Paul Finckel had decided he wanted to go dancing. ‘I feel like a bit of hokey-cokey,’ he leered.

Jakob’s head was beginning to loll to the side. ‘I can’t remember the last time I had a dance,’ he slurred.

‘The last time I did doesn’t bear remembering,’ I said.

‘Come on,’ Finckel said. ‘It’s not as alarming as it sounds.’

Hesitantly, we drained our glasses and found our way into the fresh air. Great dollops of sleet were falling, as if breathless angels were blowing misshapen soap bubbles into the town through their trumpets.

Bergen was like one big Christmas parcel. Spray-painted spruce branches glittered, light bulbs swayed overhead, Santas sat in kitschy shop windows where price tags dominated rather than the items, and from camouflaged speakers blared songs and carols that sounded like canned recordings of bygone children’s parties. All the way up Torgalmenningen they had planted the annual forest of yule trees, and the Salvation Army, busily collecting clothes a few weeks before Christmas, was lightening the load for the City Refuse Department.

Finckel led the way – across the market square and back in time. ‘Do you two remember when we used to go dancing in Viking Hall; to the Espeland Hall or on the Askøy ferry to Bergheim; or at Kjøbmannen where all the special Easter brews had made their first appearances? Well, you, Jakob, you went everywhere, didn’t you.’

Jakob nodded. ‘There isn’t a dance venue in Bergen and the region I haven’t played at. But of course we saw everything from a slightly different angle, those of us on stage.’

‘If I had wings, I’d fly – with The Harpers to the sky. With The Harpers to the sky,’ Finckel wailed. Then he came down to earth. ‘But, you, Varg, you weren’t often with us, were you?’22

‘Oh, yes, I was, but maybe not with you, Finckel.’ For some reason I couldn’t warm to the idea of using his Christian name. He went through life as a Finckel and Finckel was what rolled off my tongue.

But he was right. I seldom went to dances. In those years I preferred the Saturday meets at the parish hall where Rebecca’s father held forth. And many more years were to pass before I went dancing with her…

We stood in a queue somewhere. Finckel was telling jokes non-stop while Jakob was swaying in heavenly harmony. In front of us Saint Peter in doorman’s uniform was checking that we were wearing a tie and letting in a few at a time.

When we were finally allowed through the eye of the needle we felt like camels at the end of a long desert trek. But before we had entered properly, the music blew our hair back, and even Finckel was almost knocked off his perch.

We worked our way forward to a round table at chest height where the three of us could stand, and Finckel fetched three tall, narrow glasses of pils from the bar. ‘It’s half a litre, even though it doesn’t look like it,’ he shouted.