills their glasses. 'Apart from Mary. She never enjoys herself.' Everyone smiles at Mary. She shrugs, wringing her hands as she continues her conversation with Monika who has just returned from her walk. Everyone wants to know about the rat, but Gustav stops them in a mock commanding voice. 'Line up for a photo before I go. I bought a new camera today.' Luciana runs upstairs to get the lipstick all the women admire and demand they wear for the photo call. 'It is called Indian Mysore,' the Italian says wryly when she returns. 'It looks different on everyone.'

'I am partial to lipstick.' Gustav points his lens at her and clicks.

'I was not ready.' Luciana's voice is steely as she pulls her cashmere cardigan from the back of a chair and puts it on.

The image is instant. It whirs out of the camera and they all watch it develop in silence.

'Here.' He gives the photograph to the perfect flawless woman without looking at it, by way of apology. When everyone gathers around Luciana to admire it, Gustav clicks again.

The unloved look brave.

The unloved look heavier than the loved. Their eyes are sadder but their thoughts are clearer. They are not concerned with pleasing or affirming their loved one's point of view. The unloved look preoccupied. The unloved look impatient.

Gustav and Sylvia walk to the car hand in hand, man and girl, he beeping his horn, she waving, waving and blowing kisses to Biddy Ba Ba who makes little noises in his throat as he watches them from the window.