Jakob won, but that was because he was closest to the door. And she was a sight for satyrs as she mounted the staircase, five or six steps ahead of us, in a pair of trousers they would have envied in Sodom and Gomorrah.
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.’
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,’ I 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.
‘Who was the bass guitarist?’ I asked Jakob.
‘Stig? Don’t you remember him? Stig Madsen.’
‘Ah, him, yes. I wasn’t sure,’ Gro said. Kari smiled hazily.
‘He was the vocalist in The Badboys,’ Jakob went on. ‘Our main rivals for a while. You could say that he and Johnny fought for their share of…’ his eyes swept across to the two women; ‘…the audience. There were some who liked Johnny and some who liked Stig.’
‘And there were some who liked you,’ Gro said, her cheeks flushed. The shiny gold ring she was wearing on the third finger of her right hand sparkled.
‘But that was before I grew a beard, eh?’
She tousled his beard affectionately. ‘Afterwards, too.’
I still felt like the fifth wheel on a wagon. I gazed down at Kari’s right hand. A narrow ring with a light-blue stone. It could mean everything or nothing.
She peered up at me. Then she said gently: ‘Did you never play in a band?’
‘Only the piano. But I never got any further than Für Elise.’
‘It’s nice, that piece,’ she smiled.
‘Where do you live in Landås?’ I asked, to change the subject.
‘Erleveien,’ she said, rolling her ‘r’s in the way that only Bergensians can.
Stig Madsen was suddenly at our table with a foaming beer in one hand and a phoney smile in the other. ‘Well, what do you know? Folk have already paired off? Is there space for a former … rival?’
Gro moved closer to Jakob, hunched up her shoulders and said: ‘Where there’s a will…’
Stig Madsen lifted a chair over an adjacent table and squeezed up at ours. ‘Just like in the old days, hey?’ He looked around and shook hands with the women. ‘Hiya, hiya.’
‘Gro.’
‘K-Kari.’
Then he looked at me, intently, as though I were a face he ought to remember. ‘And you are…?’
‘Varg,’ I said. ‘Veum. But I don’t think we’ve…’
‘I don’t, either.’
‘A childhood friend of mine,’ Jakob said.
‘Uhuh. From Nordnes then,’ Stig said. ‘I was the terror of Mindeveien,’ he added. ‘But we used to cruise around Landås, too.’ He sent the women an eloquent look.
Kari blushed. Gro took a deep breath and stood her ground. ‘Not round our patch, you didn’t.’
‘No? Well, maybe not. Perhaps someone who looked like you.’ He turned his attention back to Jakob. ‘And you, Jakob, have you hung up your boots for good? Don’t you even do the golden oldie slots?’
Jakob shook his head. ‘No. Once I’d stopped, I’d stopped.’
‘Pretty sudden, wasn’t it?’
Jakob scanned the room as if to avoid answering.
Stig leaned across the table. ‘I must say I was pretty surprised to see you … down below … with Johnny.’
‘Oh?’ Jakob answered in a measured tone.
‘There were strong rumours at the time … that you and Johnny had fallen out. And that was why you packed it in.’
The two women were following every word now.
Stig continued: ‘Rumour had it that you and Anita…’ He held up two fingers on his right hand, closely entwined. ‘And the following year they were divorced.’
He had hardly finished speaking when Jakob shot a hand across the table, grabbed his collar, twisted it and shoved his fist up under Stig’s chin. ‘Say that again!’ he hissed. ‘There was never anything at all between Anita and me. Do you understand? Eh?’
Stig quickly nodded his head and held up the palms of both hands. At the neighbouring tables people turned around, and a waiter was already on his way over.
Jakob let Stig fall back on his chair, but he immediately jumped up.
The waiter was at our table now. He was a pale-faced man with mousey hair and as much authority as a deacon at a biker event. ‘It’s fine,’ Stig mumbled. ‘It was my fault.’
‘You can save yourself the trouble,’ Jakob snarled. ‘We’re leaving anyway.’
‘Don’t be like that, Jakob. After all these years … I was just curious. Everyone was. Everyone is – those that can remember you lot.’
Jakob rose to his feet and waved for the bill. ‘Fortunately there are fewer and fewer of those as the years pass.’ He looked down at the two women. With total self-assurance, he said: ‘Are you coming, girls? We’re going somewhere else.’
Gro nodded. ‘Of course.’ Her eyes flashed at Stig. ‘What a nerve. To say something like that.’
Kari looked from one to the other, embarrassed, until she finally reached me and smiled – a smile that wasn’t as tentative as when they first showed up.
I held out my arm for her. ‘Stick with me, Kåre
,’ I said. ‘The silent majority.’
With a thoughtful expression on her face, she said: ‘I’ve always preferred people who don’t talk much.’
I smirked. ‘Then I’m glad you didn’t know me in my former life,’ I said, and followed Jakob and Gro to the cloakroom.
Behind us the band was heading back onstage. The fog was lifting and it was only now that I could see them clearly. Stig stood out, age-wise. The other three were in their early twenties, as coiffured as footballers and as clean-shaven as competitive swimmers; probably Bella’s usual backing group. Perhaps Stig was a fixed member of the band. Perhaps he was only there in flesh and blood so that Johnny wouldn’t feel too alone, at over forty years old.
Before we were out of the building the band had struck up again. I could see from Jakob’s face that he was thinking the same as I was. But two birds in hand were better than one on the stage. There was no chance that Bella would have us as her backing singers, so we had to be content with the company we had.
8
We ended up at a nightclub in what looked like a giant warehouse with whitewashed concrete walls, tubular steel furniture upholstered in red and blue, plastic and silk flower arrangements, a long bar with tall, narrow stools, a sound system of doomsday proportions and a stage floor where a gaudy light show enveloped the gauche movements of two strippers imported from Denmark. They danced to canned music they had brought with them and were about as sensual as two missionaries at a Methodist meeting. Having experienced Bella Bruflåt earlier in the evening, this was like drinking flat beer from a paper cup.
One stripper was a well-developed milkmaid wrapped in pink. The other was dark-skinned, seasoned with saffron, dressed in yellow, but at least she had rhythm. They performed separately, a good distance apart, and when the penultimate item of clothing fell it was received with the same enthusiasm as when the last leaf flutters to the ground one gusty day in November. Except that here the last leaf never did. It wasn’t allowed to.
‘There was more life here on Ladies’ Night,’ Gro giggled. ‘You should’ve heard the catcalls then. It was sort of more … off-limits … with male strippers.’
‘I can imagine,’ Jakob said.
I looked at Kari. ‘Were you here as well, Kåre?’
She squirmed. ‘I was here with … Gro.’ She glanced at her friend, as if to emphasise that actually she wouldn’t have done anything without Gro.
We left the strippers to their own devices and concentrated on one another. At first we played Twenty Questions.
‘Are you still married?’ Gro said, looking at Jakob.
He shook his head, but nodded at the same time. ‘Officially, yes. But she’s … left me.’ And he mounted a slightly awkward smile.
Her gaze moved politely to me, and I said: ‘No. I haven’t been for ten, eleven … twelve years.’
‘As though that were something to be proud of,’ she scoffed.
‘And you, Gro?’ Jakob asked, glancing down at her shiny ring.
She was sporting an elfin expression. ‘Yes, I’m still married. But…’ She didn’t complete the sentence.
‘Still to Captain Hook?’
She stared at him and nodded slowly.
‘And you?’ I asked Kari.
‘No. Not anymore.’
Gro sent her friend an earnest look and appeared to be about to say something.
However, at that moment the dark-skinned stripper dropped the penultimate item of clothing, threw out her arms, tensed the muscles she had and thrust out her crotch, which was covered with a small golden scallop shell held in place with a thread that could have been from the same gold leaf. Then she turned her back on us and waddled out of the spotlight with it hanging between her naked thighs like Ariadne’s thread. For a split second she had reached Bella Bruflåt’s knees. But no higher than that. And then she was gone.
‘Think I could do better than that,’ Gro said.
Jakob made a gesture of invitation. ‘Show us.’
‘Not here.’ She teasingly poked out the tip of her tongue. ‘And I’d have to have some wine first. Loads of it.’
Jakob raised a hand. ‘Waiter. Some wine, please. Loads of it.’
And the wine came.
Loads of it.
We found our way onto the dance floor and surrendered ourselves to the sounds the disc jockey chose for us, saluting the past as he did so. Jakob and I more or less stood on the spot moving our legs to the beat in the good, old shake style, while our dance-happy partners were tripping the light fantastic across the parquet floor. Even Kari let herself go with moves that made her seem young and groovy and different.
And then there was a slow number, and she rested against me like a fashion model against a tree trunk. She wasn’t heavy, she wasn’t timid, she was gentle; it was pleasant. Her breasts were as soft as a rabbit’s belly and I could clearly feel her stiff nipples through the thin material she had swathed them in.
We sat down at the table again, there were more glasses of wine, and then came the moment of truth: the bill.
As we left the place we found ourselves holding hands.
On the pavement outside we met a conspicuously well-dressed youth who handed us each a coloured photocopied sheet and said: ‘Every night at twelve. The Hot Spot.’ Jakob and I stuffed the flier into our inside pockets and walked on.
The night air was like a wet rug against our faces. Across the street there was a gigantic building site. Beside it was Bergen’s latest initiative, which, in line with the fashion of the time, was a car park.
‘Where are the flying saucers?’ I asked, looking around.
‘Where shall we go now?’ Jakob asked. ‘Gro promised she would do a striptease for us.’
‘Shh.’ Gro placed a hand over his mouth, kissed him on the neck and giggled hysterically.
Kari was swaying like a reed in the breeze.
‘We definitely can’t go back to my place,’ Gro said.
‘Wouldn’t he like it?’ Jakob mumbled.
‘Turid. We wouldn’t want to wake Turid,’ Kari said, looking at me. ‘My daughter.’
I opened my arms. ‘My bed-sit’s cramped, but for you I’d make it warm and cosy … if you know what I mean.’
‘Let’s go to mine. The kids are staying over with friends,’ Jakob decided. ‘A respectable woman doesn’t strip in bed-sits. She can strip on the grand piano. Now, that would be very sexy.’
We hailed a passing taxi and before we knew what was happening we were sitting in Jakob’s sitting-room between piles of sheet music and books, in muted lighting, each holding a drink, our hearts thumping with anticipation, upstairs and downstairs.
‘I don’t know if I have any decent music to strip to,’ Jakob said.
‘Good,’ Gro said at once. ‘It’s all off then.’
‘No, no, no,’ Jakob said. ‘We’ll find something. Ah, I could play. I’ll sit at the keyboard and you can dance on the piano. Where do I get these ideas from?’
He stood up so quickly he spilt his drink. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, tonight there’s a new pianist at Minsky’s…’
He clapped and then stretched out a hand to Gro. ‘But tonight’s main attraction … ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it for … Gro … Pedersen.’
Gro jumped to her feet in a way that suggested she had a coiled spring in her spine. ‘I’ll just have to…’ She took the drink Jakob offered her and downed it in one. Then she handed the glass back to him. ‘Another.’
Jakob poured her a generous drink; she took a good swig and hesitantly moved towards the piano. ‘It’s not right to stand on a piano. What about the shiny surface?’
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s a practice piano. Take your shoes off first.’
She looked at Kari and me, who were sitting on the sofa like a bridal couple waiting for the registrar, each dolefully holding a drink. Then she slowly shook her head as though she didn’t believe this was happening. But she continued.
Jakob placed a chair in front
of the piano and gave her a hand. She flipped off her shoes, stepped up onto the chair and onto the top of the imposing instrument. She stood there, as straight-backed as a dummy in a shop window. Running a hand through her hair, she slowly raised her face. Two wall lamps gave her soft lighting from behind. Flickering flames from candles illuminated her from our side. She was a typical local beauty and would have been a rip-roaring success at the New Year’s Eve party in the YMCA. But she definitely wasn’t at home doing a public striptease.
Jakob struck the first tentative chords and she swayed nervously.
He murmured, with a lupine smile: ‘And a one, and a two, and a three. Then he began to play, slowly and suggestively, an almost hypnotic rhythm, the way he had once infused couples on the dance floor with longing and desire.
Slowly, Gro fell into the groove. Slowly, she began to gyrate her hips. Slowly, she undid one, two, three buttons of her black-and-green speckled jacket; the blouse beneath was an almost indecent white. Slowly, standing in profile, she slipped the jacket off one shoulder, put one knee in front of the other and caressed a thigh with one hand.
Kari sent me a shy glance.
The music sped up. Gro took off her jacket completely and swirled it above her head, semi-professionally, then let go, and it flew through the air and landed on the floor.
Her eyes were blank, there was a stiff smile on her face, and with equally slow, studied movements she unbuttoned her white blouse, pulled it from the waistband of her grey jeans and, turning her back to us, removed it fully.
She resembled an angel, standing there.
She was almost motionless, her blouse hanging from one hand, a slim, attractive figure with the strap of a white bra making a borderline between her shoulders and lower back.
She turned to face us and then away again.
Jakob mumbled something to her as the music grew in volume and tempo.
Again she found the groove. Now she was rotating her backside as her hands fumbled at the front and we could only imagine how she was undoing her belt and the fly buttons. Once again she turned to face us. Her jeans were open at the front and we glimpsed the elastic waist of low-cut, black knickers. To two-handed pounding on the piano, she swung round again, leaned forward, pushed the tight jeans down her thighs and carefully lowered them over her calves, bit by bit so as not to lose her balance. Then she peeled them off, along with her short socks.
Fallen Angels Page 5
