The gig finished, and the lights came up, and someone behind the bar put a C.D. over the band-room's speakers, and the crowd slowly and noisily started shuffling towards the narrow exit.

"Can you get us backstage, Rona?" Hannah joked, and Rona was delighted to see by the expression on her face that she'd genuinely enjoyed the night: usually Hannah came to TerrorFractals gigs mainly out of solidarity. She always denied it, but Rona knew it was true.

"How'd you like it, Shelly?" Rona asked.

Shelly opened her mouth to say something, and shook her head in amazement. ". . . Are they always that good?" she managed to ask eventually.

Rona laughed. "That's the best I've seen 'em." She was imagining one day telling people she'd been at their first ever gig. Actually, she didn't know if that gig, years ago, had really been the first: there was disagreement within the band about it, and nobody could remember the exact dates from those early days. Rona would remember this one tonight, though.

"Rona!" Hannah poked her as somebody shoved past, rushing to get outside. "You didn't answer me!"

"What?" Rona recalled Hannah's question. "I don't know."

"Of course you can!" Matt said. "Hell, you got in once and it sounds like you didn't even have to try!"

But as it turned out, Rona didn't have to get them backstage. When they got out of the band-room Mal, Steve, and Eric were all there, hanging around the box-office and chatting to the girl there, the three of them still beaded with sweat from the stage, their faces still flushed with the exhilaration of it all. Every now and then somebody in the crowd moving slowly past the box-office on the way out recognised one or all of the band-members, and summoned the courage to step forward and congratulate them. Rona was reluctant to intrude on this process: as if by doing so she might fumble the band's moment.

"Hey guys" someone said from behind Rona, and the voice was flat but tantalisingly familiar. "Nice gig." Rona tried intensely to identify the voice: she knew she knew who it was, but she just couldn't pick it . . .

She didn't have to. Before he'd even noticed Rona, Steve's eyes widened, and Rona saw him looking over her shoulder. "Oh fuck, Chas!"

At the sound of their long-lost guitarist's name, Mal and Eric suddenly turned their attention from whoever it was they'd been talking to at that particular moment and scanned the faces filing past them. They didn't have to look far: there he was, for real. Steve had already taken half a step towards him and then faltered, unsure of proper protocol; unconsciously, Mal and Eric stepped up alongside him, the three current band-mates forming shoulder-to-shoulder opposite their former colleague.

"Thanks, man" Steve said, regaining some of his composure. "We were pretty happy with it."