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40

At Johnny Solheim’s funeral we met again, almost all of us.

Winter still lay waiting behind the sea somewhere. The mountains around the town were bare and grey as though beaten out of a metal plate a heavenly blacksmith had left behind, casually discarded over the town, unused for the time being.

The faces of those gathered outside the chapel bore the same metallic hue. It was a sombre cortege, as is appropriate on such occasions.

The two families stood apart without attempting even the most tenuous of contacts. Bente Solheim was wearing a black coat, which made her face more transparent than ever. Had it not been for the thick layer of make-up, she would have been invisible. It struck me that that was what she was: a powdered ghost. She was with two elderly people I assumed were her parents, some others who could have been sisters or sisters-in-law, brothers or brothers-in-law, and she had her eldest child with her, a seven-year-old boy who stood with his face closed to the cold and the crowd around him.

Anita Solheim was a lot livelier, dressed in a fur coat that had seen better days, much like her, but her head was erect and she was watching the new arrivals with an eagle eye, the way a head waiter discreetly controls guests at a private party. Or perhaps she was looking for someone in particular.

Her daughter, Sissel, stood beside her, in dark-blue cords and 324the same puffer jacket I had seen her wearing before. I didn’t see anyone who might be Ruth.

I had rung Vegard Vadheim in the morning and told him about my failed mission to northern Hordland. I had said he should come to the funeral and he had growled, ‘I’d been thinking the same, Veum.’

Afterwards I had called Belinda Bruflåt, but without success. Now she was walking up the hills from Møllendalsveien, wearing a scruffy rabbit-fur coat and an equally scruffy fur hat on her head. She walked like a diva, but behind the make-up she bore an expression that revealed how unsure she was which of her roles she should play on this occasion. Two paces behind her came Stig Madsen, like some sort of undertaker.

The significance of Johnny Solheim in the local rock scene explained the large turn-out of former colleagues and rivals, from Rune Larsen to Tom Harry Halvorsen, across a large spectrum of known and half-known faces. Like ghosts they stepped out of the faded posters of the early sixties. It was as if the rock scene in Espeland Hall had been brought to life and there would be a repeat here and now, life-size, in full, and still going strong. But I wasn’t so sure whether all the musicians could still play. And I was even less sure whether they could hack a stage performance, as most of them were overweight and balding.

Then came Rebecca, hurrying from the bus stop in Årstadveien. She walked with long strides as though on the way from one era to another. Her face always wore this shifting, pensive expression.