We laughed with him.

And me?

I was the only son of a tram conductor who studied Norse mythology in his free time and for whom the greatest moment in his life was giving his name to his son. I moved back to the crooked, green house, in the middle of an alley where there was now a block of flats and a rough-and-ready football pitch, straight across from Anita, who had the tightest sweater and biggest baps in the street, excluding all the forty-plus heavy-weights with their pre-war jugs and windowsills strong enough to support them when they were leaning out and chatting with the neighbours. On dark autumn evenings my eyes were glued to the illuminated blind over the window where Anita undressed, in the hope that I might glimpse a silhouette, a hope which was dashed forever when she became pregnant with Johnny’s child, moved to Paddemyren and took an unretractable step into adult ranks.

‘What are you thinking about, Varg?’ Finckel asked.

I returned to the present. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I said.’

‘I believe most things about you.’ His eyes glinted indecently. ‘It seemed to be doing you some good at any rate.’

I got up and nodded towards the toilet. ‘I’m just, er…’20

‘Was it that good?’ Again peals of laughter.

I looked at them, from above. Jakob and Paul. We hadn’t exactly been the three musketeers and it was more than twenty years ago. But perhaps this would be our last evening together.

I had stopped counting the beers, I was getting more and more drunk, and I felt as light as an elephant in a parachute. The room felt warm and cosy, with the large wall-paintings of Bergen harbour, the brown partitioned stalls and the straddle-legged waitresses, who seemed to have been there forever. A chorus of growling voices, like good-natured bears waking up, rose and fell, and were gone as the toilet door slammed behind me.

A man in his mid-fifties was bent over one of the urinals. His shoulder-length hair fell untidily over his forehead, a deep, reddish-brown scar ran diagonally from one bushy eyebrow and his wet mouth was surrounded by fox-red stubble, stained with nicotine. He stood with one hand on the wall to steady himself and the other holding tightly on to the leaning tower of Pisa as though it were the only thing worth clinging to in life.

When I entered, he looked up and said, ‘Schlompfssmrrf.’

‘I quite agree,’ I said.

‘Varsjågorogknfff,’ he continued, with great conviction, while addressing my knee.

I did my duty, buttoned up and asked if I could help in any way.

He was so taken aback that he almost fell over. But his other hand came to the rescue and he managed to retain his balance. For the first time I understood what he said: ‘Hrrschlemme-n-peace.’

I nodded, said, enjoy the rest of your day, and rejoined the others. They were ripping the reputations of local politicians to pieces.21