The True Heart

by Helena Halme

  Kaisa wondered if, in the matter of just a few years, she’d changed so much that she could no longer talk to her family in Finland. She was relieved when she saw her sister approach the table, carrying her veil in the crook of her arm.

  Sirkka exchanged a few words with the cousins, then sat down at an empty seat next to Kaisa and leaned over the round table to talk to each member of their extended family in turn.

  Kaisa watched in awe as her sister spoke to the cousins about their university courses, or the jobs they were doing. What’s happening to me, she thought, but before she could try to join the conversation, her sister whispered in her ear: ‘I need the loo, do you want to come with me?’

  Normally, this kind of request meant something had happened, but when Kaisa glanced at Sirkka’s face, it glowed with happiness. Kaisa stood up and followed her sister down the hotel’s long, dark corridor to the lift and up to the Marski suite, which, Sirkka had proudly told her, they’d managed to secure for the night. It was where Marshall Mannerheim, the Finnish war hero, the commander of the troops that won the Winter War against Russia, had stayed when visiting Tampere.

  ‘It’s the best room in the hotel,’ Sirkka had told her over the phone weeks ago when she’d recounted all the plans for the wedding.

  Now as they stood in the lift, Sirkka took hold of Kaisa’s hand and said, ‘I do need to go to the loo, but I also want to get you on your own to tell you something.’

  Kaisa gazed at her sister’s flushed face and at once knew what it was. Her eyes moved down to Sirkka’s middle; did she hold a secret under the folds of the white satin of her wedding dress?

  ‘Have you told mum?’ Kaisa asked after she’d given Sirkka a huge hug.

  ‘No, not yet. Only you and Jussi know so far. It’s only six weeks, so …’ Sirkka gave her sister a cautious look.

  Kaisa went to hug her sister once more. ‘I’m fine, you mustn’t worry about me.’

  Sirkka smiled and, seeing how happy she looked, Kaisa also smiled, ‘And congratulations!’

  Kaisa wanted to say how incredible it was, how she would be a wonderful mother, but she didn’t want to jinx it. She thought about the babies she’d lost and wanted to tell Sirkka to take it easy, not to dance tonight and not to stay up too late.

  ‘Are you feeling OK?’ she asked instead.

  ‘Yeah, I was sick this morning but only because I was a bit nervous too, I think.‘ Sirkka smiled, ‘Did you notice that I’ve been drinking sparking water all day?’

  Kaisa gasped, ‘No, you sneaky so and so!’

  ‘Well, I’ve not had a drop since we decided to start trying …’ Sirkka gave Kaisa another careful look.

  Kaisa saw her sister’s expression and said, once more, ‘I’m OK, honestly.’

  They were both quiet for a moment. Then Sirkka said, ‘Look, I know it’s early, but I’d like you and Peter to be godparents.’

  Kaisa was staring at her sister. How could she be so confident that everything would be OK? Kaisa had lost her first baby just a day or so after the sixth week of pregnancy, and here was her sister at exactly the same point. She wanted to scream at her to be careful, not to plan anything, because the little thing in her tummy was just that, a tiny fragile thing. It was smaller than the chicks the two them hadn’t managed to save.

  She touched Sirkka’s arm and said, ‘We would be honoured!’

  Sirkka told Kaisa the due date was next February and that Jussi had bought a plot of land in Rovaniemi.

  ‘You’re going to live in Lapland?’ Kaisa asked, her eyes wide.

  Sirkka smiled and placed her hand on her tummy, as if to protect the foetus from any criticism Kaisa might level at her about their future living arrangements. To Kaisa, Lapland was a bit like Scotland; there were no jobs, and very few people, so what would Sirkka do with her time when Jussi was at work? Suddenly Kaisa realised that the new couple would settle where Jussi had his construction business. For some reason, Kaisa had assumed they’d be living in Helsinki.

  ‘Well, I’m staying in my flat until the end of September, and then we’ll rent somewhere in the city centre. The plot of land is fantastic, by the water, and he’s planning to build a place with a swimming pool and …’

  Sirkka stopped and stared at Kaisa, ‘What is it?’

  Kaisa felt tears prick her eyelids. Her sister must have noticed and was now hugging Kaisa.

  ‘I’m sorry, sis. I know this must be hard for you.’

  Kaisa pulled herself away and swallowed hard.

  ‘It’s not that. I’m just thinking how much harder it’ll be for me to come and see you if you live all the way up in the North.’

  ‘C’mon! There’s an airport and it’s only an hour from Helsinki. I managed to come and see you in Scotland, didn’t I? Now you live in London, it’ll be easy for you to get on a plane!’

  Kaisa sighed and nodded. She was feeling so emotional. She apologised to her sister.

  ‘Sorry, I’m being silly. I’m so glad to see you happy, though,’ she added, and the two sisters hugged each other hard.

  When Kaisa let go of Sirkka, she saw her sister was wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

  ‘We’re hopeless!’ she said and gave the hankie back to Sirkka. They both laughed and made their way back to the reception.

  Fifteen

  ‘It’s such a shame Peter couldn’t be here,’ Kaisa’s mother said to her later when they were standing at the bar in Hotel Tammer, waiting for their drinks.

  Kaisa turned towards her mother. ‘I know.’

  ‘You two are OK, aren’t you?’ Pirjo said, and continued, ‘I worry about you, darling.’ She placed a hand on the sleeve of Kaisa’s dress.

  Seeing her mother’s kind eyes, Kaisa felt a lump in her throat. Several times during the day, she’d been forced to explain to her family – her uncles, cousins and her grandmother – why Peter wasn’t with her. But this time, fuelled by too many glasses of champagne and a couple of gin and tonics in the night club where the guests had moved to after waving the happy couple off, Pirjo’s sympathy caught Kaisa unawares. She forced herself to breathe slowly. She didn’t want to cry now, when she’d managed to keep herself in check while talking to her sister earlier.

  Kaisa was saved by the bartender, a tall adolescent with straw-coloured messy hair and a strong Tampere accent.

  ‘What will it be?’

  After they’d got their drinks and were walking towards a snug in the vast cellar bar of the old hotel, reserved for the wedding party, Kaisa regretted the decision she and Peter had made to keep his Perisher course a secret for the time being. Because of the high failure rate, Peter had thought it best not to broadcast it far and wide. But now Kaisa wanted to tell Pirjo the good news, and also tell her how important Perisher was. Kaisa was so proud of Peter, and wanted to tell everyone. Now, a little drunk, she decided she was going to tell her mother. She touched Pirjo’s back, ‘Stop for a minute, will you?’

  Pirjo’s expression was one of pure surprise. They moved sideways to an empty table.

  ‘What is it, Kaisa? Are you OK? Has something happened between you and Peter again? That’s not why you are so emotional, and why he’s not here?’

  Kaisa put her gin and tonic onto the table.

  ‘No, we’re more than fine. It’s just,’ she hesitated for a moment and added, ‘he’s on this really important course to become a submarine captain. But you mustn’t tell anyone because it’s a really difficult course and many people fail.’

  Pirjo’s eye widened, ‘Well, that’s wonderful! You are going to be an English Captain’s wife!’

  Immediately after seeing her mother’s face, Kaisa regretted telling her Peter’s news. Now she’d be on the phone every week asking if Peter had been made a captain yet.

  ‘Mum, it is really likely that he will not pass.’

  ‘Nonsense, Peter will pass, you’ll see!’ Pirjo hugged her daughter and added, ‘I think I’m going to get some champagne to celebrate!’<
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  After the happy couple had retired to their wedding suite, the party went on until the small hours. Everyone toasted Peter in his absence and told Kaisa how fantastic it was that he was going to be a captain. Kaisa’s efforts to say it was by no means a certainty were ignored.

  Kaisa was taken onto the dance floor by her uncle, who, holding her tightly, danced a tango with her. Kaisa didn’t think she’d remember the steps from her time with her old fiancé Matti, who loved all the old-fashioned Finnish dances, but to her surprise, in the firm grip of her uncle, she managed to relax and move around the floor competently.

  ‘Not bad for an Englishwoman,’ her uncle said and tipped his head in appreciation.

  Next a cousin of hers, a lanky boy Kaisa hadn’t seen since he was a shy teenager, took her into a Humppa, a fast dance that made Kaisa giggle. Back at the table, Kaisa had a long conversation with Raila, who told her she was working for Nokia, a local company that was moving into something called digital telephony. She’d studied engineering at Tampere University and sounded very impressive. Kaisa decided she’d been too fast to judge her cousins, and remembered that in Finland it took people a lot longer to talk about themselves. She felt like she was becoming someone else, more English than Finnish, and felt a surge of sadness. But she brushed the feeling away when Raila pulled her to the dance floor once again. The whole group, except Mummu, who, Kaisa was surprised to see, was still sitting in the corner of the sofa, drinking a bright green concoction, had got up when Lambada came on. She laughed as the dance-floor filled with Finns dancing salsa. Her family and the whole of the nation were just a bit crazy.

  Sixteen

  London July 1990

  When Kaisa finally arrived at the door of their terraced house in Notting Hill, after a long journey on the Tube from Heathrow, she was exhausted.

  It was a hot, sticky late July afternoon, and the air over London seemed to stand still, suffocating Kaisa as she struggled to pull her suitcase along the hot pavement from Bayswater Tube station. She cursed her decision not to take a cab; she was covered in a thin layer of sweat and wanted a shower, but of course the hot water would take at least half an hour to heat up. She’d turned it all off before going away to Finland. For a moment, Kaisa wondered if the pipes might be hot enough from the day’s sun for the shower to be lukewarm, and she decided to take her chance.

  Afterwards, wrapped in a towel, she stretched out on the double bed in the bedroom, enjoying the faint breeze coming in through the open window. She thought about Peter and how much she wanted to be held by him. The longing for him was suddenly intense, almost a physical pain inside her chest.

  Of course, he was up in Scotland, somewhere at sea, on the first part of the practical sea exercises of his Perisher course. Kaisa wondered if he was thinking of her at all. Would he, at the end of his turn at the periscope, doing whatever complicated exercises they did, lie down in his bunk and dream of her? She didn’t think he did.

  From the very first time she’d watched him prepare to go to sea, she’d seen the change in his eyes. They were living as a newly married couple in Portsmouth and he was packing his Pusser’s Grip, a tattered light brown canvas holdall he always travelled with. After they’d said goodbye in the hallway, kissing each other for a long time, his expression changed, and he could no longer see Kaisa, his wife, nor feel any longing for her. Kaisa saw that his only thoughts were for his job, about the boat he was about to rejoin, about his fellow officers and crew, about his part in the large puzzle that was the Defence of the Realm. She, Kaisa, his wife, had only a small part to play in the huge machinery of the Navy, and that was to love him and look after him when he was at home, and to boost his morale with letters and the occasional telephone call when he was away. Of course, when he was on the Polaris nuclear subs, there was no contact from him for weeks, apart from the short messages Kaisa was able to send to him. Kaisa had no communication from Peter until they were back in Scotland.

  In spite of the heat that was rising up from the garden through the open windows, Kaisa shuddered when she thought about the Familygrams. Even though she was a journalist, she was hopeless at writing the 50 words limit. The messages had to be positive and impersonal, yet give Peter confirmation that she still loved him and would be waiting for him when he got back from his eight-week patrol. The communications went through several hands, and Kaisa knew her words might even be read by the Captain.

  During the latest patrol, it had become a little easier to pen the messages, even though Kaisa couldn’t talk about the pregnancy – a secret they had decided to keep to themselves. As hard as it was to just write about her daily routines in London and her family, it was nowhere near as difficult as it had been to write the 50 words during those dark days in Helensburgh in the first months of their marriage.

  That time, when she’d been so miserable without a job, without any meaning to her life, seemed like a lifetime away. Kaisa turned onto her side and tried to shrug away the guilt she felt about keeping the visit to Duncan and the AIDS test from Peter. She hoped he would forgive her for going to see her former lover. After all, Duncan was very ill. Possibly terminally. Kaisa could see that it was what Rose and Roger feared, and when Kaisa had visited Duncan herself, she understood even he had accepted that he might die. He’d hardly been awake during the two days Kaisa had spent in Dorset, but something in the way he’d thanked her for coming to see him, and asking if she had forgiven him, made Kaisa believe that he had accepted his fate. How awful it must be, Kaisa thought. She was glad, even though she regretted ever sleeping with the man, that she was able to bring him some peace with her visit. But would Peter see it that way?

  Kaisa put her head into her hands. During the trip to celebrate Sirkka’s wedding, Kaisa had pushed Duncan’s illness to the back of her mind.

  Kaisa wanted so badly to make Peter happy. That was the reason she wanted to give Peter a child, to show him how much she loved him, but she wasn’t even able to do that. Even though she’d been lucky to escape the virus, she was already 30 years old, and soon it would be too late to have a baby. She heard Peter’s voice in her head, ‘Stop that maudlin.’ Kaisa smiled. He said it was the Finn in her that looked at life in a pessimistic and dramatic way.

  She knew she felt this way because the trip to Finland to celebrate her sister’s wedding had been emotional. She’d enjoyed being in Tampere, but leaving her mother and Helsinki – she’d spent a couple of days after the wedding staying with Pirjo in her Töölö flat – had been even harder than usual.

  On the last evening, over a meal of cold smoked salmon and salad, and a good bottle of Chardonnay that Pirjo had saved specially for her, Pirjo had raised the subject of Kaisa’s father.

  ‘He was looking quite good, although a little too fat.’

  Nowadays Pirjo rarely mentioned her former husband, and although Kaisa had expected the subject to crop up, she was still surprised. She gazed at Pirjo, assessing how much she should say about her father.

  ‘Yeah, he seemed OK. It was nice that you two could be there together.’

  Pirjo took a sip of wine and said, ‘I’ll never forgive him for what he did to you over your wedding.’

  Kaisa shrugged, ‘I know, but I don’t think about it anymore.’

  Pirjo swallowed a piece of fish and said, ‘To say he’d pay for it only if I wasn’t there! That was just an excuse. He was always like that, promising the earth and then not delivering when it came to it. Thankfully I was able to step in.’

  Kaisa reached her hand out and placed it on top of her mother’s. Her flesh felt warm to the touch, although Kaisa noticed her mother’s hand had become plumper as she’d grown older. ‘I know and I’m very grateful.’

  ‘No need to thank me, that’s not what I meant.’ Pirjo’s eyes were steady on Kaisa. She turned her hand up and squeezed Kaisa’s fingers. ‘I know you’ve forgiven him, but just remember that you can’t count on him.’

  Kaisa took her hand away. ‘Look, I know you didn’t
like seeing me hug dad outside the church, but it felt like old times. You know?’

  ‘I just don’t want him to hurt you again.’ Pirjo’s blue eyes were also full of tears.

  ‘Oh, mum.’

  Pirjo placed her knife and fork on her plate, stood up and walked around the table to hug her daughter. ‘It’ll be OK, you’ll see.’

  Kaisa knew she was talking about her lost babies. Neither of them had mentioned Kaisa’s latest miscarriage, and Kaisa was grateful to her mother for being so reticent for once. Besides, she didn’t want to discuss babies and pregnancies in case she let slip Sirkka’s news. Kaisa knew her sister wanted to be the one to tell their mother. Suddenly she remembered something, ‘Yes, especially if I take Mummu’s garlic pills!’

  Pirjo let go and looked down at Kaisa. She put her hand on her mouth and through her fingers said, ‘She didn’t, did she?’

  Kaisa widened her eyes, ‘Because you’d told her!’

  ‘Sorry!’ Pirjo said and began laughing. The pills Kaisa’s grandmother took every day were legendary. She spent all her days pouring over health magazines and sending away for the latest crazy cure for anything.

  ‘She gave me charcoal to reduce gas!’ Pirjo said, still laughing. ‘She thinks I have a problem!’

  Both women were now giggling uncontrollably. After a while, they calmed down and her mother said, looking into Kaisa’s eyes, ‘I hate that you are so far away from me.’ She wiped her eyes, and Kaisa didn’t know if they’d become damp from laughing or crying.

  ‘I know mum, but that’s my life now. Besides, London isn’t that far away,’ Kaisa said, putting her arms around her mother and hugging her hard.

  Lying on top of her bed, listening to the faraway sounds of the city, but feeling lonely, Kaisa thought of her mother and realised that Pirjo would be on her own in the block of flats in Helsinki after her sister moved away. Sirkka’s marriage had probably made her feel a little abandoned.