They eat in silence. The only sound is their determined chewing; neither one of them is in the mood to talk. Instead, they go over, each in their own mind, the events of the night before. Karen recaps in reverse. At quarter past three, a taxi dropped them off at the studio. While she paid the driver, Marike, who had apparently taken off her high heels, had tottered through the several inches of snow blanketing the pavement in her stocking feet. At the last second, Karen had remembered to pick up her friend’s brand-new Louboutin pumps from the car floor. Then, despite being thoroughly hammered, she had managed to usher the considerably drunker Marike through the front door of the studio.

Now, her knee is throbbing and she can tell she has several big blisters on her feet. Had she danced? No, she assures herself, not a chance, I haven’t danced in over a decade. Then it all comes back to her. Yes, she had danced. With Brynn, with Eirik. With the bitter actor whose wife is on her way to Hollywood. And then with Leo.

He’d performed, she suddenly remembers – against his will. He’d been talked into it by Jason Lavar, who had started the new year off by playing a few songs and then announcing that his big idol, Leo Friis, was in the room. He had then asked, in front of the entire party, if Leo would do him the honour of joining him on stage for a couple of songs. Startled and alarmed, Kore had tried to intervene, torn between a need to keep Jason Lavar happy and his instinct to protect Leo, who had made it perfectly clear he didn’t want to play in front of an audience ever again. Not 30,000 people in an arena, not 150 people in a house in Thingwalla. But Jason Lavar had insisted.

In the end, Leo had reluctantly climbed up on stage, no doubt only because he knew he’d draw even more attention to himself by refusing. Karen had noticed his hands shaking as he picked up the guitar, his eyes darting nervously around the room, as though looking for a last-minute escape route. A deer in headlights, she’d thought. Exactly how he had described her.

But she’d also noticed that halfway through the first song, his anxiety had subsided a little. She’d noticed the corner of his mouth twitching when he played the intro to the second. And she’d noticed his relief when it was over and he could get off the stage. But before then, something else. Another side of Leo.

Afterwards, she’d asked him to dance.

‘Musicians don’t dance,’ he’d replied.

‘Neither do I. And you don’t have to move out if you don’t want to,’ she’d said.

‘OK.’

*