What were the skies like when you were young?

There is a disco ball so everything is okay

no-one else is here yet they've gone for a walk

along the cliffs, boxes of wine in their rucksacks.

They say they'll be back at six

but no-one has ever been back at six.

The first to arrive are Alicia and Maureen

your mum's friends and I explain everyone

has gone for a walk, they should be back anytime.

There's no signal around here but that means nothing

to Alicia and Maureen. If you live somewhere

there's no signal you don't mind that there isn't any.

There never used to be.

Alicia and Maureen have brought a cake each

everyone is contributing something they are impressed

by the tressle tables bit if there's one thing you can rely on

it's that a scout hut has plenty of tressle tables. 

I'm a bit drunk already but they're too polite to say anything

or maybe they haven't noticed it's hard to tell

when you've never met someone, maybe that's just

what they're like. Maureen has been unwell

and Alicia feels bad for asking her how she is

so to change the subject they tell me about the cliffs

and how they all used to go for walks 

but that sort of thing doesn't really happen any more.

When the scout hut is full the disco ball

is on a setting more beautiful than any of us

has ever seen on a disco ball. The room is so beautiful,

Maureen and Alicia are both kissing their husbands

in a way none of us have seen people that age

kiss their husbands before. 

'All the children leave and don't come back 

and I don't know why' Alicia had said earlier

and everyone was so happy to see Maureen

they hadn't thought she'd be able to be there.