The young vocalist was electrifying. She moved as though she were balancing on the edge of a non-stop orgasm and she handled the mike in a way that made Tina Turner seem like a girl guide. Her lips were full and moist and the round microphone head was almost in her mouth. Her tousled blonde hair was wet with gel and her face was round and robust in a girlish way. She was wearing a loose-fitting, black leather jacket and tight, black leather trousers, so tight you felt you might have been able to see what she had for lunch. Under the jacket she wore a grey T-shirt that was already soaked in sweat.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked, and could hear my voice jar.
‘Bella Bruflåt, a new rising star. I’ve heard rumours she’s already made a demo for her first LP.’
‘I can imagine. Except that on an LP you miss all this.’ I nodded to the stage where Bella had tellingly placed her left hand against the inside of one black leather thigh – her hand looked almost indecently white – while thrusting the mike back and forth to her mouth in even more unambiguous movements than before and emitting a primal scream, all underpinned by a piercing riff on the guitar, which caused a sensual groan to run through the whole crowd. For a few seconds the room was totally silent. The music had died, no one was eating or drinking, everyone just sat gaping with whatever orifices they possessed.
Then Bella laughed with pleasure, a rasping, provocative gurgle, and tossed her head as the applause rippled over her. She turned her back on us and stepped into the fog. And stopped. The spotlights fell onto her back, bottom and thighs. Electricity began to build in the room; the tension was at breaking point.
Slowly she began to wiggle her backside, in time to the drummer’s first, cautious whisks of the brushes. Then the bass came in: a slow, sensual beat. One dissonant, quivering note from a guitar cut through everything and was gone as Bella ground her hips in a slowly increasing rhythm.
Jakob muttered beside me: ‘This is what I’ve always said. Religion is rhythm. Rise up and shout hallelujah, and the cry will spread through the audience without—’
He broke off and swallowed because Bella had placed one hand on her shoulder and was beginning to peel off her jacket. It slid down her bare upper arms as if she were skinning a slaughtered animal, while all the instruments converged on a single rhythm – a tap dripping through our veins from a distant kitchen.
Now her jacket was hanging loosely from one shoulder. With slow, studied movements she shifted the mike from one hand to the other and raised it to her mouth. Through the sound of the instruments you could hear a slow, crystal-clear human voice. No words, only a long, vibrating tone, a ray of golden sunshine breaking into a pitch-black room.
Then everything happened in a few short seconds. Her jacket fell to the floor. She turned round abruptly, arms in the air, and might just as well have been naked, so tight was the grey T-shirt against her body. The mike glittered between her fingers. The music rose to a rousing crescendo. In a split-second she lowered the mike again and began to sing, thrusting her crotch in rhythm: ‘Meet me in the middle of the night – Baby – Meet me when the moon has gone away – Baby…’
And we didn’t say no, not one of us. We would meet her there, all of us, in the middle of the night, when even the moon had gone to bed. And it would be just us and Bella and we would wake the dawn with our cries, we would make the dead rise and dance and the living turn to ashes around us.
‘Meet me in the shimmer of the morning – Baby – Meet me when the sun is coming up – Baby…’
Oh, yes! We would meet her in the hot glow of the morning sun and there wouldn’t be a stitch of clothing – not a fibre – between her skin and ours and the sun itself would turn to hide its face when it saw what we were doing.
A waitress with broad hips and dark-brown, curler-rolled hair took our order while Bella’s performance was still pulsating in our blood, but the food went cold before we could taste it and the atmosphere around us made the beer steam in our glasses.
We almost felt liberated when Bella took a break, allowing the banks of fog to dissipate and the band to run through a sequence of more subdued dance numbers. Hundreds of eyes followed her through the door behind the stage, hundreds of wild fantasies even further.
I nodded to Jakob as though he had just said something. ‘That was quite a … performance. You lot didn’t do that kind of stuff.’
He smiled. ‘No. We didn’t do that kind of stuff.’ After a pause he added: ‘I’m afraid Johnny’s bought a ticket for the season’s biggest anticlimax.’
I agreed. Even Bette Midler would have been an anticlimax after Bella.
And, as if on cue, one of the musicians in the band came to the microphone stand at the left of the stage and said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have the pleasure of presenting to you this evening’s golden oldie. One of the town’s most popular artistes for – he won’t let me tell you how many – years. Put your hands together for Johnny Solheim.’
And we all politely applauded Johnny as he bounced as youthfully as he could onto the stage, twenty years too late and twenty kilos heavier than I had last seen him, wearing tight black trousers, a black leather jacket with big, shiny zips, white socks and black shoes, his thick, dark hair combed up and back in a genuine Elvis quiff and a determined expression on his face. He grabbed the mike, made a few tentative wiggles with his hips, mumbled ‘Uh-huh-huh…’ and began to sing.
Johnny Solheim was a year older than us and had lived in a grey house somewhere along the border between Fritznersmauet and the ruins of buildings burned down after the war. He had inherited his heavy physique from his father, a giant of a man who drank hard and knocked Johnny and his mother about whenever he was the worse for wear. It was not unusual for his mother – a ravaged beauty who wore her life like a botched pancake on her face – to escape from the house wearing a flowery dressing gown and dragging Johnny behind her like a rag doll while his father hung out of a first-floor window, shaking his fists after them and hurling abuse. As if it were yesterday I remembered a 17th May with a cold northerly wind and scattered hailstorms when we came home after the main Independence Day procession, and Johnny and his mother had fled right up Nordnesveien while the father threw their furniture out of the ground-floor sitting-room window. Johnny stood there, his face pale and angry, shaking his clenched fists at his father and muttering between his teeth: ‘I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you, I will.’ Later his father disappeared from their lives. Johnny and his mother continued to live in the little house and Johnny vented most of his pent-up anger on stage: ‘You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, crying all the time…’
And now here he was, thirty years later, singing exactly the same song: ‘Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit, and you ain’t no friend of mine.’
He didn’t sing it badly, either. His deep, rich voice still had power and he could soar to a flattering falsetto when the occasion demanded. The beat was in his spring-loaded legs and his normally bloated face took on a hint of enraptured youth when he gave the songs all he had. He jerked his hips and legs and used the microphone stand as a swirling dancing partner, whereas Bella Bruflåt had made uninhibited love to the silvery symbol between her hands.
But he was up against it and never managed to emerge from the shadow of Bella. While he was singing the spell the audience had been under was broken. People chatted again, the clatter of cutlery resumed and there were more orders for beer and wine.
I cast a glance at Jakob and was startled. Here was someone who had not switched off. He was following Johnny’s performance with an intensity worthy of a far greater artiste. His eyes were aglow, his face gleamed, his lips moved in time with the words Johnny was singing, as though Jakob were on the stage, backing him, as he had done once, and the fingers around his beer glass were moving up and down an invisible scale, a transparent keyboard.
I cleared my throat, but he didn’t react. A thin film of sweat glistened on his brow and his head was moving to the beat.
It was a kind of jeal
ousy. The microphone stand had once been Jakob’s dancing partner and now she was leaning back in Johnny’s arms and staring intently into his eyes. The musicians behind him had been Jakob’s own sparring partners, and we – the faceless audience in the room – had been on our knees, begging for his music, his phrasing, his florid rock ‘n’ roll renditions. Now we belonged to others, every single one of us. And Jakob was down among us himself, equally anonymous, equally bereft of character traits and identity, no longer under the dazzling lights.
When the number was over and Johnny had left the stage with a half-hearted wave to the audience, Jakob muttered, as though to himself: ‘Why do the women we love always fall for men we don’t like, Varg?’
After a tiny pause for thought I answered: ‘Isn’t it more the other way around? We never like the men the women we love fall for?’
And I realised I was right. It had been jealousy.
On the stage the band was alone again. The dance floor filled. Bodies clung to bodies, eyes sought eyes, and some people sat alone looking inward, a blank smile on their lips. As it always was, and as it had always been.
Then Jakob leaned across the table and half stood up. ‘Fancy coming with me backstage and saying hi? To Johnny?’
‘Now?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK.’
We stood up and went backstage, in search of lost time.
6
A long, narrow staircase led down to the basement, where a solitary light bulb illuminated a cramped corridor. There was a bucket with a scrubbing brush and a floor cloth in a corner beside a sink with only a cold tap. There was a smell of detergent and dust.
‘Typical dressing-room facilities for Norwegian musicians,’ Jakob mumbled, pointing to the sink. ‘That’s the shower.’
We had three doors to choose from. Above the far one was an EMERGENCY EXIT sign. The one closest was ajar, and light fell in a thin line across the floor in front of us. We went nearer and peered in.
Four make-up tables and some chairs filled the best part of the room. The rest was occupied by open instrument cases, guitar bags, two flat briefcases and a crate of lager. On a clothes stand hung some winter coats and sheepskin jackets. On the rack above were two woolly hats, a fur cap and a brown, wide-brimmed gentlemen’s hat. On the floor there was a selection of boots: high-heeled, long-shafted and cowboy. On the make-up table there was an assortment of reading matter, from the latest edition of a high-brow Danish newspaper to a Norwegian girlie mag, a local rag and a cheap western paperback.
The third door was closed. Jakob raised a hand and indicated that I should approach quietly. He mouthed a word I didn’t understand. Not that it was necessary.
Through the closed door we recognised the voice of Bella Bruflåt. ‘Lemme go! No, I said. I don’t want to!’ After a few seconds of panting and heavy breathing she shouted: ‘I’ll knee you.’
‘Oufff!’ we heard through the door, and what sounded like a sack of flour hitting the floor from a great height.
‘Dirty old bugger.’
We exchanged looks. Jakob had a strange, concentrated smirk on his face.
‘Shall we go in or…?’
As though the band above knew what was going on, they struck up a new song, with an appropriate chorus: ‘I can’t get no … satisfaction.’
Jakob went over to the closed door and banged hard. After a few seconds he pressed down the handle and pushed. It was locked.
Not a sound could be heard from inside.
Jakob banged again, and shouted: ‘Hello, is anyone there?’
No one answered, but after a short pause we heard shuffling steps across the floor. A key was turned and the door opened a fraction. Through the narrow chink Johnny Solheim was staring furiously at us. His fat neck was a blotchy red and a gleaming lock of hair had fallen onto his forehead. The glare he sent us belonged to a man who had been woken all too abruptly from his midday nap. There was still a wince of pain on his puffed-up lips.
At first he looked at me, then at Jakob. Then his face eased into a languid smile. ‘Jakob? Long time, no…’
Jakob stared at him stiffly. ‘We were in the audience and thought we’d say hi. You remember Varg, don’t you? Veum?’
He looked at me again. ‘Varg Veum?’ His eyes slowly lit up. He remembered me. We remembered one another.
‘Hello, Johnny,’ I said.
‘Hello,’ he answered sullenly. Then he opened the door wide. ‘Come on in. Say hello to…’
Bella Bruflåt was sitting on the only chair inside, in the same outfit she had been wearing on the stage, her legs slightly apart and her stomach a little more prominent under the same tight, sweat-soaked T-shirt. She wore an expression of disdain and annoyance, and she had the same red patches down her neck that Johnny had. Perhaps it was contagious.
Johnny didn’t look at her, and as he moved into the room, he was unable to hide the fact that he had a slight stoop, as though he had problems standing up straight.
I glanced at Jakob and mumbled: ‘Got a touch of lumbago, Johnny?’
He turned sharply to me and snapped: ‘My arse.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard it can affect the nether regions. With some people.’
Bella laughed, a guffaw that came from somewhere deep, deep inside her. Then she raised a forefinger to her brow and saluted us with a condescending smile on her rather too chubby jaw. ‘Old boys on a passing visit?’
Johnny made another attempt to straighten up, coughed thinly and said: ‘This is Bella. Bella Bruflåt.’
Jakob’s face was still as stiff. ‘You don’t need to tell us. We saw her show. It was…’
‘Electrifying,’ I completed, and she looked at me in a way that made me cringe with embarrassment. It was twenty-two years since I had seen such a brazen stare. High up a back-alley in Marseilles.
It was obviously her dressing room. The large, shaggy rabbit-skin coat hanging on the stand was one of a kind – and emphatically feminine. On the dressing table there was an open vanity case containing enough to keep the Salvation Army going for ten years, and, naturally enough, two sets of matching bra and G-string were casually slung over the mirror. One was blood-red and the other black.
‘I suppose you’ve never seen Jakob on the stage, have you, Bella?’ Johnny growled.
She eyed Jakob provocatively, sucked her teeth and slowly shook her head.
‘We used to perform together.’ He patted Jakob lightly on the shoulder. ‘We were the best in Bergen, weren’t we, Jakob?’
‘So why did you pack it in?’ Bella asked.
Jakob met her gaze. ‘We just … I just … stopped. How old are you?’
She pouted, made a smacking sound and cooed: ‘Twenty-four. But I’ve been at it since I was thirteen.’
Johnny guffawed.
‘Singing in a band, I mean,’ she giggled.
I shifted position, feeling left out. Despite the age difference, all three belonged to the same world, while I might as well have been on Mars.
However, Bella – who was democratic in her dealings with men – turned her gaze on me and said: ‘And which band did you play in? The Neanderthals?’
Even Jakob laughed. ‘No, I never even got past first post. Johnny was ahead of me in the queue.’
Johnny stopped laughing. He turned to Jakob. ‘Still a wit, are you, just like in the old days?’
Our eyes met again. No, nothing had changed. We hadn’t liked each other then, either.
‘Don’t let me disturb you, boys,’ Bella said, stroking her left breast pensively. ‘If you want to exchange your cigarette cards, like in your youth, don’t bother about me.’
With complete mastery she had drawn everyone’s attention to herself again. Her pink tongue rested against her large, white front teeth, and there was a teasing twinkle in her eyes.
Johnny Solheim laughed coarsely, Jakob shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and once again I could feel my blood throbbing below.
Then we heard a cla
tter on the steps outside and one of the band members stuck his head in. It was the bass guitarist, a forty-something guy with dark, grey-streaked hair, an unsuccessfully camouflaged incipient bald patch, a dark Sergeant Pepper moustache and a confused expression on his face when he saw the throng of people. He was wearing a shiny, purple silk shirt, open down to the top roll of fat, and tight black trousers with a conspicuously generous waistband. ‘Bella, you’re back on,’ he said, scrutinising her with unmistakeable hunger in his eyes. Then, he sent Johnny a hostile look and, without recognising me, turned to Jakob. A nicotine-stained smile spread beneath his moustache. ‘Jakob? Jakob Aasen?’
‘Been a long time, Stig.’
‘You don’t have to tell me.’
‘You’re still at it.’
‘Just about,’ Johnny mumbled.
Stig’s face darkened. ‘Bella…’ He nodded towards the staircase.
‘If the old boys’ brigade could get their arses in gear and shift,’ she answered and stood up.
‘Are you staying around?’ Stig asked Jakob.
‘Yes, for a bit.’
‘I’ll find you in the break for a chat.’
Jakob nodded.
Bella had stretched her arms out to the side and drawn a deep breath down into her lungs. Then she threw back her head. Her breasts bulged like torpedo heads at us and, judging by the pained expression on Johnny’s face, were equally explosive. Then she held her hands against her collarbone, raised her head in one slow movement, ran her hands languorously over her breasts and down her stomach and slid them down her thighs. She met our looks with a sultry pout. She was electrifying once more and ready for the next set.
Stig went first and led the way up the staircase. Bella strode past us, so close that her hips touched us both as she passed. We couldn’t help but notice the radiation of heat from her body. Johnny plumped down onto the chair she had vacated, as if to steal some of the heat she had left behind. Jakob and I stood looking at each other in puzzlement for a few empty seconds, then we nodded silently to Johnny and vied to be first up the stairs after Bella.
Fallen Angels Page 4
