‘One body was much the same as another. Is that what you’re saying?’

He was lost in thought now. ‘The girl I remember best was actually one I didn’t sleep with. Her name was Herdis. She came straight up to me in a break. “You’ve got such charisma onstage…” she said, “…unlike the others. I could almost fall in love with you. There are so many cynical people around nowadays.” That was how she spoke, fast and forthright. I was too taken aback to say anything sensible, and as we went back on stage she reached out her hand and said: “I should introduce myself. I’m Herdis.” Later she was lost among the kids dancing and after we’d finished she’d gone. I never saw her again. When we went back to that place, I always looked for her, but she was never there. I’d spoken to her for only a few minutes but it was one of those sudden passions that stay with you for years afterwards. 66For many years I hoped I would meet her again one day. But I never did.’

‘And you kept thinking about her even after you were married?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘We played at dances for ten years after I got married – right up the fjords and deep into the valleys. But it was life on the road. It never meant anything. Apart from…’

‘Gro?’

He nodded. ‘But it wasn’t only me who—’

I interrupted him: ‘You mentioned your wife last night … And how you hadn’t managed to ask … But why would Johnny know where she was?’

His eyes met mine, covered with a film of ice. ‘Because she … because she went off with him once. Before.’

I could feel a chill run down my spine. ‘That seems incomprehensible.’

‘It was incomprehensible. But life has at least taught me one thing, Varg. I’ve stopped wondering about the types of guys some girls fall for.’

‘Maybe … maybe she ran off with him to teach you a lesson? Maybe she chose to go off with him to show you something?’

‘In which case, Varg, she did show me. I got the message.’

‘When did this happen?’

He looked at his watch, as though it was half an hour ago. ‘It was … in 1982. We’d been having some problems when, well more or less from when Grete was born, in seventy-nine. I’d forgotten what it was like, those difficult periods after the births. But the other two had been so long before. This time I didn’t deal so well with the problems it created. We’d been through some rough patches, but this was worse. Maybe I should have done things differently – although I don’t know what I could 67have done. At any rate she moved out and went to stay with a girlfriend. It was only afterwards, when she was on her way back to me, that I heard she and Johnny…’

‘Was it her who told you?’

‘No, no, no. You can guess who…’