I clung to the stem of my glass, overcome by a sudden dizziness. ‘I’ve always envied you your upbringing, Rebecca. Belonging to a community, regardless of which. I’ve seen the same in communist families, the ones that stuck together in the fifties despite the Cold War and all that, with never a doubt. I remember … I went to the parish hall a few times, to meetings. While you prayed I stood silent, with my head lowered and my hands together, but not folded, stealing a glance at you, all of you, praying with such openness and pleasure. The way the Norwegian Communist Party pioneers said they sang at summer camps. Belonging to a community is part of something bigger … which I’ve never experienced, Rebecca. Never.’

She eyed me over the rim of her glass. ‘Really?’

‘No.’

Now it was as if she had come closer, as if her face was growing in front of me. I lurched forward, placed a hand around her neck and held her for a moment.

Then I angled my head, leaned fully forward and kissed her. I kissed Rebecca.

But she was too far away. I got off the sofa bed and pulled her to me, held her slender body in my arms, lifted her face to mine and kissed her again – once, twice, three times, again and again, until I realised who we were, where we were and what time it was.

She didn’t respond to my kisses. Like a pillar of salt she stood in my arms and gazed backwards, to Sodom and Gomorrah.

I let go of her, mumbled an apology and slumped back onto the sofa bed.

She sat back down as if nothing had happened.

We finished the second bottle as well. It felt as if all the sediment had sunk to the bottom of my legs and turned to lead. I 320was gripped by a mind-numbing paralysis. Sleep had already sent its scouts into my territory. In a voice that seemed to come from outside me I heard myself say: ‘Can I sleep here with you tonight, Rebecca?’

She rested her head on my shoulder, but her voice came from far, far away as she said: ‘That’s fine. You can sleep next to me, but not with me.’

Then I was in a toilet by the rear staircase, holding my head against a cistern covered in condensation and trying to draw a heart in the wet drops.

When I returned to the tiny room, she had cleared away the bottles and glasses, folded down the sofa bed and pulled it out and put on a cotton nightdress she could have walked straight into an atomic reactor wearing and emerged unharmed.

‘You’d better sleep by the wall,’ she muttered from a place where I wasn’t. ‘I’m just … going out.’

I wasn’t sure how much clothing to take off, but ended up in a T-shirt and underpants. The duvet I spread over me smelt faintly of childhood and I was already halfway back there when she returned.