Dark red vapour trails wandered across the after-work sky. The yard was dry for a change and the glasshouse looked like a gigantic Fox’s Glacier Mint, under the pale blue sky. We all left the factory together for a change, slagging each other off, as we traversed the yard to our caravans.

‘Hey Billy!’ said Pat, ‘Get a fucken spliff rolled now!’

‘Whoooaaaaaaaaaah!’ replied Billy, ‘We’re gonna get a ride tonight lads.’

‘In yer dreams’, said Ger as he jumped onto my shoulders, spilling cigarette ash on my hair.

‘Get off ya fat cunt ya’, I said, straining, as my knees buckled.

Even Shaine looked happy with himself, holding his head up, cigarette dangling by his left side. Jerry was chanting his ‘hey jiggy, jiggy’ mantra, high on the prospect of a long drink with Harry down at the Hookie Bar, surrounded by an abundance of young, unattainable women. Michael was silent as we walked, planning his weekend foray into the red-light district of Amsterdam.

Liam broke free from the pack and ran towards the football that lived in the gutter.

‘Come on lads!’ He said, ‘I’ll go, goalie.’

‘Not a chance, Liam’, replied Pat. ‘It’s spliff time. Isn’t that right Billy boy? Eh? A three-papery fucker, with three grams of Special Skunk and just a sprinkling of that Afghan.…Shit lads, look at those fuckin vapour trails. Fucken mad shite! Hey Lachlan, you get into all that nature crap. Have a look at the sky.’

‘I know’, I said, staring up at the sky. ‘I fucken love those things.’

Huge, ragged, bloody gashes lay across the sky. A fine blend of natural sunlight and good old-fashioned pollution. The rest of the lads looked up and passed the appropriate ‘isn’t the sky wonderful’ comments, before lowering their heads again and then directing their vision towards Ger, as he bounced out of his caravan with a pile of tell-tale glossy magazines.

‘Wha, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha’, he said. ‘Look what I picked up at the Aldi last night, while ye were all buying bog roll and cans ah beans.’

Ger bounded over with a pile of Russian porno mags, showing women in various public service uniforms, looking bored and sultry. Cold war knock-offs from the 70s. Meanwhile, Billy plucked, as if by magic, a three papery spliff from the interior pocket of his company issue body warmer and toasted the correct end with a battered Hell’s Angels Zippo lighter. We stood in a circle, waiting for either a toke or a visual poke, while conversation and smart-arsed comments spiralled up into the sky and joined the aerodynamic works of art.

For the first time in seven weeks, we stood together as a cohesive group without the threat of verbal violence. I hadn’t felt so good in years. It was like being back at school again with all my old mates. That empowering feeling of us against the world, before the world kicks you in the bollocks and laughs in your face. A faint glimpse of what things should be like between people, no bullshit, no lies, no hate, no promises, just a sense of need for one another, without the usual emotional VAT. I loved them all and cursed myself for slighting them in the past. A plane moved slowly above our heads, creating fresh vapour trails. For once I didn’t long to be on it, eating over-cooked broccoli from a rectangular plastic container and sipping gin from a ribbed plastic cup. Things were ok for a change and I was willing to go with the new flow, no matter where it ended up stagnating.

I thought about my girlfriend. She’d be home from work by now, feet up on the sofa, drinking coffee from one of our mugs. I needed to write to her more often and tell her what was going through my mind, tell her that I loved her even though the music hadn’t been obvious enough. The music had always been so important. She asleep, or pretending to be asleep, while I sat on the edge of the bed, half-pissed and passionate from the fingers up, my guitar wide awake on my right knee. I knew she’d be wondering what was going on, wondering why I hadn’t written every week like I’d promised that morning in the Stella Maris Hostel, the morning before I left to catch a bus to Holland from Innis. But we all promise to write every week at some point in our lives. It’s like some inevitable cliché that snatches the reason from our tongues when we can’t think of the right thing to say at the moment of departure. A stupid promise that ends up on the pile of promises that promises to sail us away to the easy way out of a difficult goodbye. Goodbye good intentions, hello spineless fucker, your time is up, row back in please, we’re all eagerly awaiting your next line of bullshit. But I couldn’t allow my shallow conscience to destroy this moment of clarity because the band, as it should always do, must play on.