Halfway up, he turned to me and said: ‘I didn’t dare ask…’

I stared at him uncomprehendingly. ‘What about?’

‘Forget it.’

Above us, the band had started a new number. Soon afterwards Bella was in action again. We emerged into the dark room and groped our way to our table, through a crowd who could not have been more mesmerised if Moses had appeared before them with the golden calf in one hand and the Ten Commandments in the other.

‘What didn’t you dare to ask?’ I asked again, but he just shook his head and nodded towards the stage.

‘Don’t say anything,’ he mumbled. ‘Just listen.’

47

7

I don’t know where they came from, and I had no idea who they were. They could have been part of our common past, but I quickly realised that Jakob was the attraction. It was because of him they were sitting at our table with nervous smiles and a glass of red wine.

Jakob knew them. ‘Meet some of my old fans, Varg.’

‘We had a fan club in Landås,’ one said. ‘And I was the president.’ She had dark hair cut in a short 1980s style and wore a white blouse, a black-and-green speckled suit jacket and grey, stone-washed jeans.

‘I was the secretary and treasurer,’ the other woman said with a smile.

‘And the only other member, weren’t you?’ Jakob chuckled.

She blushed. They were the eternal girlfriends and she was the B-side. Her hair was auburn, shoulder length and straight, and she had a turquoise headband knotted at the back, just like in the fifties. She was wearing a white jumper, a broad black belt and a wide, knee-length red skirt, and although time had left its first crow’s feet on her face there was still something gauche and girlish about her that reminded me of Sandra Dee in Come September.

The dark-haired girl took the lead, of course, extended a cool hand across the table to me, beamed and said: ‘Hi, my name’s Gro. And this is Kari.’

Kari passed me a dry, freckly hand. I smiled. ‘Gro and Kåre,’ 48I said, alluding to the two political adversaries in the current TV debates.

Jakob and Gro laughed their heads off at that, while Kari rolled her eyes and waggled her head from side to side. So we called her Kåre for the rest of the evening and they giggled every time.

Bella was finishing her second set of the evening. Now she was kneeling centre-stage. She still looked as if she might swallow the microphone when she put it to her mouth and sang, and in the instrumental breaks she held it between her legs, the head banging in time against the black leather of her trousers. People were craning their necks as far as they could.

Gro cast a stolen glance at Jakob and said: ‘Not much left to the imagination, eh?’

Jakob shook his head. Kari was embarrassed, but her bright, almost transparent, blue eyes didn’t waver from Bella Bruflåt until the last note had faded away and she had descended back into the underworld. Even the band was able to allow itself a break. Dancing after that number could have been injurious to men’s health. They needed time to recover first.